r/ApplePhotos

Hi all. I’m the developer of OSXPhotos, the open-source command-line tool for querying and exporting Apple Photos libraries. OSXPhotos is used by thousands of people to query metadata in Apple Photos libraries and export photos and their associated metadata. The top request has been "I wish there was a GUI for this". I've spent the last year building one: Zouti Photos.

Before release, I’m looking for a few more TestFlight testers, especially people with:

• Large or unusual Photos libraries
• Multiple libraries or libraries created by older macOS versions
• Different Mac hardware and macOS versions (Zouti Photos runs on macOS 15 - 27)
• Serious metadata, organization, deduplication, or archival workflows

Zouti Photos is a native Mac power tool that exposes far more of the information stored in your Photos library than Photos itself shows. It includes advanced nested searches, saved queries, spreadsheet-style batch metadata editing with undo, duplicate (visual duplicate), identical (actual bytes match), and similar (with varying levels of similarity) photo detection, metadata copy/paste between photos, customizable exports with sidecars (XMP and exiftool) and a template system to customize the export path and filename, and automation through Shortcuts and AppleScript as well as an MCP server for working with your Photos library.

It never writes directly to the Photos database: edits use Apple’s supported APIs and are recorded in a change log. It also collects no analytics or telemetry, requires no account, and sends none of your photo data to the cloud or to me.

The app has already been tested by a group of OSXPhotos users and is in "release candidate" readiness, but I’d like to exercise it against a wider variety of real-world libraries and use cases before launch.

If you’re interested, comment or message me with your macOS version, approximate library size, and the workflows you’d most like to test. For this round of testing I want to focus on power users willing to give candid feedback. If you're just curious about the app, there will be a 14-day fully-functional free trial once it goes live.

Hey all! Some of you might remember me posting PixelBeam here a little bit ago. I'm not trying to spam. I took the feedback from that post and your direct messages seriously, spent the time since rebuilding the app, and wanted to come back and show you what changed.

WHAT'S NEW SINCE LAST TIME

• A completely new design: your iPhone library now shows as actual photos grouped by month, and you can open any photo full size before saving it

• Finds your iPhone for you: a live card shows your phone the moment it connects and tells you plainly when to unlock it or tap Trust

• Automatic backup: turn it on once and new photos save themselves whenever your iPhone connects

• Wi-Fi transfers: after the first cable connection, it can copy over Wi-Fi too

• Never copies twice: it remembers what's already on your PC, and interrupted transfers pick up where they stopped

FREE KEYS, NO DMs NEEDED

Instead of DMing keys one by one, the first 50 people who use the code REDDIT at checkout get a full license free, instantly, with the key on screen and in your email. No card needed. After 50 uses (or Oct 21) the code shuts off and it's back to $4.99 one-time, no subscription.

All I ask in return is honest feedback: what you love, what you hate, and what you think could be better. Brutal is fine. Last round's feedback is literally why half of the list above exists.

HOW TO GET IT

1. Download: https://papernewt.com/download

2. Get your key: https://papernewt.com/buy/pixelbeam → "Add promotion code" → REDDIT → total drops to $0

3. In PixelBeam: Manage license → Activate license

GOOD TO KNOW

• Windows 10 or 11 only (sorry Mac folks)

• You'll need Apple's free "Apple Devices" app from the Microsoft Store (it provides the iPhone driver)

• Photos go straight from your phone to a folder on your PC. Nothing is uploaded anywhere

• If you use iCloud "Optimize iPhone Storage", some originals live only in iCloud and need downloading to the phone first. PixelBeam shows you how

Bonus: I also make Candidra, a free app that searches the photos on your PC by describing them ("dog at the beach"). It runs offline on your computer: https://papernewt.com/products/candidra

I'll be in the comments. Thanks to everyone who gave feedback last time!

I have about 30,000 photos on my phone, and realistically, maybe a few thousand are photos I’d actually be upset to lose. The rest are screenshots I meant to read, blurry photos, six attempts at the same sunset, receipts, random menus, and a picture of where I parked my car in 2022.

Every few months I’d open Photos, delete maybe 10 things, get overwhelmed, and close it again.

The moment that finally got to me

After a trip to Colombia, I wanted to show someone a photo of this really cool fruit I had tried. I knew the photo was there, but after scrolling for way too long, I still couldn’t find it.

That was when I realized my problem wasn’t really storage.

The photos I actually cared about were buried underneath years of junk.

So I built something for myself

I tried a few photo cleaner apps, but most focused on duplicates and how many gigabytes I could save. That wasn’t really what bothered me. I wanted my camera roll to feel like mine again.

So I built Handpick.

It shows you one photo at a time, full screen:

• Swipe down → keep it
• Swipe up → add it to the trash pile
• Tap an album → file it away

Nothing gets deleted until you review and confirm it.

The idea is almost stupidly simple:

I can’t make a decision about 30,000 photos. I can make a decision about one.

One night I went through an entire month in about five minutes while sitting on the couch. Then I did another month the next day.

But the part I didn’t expect was rediscovering things I had completely forgotten about.

I found a photo I really didn’t want to forget

One was from my college graduation. I’m standing there with a huge smile, surrounded by close friends and their messages to me.

I hadn’t looked at that photo in years, and somehow it was sitting between two random screenshots I didn’t even remember taking.

That became my favorite part of the whole thing. I started building Handpick because I wanted less junk, but I ended up finding photos I actually cared about.

A little about Handpick

For transparency, I’m the developer.

The core sorting experience is free, with no daily limit and no ads:

• Swipe through your photos
• Review everything before deleting
• Organize photos into albums

There’s also an optional Plus tier for things that save more time automatically, like finding duplicates, surfacing likely junk first, and showing your biggest files. It’s $19.99/year or $1.99/week with a 3-day trial.

I intentionally kept the core experience free because I hate downloading a “photo cleaner” and immediately hitting a paywall before I’ve even cleaned anything.

Privacy

Everything runs on your device.

• Your photos aren’t uploaded anywhere
• No ads
• No third-party trackers

I’d really like feedback

I’m still improving Handpick, and I’m curious:

What actually stops you from cleaning your camera roll?

• Too many photos?
• Not knowing what to delete?
• Worried you’ll delete something important?
• Or have you just accepted the chaos?

And if you try Handpick, I’d genuinely love the harsh feedback — what feels annoying, confusing, unnecessary, or missing.

I’d rather hear that now than spend months building something nobody wants.

I have turned off and deleted the icloud photos, so now i have 30 days before i can download the backed up media. But I can’t get the 3 dots to work and save the media to the device even after selecting the images (screenshot).
Please help.