Managing a huge gallery and organizing photos is a tricky business, even if you're generally tidy, so it's always a good idea to use some help. Especially when there's software out there designed specifically to deal with an overload of pictures.
The only trouble with professional photo organizing software is that, much like any photo equipment, it's painfully expensive. In this article we'll suggest tools that tame your giant photo gallery without leaving a hole in your pocket.
Best photo manager apps for Mac reviewed
Image Well For Macbook
To make the perfect bowl of homemade mac and cheese, you may need a blend of great cheeses, including sharp cheddar. Here are the best melting cheeses for your noodles, with our best recipes for. Use the Image Well to drag and drop graphics and other objects. Selecting a graphic and dragging it results in moving the graphic within the page. Selecting a graphic and dragging it results in moving the graphic within the page. Jan 11, 2011 ImageWell is a program that allows you to edit and upload multiple image files on a remote host or local directory. The interface of ImageWell is pretty simple, while it manages to include pretty powerful features within it. May 29, 2015 For example, a thick image captured with a complete OS X 'Yosemite' installation and the latest updates, along with Microsoft Office 2011 for Mac, Adobe CS6 Design Standard, the full iLife.
| Rating | Name | Features | Info |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Gemini 2 | Best at keeping your photos cleaned up where they live. | Link |
| 2 | Photos | Organize your photos by album, people or places. | Link |
| 3 | Mylio | Syncs and organizes your photo library across all devices: Apple, Android, or Windows. | Link |
1. Gemini 2: The duplicate photo finder
The first step to getting your photos organized is to remove all of the duplicate or similar-looking images. Chances are when you take a picture, you don't take just one; you take 15. All from different angles, maybe even with different poses. But rarely do you need or want all of them, so now they're just taking up space on your Mac.
The easiest way to get rid of those files is to get a duplicate photo finder, Gemini 2. It scans your whole gallery and locates the duplicate or similar photos. Gemini 2 lets you quickly review and choose which pictures you want to delete. But the app also uses AI to select the best version of each image, and it will get rid of all of the copies with just one click of the Smart Cleanup button.
2. Photos: Best photo organizer on Mac
Here's the biggest secret to good photo organization: master Photos. You might be thinking: seriously, is a native Apple app really any good? And you'd be surprised how much it is.
Since macOS Sierra, Photos has been getting makeovers and new features. In macOS Mojave, the app lets you organize content just by dragging-and-dropping it, and with Smart Albums, you can instantly group photos by date, camera, and even the person in them. At this point, it's just a really good piece of photo management software.
3. Mylio: A free photo manager app
If you've been meaning to consolidate your photos in one place for years, Mylio will help you do just that. When you first start using the app, it offers to look for your photos on the current device, on an external drive, and even on your Facebook.
Once all the photos you've taken in your lifetime are imported, Mylio organizes into a variety of views. The coolest one is Calendar, showing you photo collections on an actual calendar. That way, you'll quickly find the photos from your son's first birthday, even if you forgot how you named the folder. Plus, Mylio offers a free mobile app, so you can access your photo library wherever you are.
4. Adobe Lightroom: Cloud-based photo editor and organizer
While Adobe Lightroom is probably best known as a powerful picture editor, it's also loaded with tons of tools to help keep your photos organized. It stores your pics in the Adobe Cloud so you can access all of your albums and folders on another computer, phone, or even an internet browser.
One of the great things about Lightroom is that it makes non-destructive edits to your photos. So, you can revert back to the original image at any time, and you don't need to create a duplicate just to preserve your picture.
Image Well For Mac High Sierra
5. Luminar: Organize and view pictures without importing them
If you have your pictures saved in various folders across your computer, then Luminar is the app you'll want to check out. It shows you all of your photos without having to import any of them into a library. So you can start using Luminar in almost no time.
6. Adobe Bridge: Free photo library manager
You might be wondering why Adobe would make two separate photo managers. Aside from Adobe Bridge being free for everyone, it serves an entirely different purpose. Bridge is solely an image and asset manager. Unlike Lightroom, it doesn't have any editing functionality.
So, what's the point then? Where Bridge really shines is if you're using other Adobe products, such as Photoshop or Illustrator. You can store and organize all of your pictures in Bridge and then open them in any Adobe program without creating a duplicate or searching through the thousands of files on your computer. Plus, Bridge offers a robust search tool making it a breeze to find the exact image you're looking for.
Final word on photo management on Mac
There are basically two things you need to remember to bring order into your photographing life:
- Before you get to organization and management, be sure to unclutter your photo library. The easiest way to do it is with a duplicate finder, such as Gemini 2. Otherwise you'll be rummaging around in thousands of photos you don't even need.
- Photos, the native photo manager on a Mac, can accomplish everything you need to make organizing photos into groups and categories easy.
- Third-party tools can provide you with added functionality that's missing in native macOS tools, like calendar view or managing photos right in the Finder.
Now that you know all the secrets to photo organization, Mac photography shouldn't be that hard or that expensive. Not when you've got the right tricks up your sleeve.
These might also interest you:
Disk Utility User Guide
You can use Disk Utility to create a disk image, which is a file that contains other files and folders.
Note: You can burn information to a CD or DVD using the Burn command in the Finder. See Burn CDs and DVDs.
Create a blank disk image for storage
You can create an empty disk image, add data to it, then use it to create disks, CDs, or DVDs.
In the Disk Utility app on your Mac, choose File > New Image > Blank Image.
Enter a filename for the disk image, add tags if necessary, then choose where to save it.
This is the name that appears in the Finder, where you save the disk image file before opening it.
In the Name field, enter the name for the disk image.
This is the name that appears on your desktop and in the Finder sidebar, after you open the disk image.
In the Size field, enter a size for the disk image.
Click the Format pop-up menu, then choose the format for the disk:
If the disk image will be used with a Mac that has a solid state drive (SSD) and uses macOS 10.13 or later, choose APFS or APFS (Case-sensitive).
If the disk image will be used with a Mac with macOS 10.12 or earlier, choose Mac OS Extended (Journaled) or Mac OS Extended (Case-sensitive, Journaled).
If the disk image will be used with a Mac or Windows computer and is 32 GB or less, choose MS-DOS (FAT); if it's over 32 GB, choose ExFAT.
To encrypt the disk image, click the Encryption pop-up menu, then choose an encryption option.
Click the Partitions pop-up menu, then choose a partition layout.
Click the Image Format pop-up menu, then choose an option:
Sparse bundle disk image: Same as a sparse disk image (below), but the directory data for the image is stored differently. Uses the .sparsebundle file extension.
Sparse disk image: Creates an expandable file that shrinks and grows as needed. No additional space is used. Uses the .sparseimage file extension.
Read/write disk image: Allows you to add files to the disk image after it's created. Uses the .dmg file extension.
DVD/CD master: Changes the size of the image to 177 MB (CD 8 cm). Uses the .cdr file extension.
Click Save, then click Done.
Disk Utility creates the disk image file where you saved it in the Finder and mounts its disk icon on your desktop and in the Finder sidebar.
In the Finder, copy your files to the mounted disk image, then eject it.
Restore the disk image to a disk.
For more information about disk image types, see the manual (man) page for hdiutil.
Create a disk image from a disk or connected device
You can create a disk image that includes the data and free space on a physical disk or connected device, such as a USB device. For example, if a USB device or volume is 80 GB with 10 GB of data, the disk image will be 80 GB in size and include data and free space. You can then restore that disk image to another volume.
In the Disk Utility app on your Mac, select a disk, volume, or connected device in the sidebar.
Choose File > New Image, then choose 'Image from [device name].'
Enter a filename for the disk image, add tags if necessary, then choose where to save it.
This is the name that appears in the Finder, where you save the disk image file before opening it.
Click the Format pop-up menu, then choose an option:
Read-only: The disk image can't be written to, and is quicker to create and open.
Compressed: Compresses data, so the disk image is smaller than the original data. The disk image is read-only.
Read/write: Allows you to add files to the disk image after it's created.
DVD/CD master: Can be used with third-party apps. It includes a copy of all sectors of the disk image, whether they're used or not. When you use a master disk image to create other DVDs or CDs, all data is copied exactly.
To encrypt the disk image, click the Encryption pop-up menu, then choose an encryption option.
Click Save, then click Done.
Disk Utility creates the disk image file where you saved it in the Finder and mounts its disk icon on your desktop and in the Finder sidebar.
Important: Don't create a disk image of a disk that you believe to be failing or that contains corrupted information. The disk image may not serve as a reliable backup.
For technical information about creating a restore disk image, see the Apple Software Restore (ASR) manual (man) page.
Create a disk image from a folder or connected device
You can create a disk image that contains the contents of a folder or connected device, such as a USB device. This method doesn't copy a device's free space to the disk image. For example, if a USB device or volume is 80 GB with 10 GB of data, the disk image will be 10 GB in size and include only data, not free space. You can then restore that disk image to another volume.
Best photo manager apps for Mac reviewed
Image Well For Macbook
To make the perfect bowl of homemade mac and cheese, you may need a blend of great cheeses, including sharp cheddar. Here are the best melting cheeses for your noodles, with our best recipes for. Use the Image Well to drag and drop graphics and other objects. Selecting a graphic and dragging it results in moving the graphic within the page. Selecting a graphic and dragging it results in moving the graphic within the page. Jan 11, 2011 ImageWell is a program that allows you to edit and upload multiple image files on a remote host or local directory. The interface of ImageWell is pretty simple, while it manages to include pretty powerful features within it. May 29, 2015 For example, a thick image captured with a complete OS X 'Yosemite' installation and the latest updates, along with Microsoft Office 2011 for Mac, Adobe CS6 Design Standard, the full iLife.
| Rating | Name | Features | Info |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Gemini 2 | Best at keeping your photos cleaned up where they live. | Link |
| 2 | Photos | Organize your photos by album, people or places. | Link |
| 3 | Mylio | Syncs and organizes your photo library across all devices: Apple, Android, or Windows. | Link |
1. Gemini 2: The duplicate photo finder
The first step to getting your photos organized is to remove all of the duplicate or similar-looking images. Chances are when you take a picture, you don't take just one; you take 15. All from different angles, maybe even with different poses. But rarely do you need or want all of them, so now they're just taking up space on your Mac.
The easiest way to get rid of those files is to get a duplicate photo finder, Gemini 2. It scans your whole gallery and locates the duplicate or similar photos. Gemini 2 lets you quickly review and choose which pictures you want to delete. But the app also uses AI to select the best version of each image, and it will get rid of all of the copies with just one click of the Smart Cleanup button.
2. Photos: Best photo organizer on Mac
Here's the biggest secret to good photo organization: master Photos. You might be thinking: seriously, is a native Apple app really any good? And you'd be surprised how much it is.
Since macOS Sierra, Photos has been getting makeovers and new features. In macOS Mojave, the app lets you organize content just by dragging-and-dropping it, and with Smart Albums, you can instantly group photos by date, camera, and even the person in them. At this point, it's just a really good piece of photo management software.
3. Mylio: A free photo manager app
If you've been meaning to consolidate your photos in one place for years, Mylio will help you do just that. When you first start using the app, it offers to look for your photos on the current device, on an external drive, and even on your Facebook.
Once all the photos you've taken in your lifetime are imported, Mylio organizes into a variety of views. The coolest one is Calendar, showing you photo collections on an actual calendar. That way, you'll quickly find the photos from your son's first birthday, even if you forgot how you named the folder. Plus, Mylio offers a free mobile app, so you can access your photo library wherever you are.
4. Adobe Lightroom: Cloud-based photo editor and organizer
While Adobe Lightroom is probably best known as a powerful picture editor, it's also loaded with tons of tools to help keep your photos organized. It stores your pics in the Adobe Cloud so you can access all of your albums and folders on another computer, phone, or even an internet browser.
One of the great things about Lightroom is that it makes non-destructive edits to your photos. So, you can revert back to the original image at any time, and you don't need to create a duplicate just to preserve your picture.
Image Well For Mac High Sierra
5. Luminar: Organize and view pictures without importing them
If you have your pictures saved in various folders across your computer, then Luminar is the app you'll want to check out. It shows you all of your photos without having to import any of them into a library. So you can start using Luminar in almost no time.
6. Adobe Bridge: Free photo library manager
You might be wondering why Adobe would make two separate photo managers. Aside from Adobe Bridge being free for everyone, it serves an entirely different purpose. Bridge is solely an image and asset manager. Unlike Lightroom, it doesn't have any editing functionality.
So, what's the point then? Where Bridge really shines is if you're using other Adobe products, such as Photoshop or Illustrator. You can store and organize all of your pictures in Bridge and then open them in any Adobe program without creating a duplicate or searching through the thousands of files on your computer. Plus, Bridge offers a robust search tool making it a breeze to find the exact image you're looking for.
Final word on photo management on Mac
There are basically two things you need to remember to bring order into your photographing life:
- Before you get to organization and management, be sure to unclutter your photo library. The easiest way to do it is with a duplicate finder, such as Gemini 2. Otherwise you'll be rummaging around in thousands of photos you don't even need.
- Photos, the native photo manager on a Mac, can accomplish everything you need to make organizing photos into groups and categories easy.
- Third-party tools can provide you with added functionality that's missing in native macOS tools, like calendar view or managing photos right in the Finder.
Now that you know all the secrets to photo organization, Mac photography shouldn't be that hard or that expensive. Not when you've got the right tricks up your sleeve.
These might also interest you:
Disk Utility User Guide
You can use Disk Utility to create a disk image, which is a file that contains other files and folders.
Note: You can burn information to a CD or DVD using the Burn command in the Finder. See Burn CDs and DVDs.
Create a blank disk image for storage
You can create an empty disk image, add data to it, then use it to create disks, CDs, or DVDs.
In the Disk Utility app on your Mac, choose File > New Image > Blank Image.
Enter a filename for the disk image, add tags if necessary, then choose where to save it.
This is the name that appears in the Finder, where you save the disk image file before opening it.
In the Name field, enter the name for the disk image.
This is the name that appears on your desktop and in the Finder sidebar, after you open the disk image.
In the Size field, enter a size for the disk image.
Click the Format pop-up menu, then choose the format for the disk:
If the disk image will be used with a Mac that has a solid state drive (SSD) and uses macOS 10.13 or later, choose APFS or APFS (Case-sensitive).
If the disk image will be used with a Mac with macOS 10.12 or earlier, choose Mac OS Extended (Journaled) or Mac OS Extended (Case-sensitive, Journaled).
If the disk image will be used with a Mac or Windows computer and is 32 GB or less, choose MS-DOS (FAT); if it's over 32 GB, choose ExFAT.
To encrypt the disk image, click the Encryption pop-up menu, then choose an encryption option.
Click the Partitions pop-up menu, then choose a partition layout.
Click the Image Format pop-up menu, then choose an option:
Sparse bundle disk image: Same as a sparse disk image (below), but the directory data for the image is stored differently. Uses the .sparsebundle file extension.
Sparse disk image: Creates an expandable file that shrinks and grows as needed. No additional space is used. Uses the .sparseimage file extension.
Read/write disk image: Allows you to add files to the disk image after it's created. Uses the .dmg file extension.
DVD/CD master: Changes the size of the image to 177 MB (CD 8 cm). Uses the .cdr file extension.
Click Save, then click Done.
Disk Utility creates the disk image file where you saved it in the Finder and mounts its disk icon on your desktop and in the Finder sidebar.
In the Finder, copy your files to the mounted disk image, then eject it.
Restore the disk image to a disk.
For more information about disk image types, see the manual (man) page for hdiutil.
Create a disk image from a disk or connected device
You can create a disk image that includes the data and free space on a physical disk or connected device, such as a USB device. For example, if a USB device or volume is 80 GB with 10 GB of data, the disk image will be 80 GB in size and include data and free space. You can then restore that disk image to another volume.
In the Disk Utility app on your Mac, select a disk, volume, or connected device in the sidebar.
Choose File > New Image, then choose 'Image from [device name].'
Enter a filename for the disk image, add tags if necessary, then choose where to save it.
This is the name that appears in the Finder, where you save the disk image file before opening it.
Click the Format pop-up menu, then choose an option:
Read-only: The disk image can't be written to, and is quicker to create and open.
Compressed: Compresses data, so the disk image is smaller than the original data. The disk image is read-only.
Read/write: Allows you to add files to the disk image after it's created.
DVD/CD master: Can be used with third-party apps. It includes a copy of all sectors of the disk image, whether they're used or not. When you use a master disk image to create other DVDs or CDs, all data is copied exactly.
To encrypt the disk image, click the Encryption pop-up menu, then choose an encryption option.
Click Save, then click Done.
Disk Utility creates the disk image file where you saved it in the Finder and mounts its disk icon on your desktop and in the Finder sidebar.
Important: Don't create a disk image of a disk that you believe to be failing or that contains corrupted information. The disk image may not serve as a reliable backup.
For technical information about creating a restore disk image, see the Apple Software Restore (ASR) manual (man) page.
Create a disk image from a folder or connected device
You can create a disk image that contains the contents of a folder or connected device, such as a USB device. This method doesn't copy a device's free space to the disk image. For example, if a USB device or volume is 80 GB with 10 GB of data, the disk image will be 10 GB in size and include only data, not free space. You can then restore that disk image to another volume.
In the Disk Utility app on your Mac, choose File > New Image, then choose Image from Folder.
Select the folder or connected device in the dialog that appears, then click Open.
Enter a filename for the disk image, add tags if necessary, then choose where to save it.
This is the name that appears in the Finder, where you save the disk image file before opening it.
To encrypt the disk image, click the Encryption pop-up menu, then choose an encryption option.
Click the Image Format pop-up menu, then choose an option:
Read-only: The disk image can't be written to, and is quicker to create and open.
Compressed: Compresses data, so the disk image is smaller than the original data. The disk image is read-only.
Read/write: Allows you to add files to the disk image after it's created.
DVD/CD master: Can be used with third-party apps. C++ compiler download. It includes a copy of all sectors of the disk image, whether they're used or not. When you use a master disk image to create other DVDs or CDs, all data is copied exactly.
Hybrid image (HFS+/ISO/UDF): This disk image is a combination of disk image formats and can be used with different file system standards, such as HFS, ISO, and UDF.
Click Save, then click Done.
Disk Utility creates the disk image file where you saved it in the Finder and mounts its disk icon on your desktop and in the Finder sidebar.
For technical information about creating a restore disk image, see the Apple Software Restore (ASR) manual (man) page.
Create a secure disk image
If you have confidential documents that you don't want others to see without your permission, you can put them in an encrypted disk image.
Note: If you want to protect the contents of the system disk, turn on FileVault using the FileVault pane of Security & Privacy Preferences.
In the Disk Utility app on your Mac, choose File > New Image > Blank Image.
Enter a filename for the disk image, add tags if necessary, then choose where to save it.
This is the name that appears in the Finder, where you save the disk image file before opening it.
In the Name field, enter the name for the disk image.
This is the name that appears on your desktop and in the Finder sidebar, after you open the disk image.
In the Size field, enter a size for the disk image.
Click the Format pop-up menu, then choose a format:
If you're using the encrypted disk image with a Mac computer using macOS 10.13 or later, choose APFS or APFS (Case-sensitive).
If you're using the encrypted disk image with a Mac computer using macOS 10.12 or earlier, choose Mac OS Extended (Journaled) or Mac OS Extended (Case-sensitive, Journaled).
Click the Encryption pop-up menu, then choose an encryption option.
Enter and re-enter a password to unlock the disk image, then click Choose.
WARNING: If you forget this password, you won't be able to open the disk image and view any of the files.
Use the default settings for the rest of the options:
Click the Partitions pop-up menu, then choose Single partition - GUID Partition Map.
Click the Image Format pop-up menu, then choose 'read/write' disk image.
Click Save, then click Done.
Disk Utility creates the disk image file where you saved it in the Finder and mounts its disk icon on your desktop and in the Finder sidebar.
In the Finder , copy the documents you want to protect to the disk image.
If you want to erase the original documents so they can't be recovered, drag them to the Trash, then choose Finder > Empty Trash.
When you're finished using the documents on the secure disk image, be sure to eject the disk image. As long as it's available on your desktop, anyone with access to your computer can use the documents on it.
To access the data in a disk image, double-click it. It appears on your desktop, and you can add, remove, and edit files on it just as you would with a disk.
