Guides
Practical guides for organizing, searching, and cleaning up photos stored in Mac folders.
Photo Organizer for Mac
A local-first photo organizer for Mac folders. Search, dedupe, and organize photos without importing or uploading originals.
Phoaly vs Apple Photos: Folder Archive or Managed Library
A factual comparison of Phoaly and Apple Photos covering the library model, iCloud, editing, formats, organization, pricing, and which one fits your archive.
Phoaly for Photographers: Cull and Organize Without a Catalog
A folder-based workflow for photographers who want to cull, rename, and deliver shoots without importing everything into another catalog.
Phoaly for Families: A Private Photo Archive on Your Mac
A family photo workflow that keeps originals in folders, groups people and scenes locally, and never uploads a photo to a cloud account.
On-Device Visual Search for Mac Photos
How Phoaly searches photos by description on the Mac: local text encoding, photo vectors, one index, no upload, and practical limits.
Preview-First Photo Organizing on Mac
Rules, rename, dedupe, and freeform moves share one preview, one journal, and one undo. Nothing changes until you confirm.
Local Face Grouping for Mac Photos
How Phoaly detects faces, clusters people on the Mac, and lets you merge, split, rename, or correct a grouping by hand.
Culling Photos on a Mac with Keep, Maybe, and Reject
A cull mode built for folders: three states, keyboard-first marking, progress over the whole scope, and deletes that go to the Trash.
Photo Maps on a Mac, With an Offline Gazetteer
How Phoaly turns EXIF GPS into a clustered map, names places offline, and lets you switch online tiles off.
Phoaly FAQ: Privacy, Formats, Pricing, and Licensing
Answers about privacy, supported formats, the trial, pricing, licensing, and how Phoaly handles the folders you already use.
How to Cull Photos on a Mac: A Two-Pass Workflow
A practical culling workflow for Mac folders. Mark keep, maybe, and reject, run two passes, and delete safely with the Trash as the safety net.
How to Find and Remove Duplicate Photos on a Mac
A review-first workflow for clearing duplicate photos from Mac folders without losing originals. Find candidates, compare, confirm, and undo.
How to Organize Photos on a Mac Without Importing Them
A step-by-step workflow for turning a messy Mac photo folder into a predictable structure, with previews, a journal, and undo before anything moves.
Photo Folder Structure for a Mac: A Simple System That Scales
A date-first folder structure for Mac photo archives, with naming rules, an undated bucket, external drives, and a migration plan that does not move files blindly.
How to Search Photos by Description on a Mac
How local visual search works, what to type, where file name search stops, and how to combine search with dates, people, places, and categories.