Best Photo Organizer Software for Windows PCs (10 Picks)

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1. 

   HMJ Brons

   April 12, 2021 at 11:37 am

   What if you buy a new computer. Do you need to start over again with alle the organising?

   Reply
   1. 

      Paul Skidmore

      March 1, 2022 at 8:20 am

      Hi,

      Thanks for the comment! In most instances yes. If you are buying a completely new computer and HDD you would need to re-install the photo organizing software and start again.

      I would advise backing up your photos to a cloud storage service before buying a new computer so you can re-download them onto your new device.

      Reply
2. 

   Ian

   August 19, 2020 at 12:14 am

   Hi

   I’m looking for a photo storage/organiser solution that allows both (i) a folder/subfolder hierarchy with sync to desktop (standard in Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive etc); but also (ii) automated tagging of objects/faces (e.g. Google Photos or iOS functions). I’m not fussed about sophisticated editing tools ‘in-app’ (can do this on laptop if the folders/subfolders contain the ‘truth file’.

   This was pretty straightforward with Google until they broke the syncing between Photos & Drive. OneDrive appeared to have something similar (currently disabled, citing integration with Bing) but the ‘People’ function seems restricted to the Windows 10 desktop Photos app.

   Anybody have any ways they do this?

   Reply
   1. 

      Paul Skidmore

      March 3, 2022 at 1:29 am

      Hi Ian,

      ACDSee has cloud storage access and synchronization features – this includes OneDrive and Dropbox and customizable options. This could potentially provide a solution for desktop/cloud synchronization.

      This software also has facial recognition and face detection features, and you can actually import face data from other sources like Lightroom.

      Reply
3. 

   Nigel

   June 16, 2020 at 3:11 am

   Hi Paul, thank you for both the reviews and the replies to comments – all very useful. I to have been looking for a photo organizing s/w package (not cloud based). My first requirement is speed and face recognition. I have 40,000+ photos and require multiple tagging with automatic face recognition, I experimented with ACD which I found non-intuitive and actually quite slow. What would you recommend for my requirement?
   Cheers Nigel

   Reply
4. 

   Michael B

   April 28, 2020 at 7:52 pm

   Enjoyed the article. I am scanning family photos and slides taken by my in-laws between 1958-2000. I have organized the slides by roll and placed them in folders based on the month and year the rolls were developed for lack of a better way to organize them. I want to be able tag the photos with the names of individuals in the photos [some have 10-20 people] and the locations as I get feedback from family members. It would appear any of the above would work. My main concern is getting everything loaded into a database and then having support for the application dropped like what happened with Picasa. Is there a standard database exchange format, that would allow the sharing of metadata and photos between the applications reviewed. For example if my niece uses Lightroom and I use FastStone Image Viewer, would we be able to exchange metadata and photos?

   Reply
   1. 

      Paul Skidmore

      June 2, 2020 at 6:32 am

      Hi Michael B – that sounds like a really interesting project for sure!

      The transferal of Metadata depends on how you save the file and the file format you use. In most instances, image file formats like JPEG and CR2 allow for the transferal of Metadata. However, to transfer that Metadata, you must state so when exporting the file using the editing/organizational software.

      In your example – both FastStone Image Viewer and Lightroom have support for Metadata and storing it in the exported files you save. Therefore, yes you could successfully transfer images and retain the metadata.

      If you right-click on an image file and click on the “details” tab – you can see a list of Metadata and what has currently been added to the photo.

      To add this Metadata in the first instance, you can add the information using the organizational software. For example, in Lightroom Classic, if you select an image thumbnail in the library view, the metadata is displayed on the right-hand side – you can enter details like a title, caption, rating, and even locational data.

      Hope this helps,

      Paul

      Reply
5. 

   Charlie

   April 20, 2020 at 2:19 pm

   Burt et al — thanks for the article. Still need some more help sorting this out. Since you don’t like to recommend a single product, how about the top two or three. Organizing is the issue for me plus simple editing (nothing Photoshop fancy).

   I have about 15-20,000 pics that either are digital or are slowly being digitized. They range from TIFFs to JPGs. I need to be able to categorize and/or search using multiple Boolean tags or key words from a relatively large data dictionary (1,000+ tags/keywords), and I need to be able to access/search portions of the metadata for some, but not all. I need to batch tag as many as 100 at a time sometimes, but do one-offs other times. Facial recognition would be helpful, but not mandatory. I prefer to do all of this on my desktop, including storage. You might suggest Lightroom, but paying a monthly sizable subscription fee to Adobe forever is too painful, and it leaves me at the mercy of Adobe if they ever raise the prices even more than they already have. I am OK on the tech-savvy scale, but I am 74 years old. Microsoft 10.

   Reply
   1. 

      Editorial Team

      June 2, 2020 at 12:55 pm

      You should try ACDSee Photo Studio Standard it has face recognition and is relatively low priced (no monthly subscription).

      Reply
6. 

   Trevor

   March 30, 2020 at 9:17 am

   Hi
   I have a collection of about 12,000 photos and videos on my iPhone X; these have been carried forward from several earlier phones and are all still on my current phone. Over the years I have imported & synced to Dropbox, to Windows Photos, I have extracted photos individually using Explorer; I probably have multiple copies of many of the photos scattered around my disks. Recently all the methods available for syncing photos with a PC have been locking up and refused to copy so I went for brute force and connected the phone to my NAS and just duplicated the DCIM folder off the phone. The images are in various formats corresponding to the evolution of the iPhone – the earliest are JPG and the latest are HEIC. The DCIM directory has about 10 folders in it and occupies about 25GB.
   OK.
   What I want to find is some tool, preferably free but I don’t mind paying a little if I need to, which will allow me to take all these images and make them accessible, searchable, viewable, and comprehensible. If it can handle ongoing sync with my phone so much the better.
   What would you recommend?

   Reply
   1. 

      Paul Skidmore

      June 2, 2020 at 6:52 am

      Hi Trevor,

      In reality, anyone of these programs could do what you requested – allow you to store and organize photos, whilst making them searchable too. Concerning the file format HEIC is a relatively new format – I would check that any software you wish to use first supports this file container.

      There is no magical program that will make your photos comprehensible – we always have to put in some initial work too i.e. creating proper folder structures, adding keywords, and having some form of organization.

      My PERSONAL choice is Adobe Lightroom Classic – I also use Lightroom CC when I am traveling to sync photos quickly from my EOS M50 camera.

      If you want to sync images from your phone regularly, I’m sorry but I don’t know of any software that can do this. iTunes can be used to sync data from your phone directly to a PC or MAC. Alternatively, you could use a service like One Drive.

      This is kind of a separate issue from actually organising and storing photos on your computer, however. To bring it together, using a cloud service like Lightroom CC is what I would do – you could sync photos from external devices, catalogue them properly using the keywords and metadata tools, and it also supports HEIC.

      Again, to reiterate – this is what I would do personally because I have used Lightroom for many years, and it is also my main post-processing software.

      Thanks!

      Paul

      Reply
   2. 

      Steve C

      June 26, 2022 at 11:12 am

      You might take a look at Mylio for a simple solution or iMatch (Photools) for a more comprehensive solution.

      Reply
7. 

   Michael

   February 28, 2020 at 9:28 am

   Anyone familiar with doing this on a very large scale for a manufacturer with a huge number of product photography shots?

   Ideally we would love to have a single software platform where we can search by color, texture, product…etc and quickly obtain all of the images relating to that search term.

   Currently everything is scattered in Dropbox folders. Loosely sorted by product name.

   Reply
   1. 

      Paul Skidmore

      June 2, 2020 at 6:20 am

      Hi Michael,

      Thanks very much for the comment – an interesting question for sure. For a large-scale operation that you mention, Adobe Lightroom Classic would be a great choice. I would recommend doing the following:

      1. Creating a solid folder structure where everything is organized (You can do this in Lightroom)
      2. Adding keywords to the photos so that they can be searched for easily

      You can basically do everything in Lightroom – having a logical folder structure is always a great idea and its something I personally do before even considering keywords etc. – I would advise sorting your Dropbox folders out first.

      Once the basic structure is sorted, you can then use the keyword and search tools present in Lightroom. For example, you mentioned wanting to search for photos by different features like texture, and color – to do this, you would simply add relative keywords to the product photos. You could then search your entire folder structure, for photos that have the keyword, “blue”, for example.

      Hope this helps!

      Reply
8. 

   ANNE MUSK

   February 22, 2020 at 6:25 am

   Hello Paul
   Thank you for the review.
   I also was a fan of Picasa as I found it simple to use and I liked the basic edits it offered.When it was phased out I researched new options and decided on Zoner which I am sure is an excellent product but it does not work for me ( I do not find it user friendly )
   Before I have to pay my yearly subs I would like to find another program. I dont like the fact that you cant import from Google photos into Zoner . If I get a new program how do I transfer all my photos from Zoner to the new programme? As I am already paying monthly for my Google account I would prefer a once off payment or a free one is it works well.

   Thank you for any advice
   Anne

   Reply
   1. 

      Jaymes Dempsey

      March 23, 2020 at 2:50 pm

      Hi Anne,

      Depending on the program you choose, there may be some method of easily transferring images from one to the other. But worst-case scenario, you’ll need to track the images back to their original locations (e.g., on your desktop), then import them into the new program.

      I was a fan of Picasa a number of years back. If you’re looking for good organization capabilities along with optional editing power, both ON1 Photo RAW and Lightroom CC are worth a look. Despite a lot of searching, I’ve never managed to find anything better, myself.

      Hope that helps!
      Jaymes

      Reply
9. 

   ruth

   February 15, 2020 at 12:21 pm

   I am currently using Picasa, how do any of these free photo organizers compare to Picasa

   Reply
   1. 

      Editorial Team

      February 16, 2020 at 12:32 am

      Picasa has been discontinued. Maybe you refer to Google Photos. Cloud solutions do work and are also a good way to organize and store your photos. We will be covering the best photo cloud storage solutions soon (and the pros & cons vs keeping you photos on your local hard drive).

      Reply
      1. 

         Editorial Team

         June 2, 2020 at 6:03 am

         We have now published the best cloud storage solutions.

         Reply
      2. 

         Bob Brannon

         September 14, 2020 at 3:18 pm

         Picasa may have been discontinued but it is still available from those OLD software download sites.
         I still use it, the one great feature it has is the “watch defined folders” on my PC. If and when any photo get loaded into the PC to any of those locations Picasa will automatically see it and load it into Picasa.

         NOW…my question to you all: Which of these other products has that feature?
         AND…What would you advise is the best replacement for Picasa?

         Reply
   2. 

      Gary

      October 28, 2022 at 6:02 am

      I wish Google would revive Picasa I love it and use it exclusively

      Reply
10. 

    Michael

    February 6, 2020 at 4:31 pm

    The fact that you didn’t identify or differentiate which version of Lightroom you are talking about makes the whole article dubious.

    Reply
    1. 

       Editorial Team

       February 16, 2020 at 12:25 am

       Paul is talking about the Lightroom which is “Part of Adobe’s creative cloud plan” or what you would call the current Lightroom for Desktop.

       Reply
11. 

    Vikki

    February 2, 2020 at 11:00 am

    Your review has been helpful but I am still torn. I just bought a fairly inexpensive computer on which to deal with all our photos. We have photos from all kinds of crazy sources… on external drives, on disks, on phones, in emails, on SD cards, etc., etc., etc. I need a way to get all those photos onto the new computer, organize them, and then edit them to get books printed for ourselves and family members. I am not tech savvy so ease of use is paramount. I am thinking that Lightroom sees to be the best option but I’m not excited about having a monthly charge until I die in order to keep my hard work available. I would love to hear your thoughts…

    Reply
    1. 

       Editorial Team

       February 16, 2020 at 12:22 am

       You could have a look at our recent PhotoDirector 11 review. The software comes with a photo management/library, is not that resource hungry, and you only have to do a one time payment.

       Reply
12. 

    Jane Mattheis

    January 4, 2020 at 4:28 am

    Thank you for your research in all things photo! My problem: Soo many pictures! I have always used picasa. love the features so have held onto it. Over the last few years it has imported so many pics into the wrong dated folder on my computer hard drive and everything is a mess! Its time to clean things up! I also have many many duplicate pics all over! I’m looking for a basic organizational software that’s Very user friendly and will help me sort out the mess I have going without having to delete each duplicate and rename each pic into the correct file. Something that will read the actual date taken and re-place it into the correct folder. I have tried different things but the task is just too daunting so I put it off. And more pics get taken 🙂 I don’t do alot of editing so just need something basic to help clean house on the hard drive on my computer. Also I guess I have google photos. Have messed with this a bit. My concern is that the quality of the pic stored in cloud is less so if I want to print or make an enlarged print it would be poor quality. Thanks for any help you can give me!

    Reply
    1. 

       Paul Skidmore

       January 10, 2020 at 2:12 am

       Hi Jane,

       Thanks very much for your comment – let me try and help in your conundrum! First and foremost, I would suggest going forward, you should ensure that you are importing photos from your camera into one single location – make an organized folder hierarchy and stick with it. I, for example, have a top-level folder with the year, i.e. 2018, 2019, and 2020. After that, the next level is specific groups of photos i.e. a particular holiday. Having a structured folder system like this really helps with the organization – you can do this with the editing programs listed in the above article.

       Regarding renaming files and cleaning up your photo organization – I can understand your frustration! I have thousands of photos on my computer saved from the last decade. This is why using a photo management program really helps. I personally use Lightroom – this program has a myriad of features for bulk renaming. In fact, most of the programs listed have bulk renaming tools – you can set the name format for the first image i.e. SpainHoliday-2018-1.jpg and then all other files selected would be subsequently named 2,3, 4 etc.

       Now – deleting duplicate files. Again, many of the programs listed have this feature but it usually happens during the importing process or the folder synchronization. In Lightroom, for example, when you synchronize folders, it will automatically detect duplicate files and give you the option to delete them.

       If you want to have a full blast through your folders, I would suggest using one of the programs listed above, and basically creating a new folder structure from scratch, and then importing all the photos through the program into these new folders – during the process you should be able to remove any duplicates. Failing that, there is specialist software such as Duplicate Cleaner (available on the Microsoft store for free) that can scan your folders and look for any type of duplicate file – this is not photo editing software though.

       Maybe try one of the free management programs like Dijikam or Magix Photo Manager and see how you get on with them?

       Reply
    2. 

       Editorial Team

       June 2, 2020 at 12:49 pm

       You should try ACD Photo Studio Standard it has face recognition and is relatively low priced (no monthly subscription).

       Reply
13. 

    burt

    September 28, 2019 at 1:23 pm

    Hello Paul,
    Thank you for assembling such a spectacular tool. One possible issue: you seem to have enjoyed so many features from the different programs that I almost want to try all of them!

    Actually, tor me,,too many choices have been a bit of a curse.

    What I’ve been searching for is a program that would automatically rename all my photos ( including raw) using each one’s metadata.
    tI would even consider using a set, unified shared code ( similar to the
    VIN naming protocol used for cars, 17 digits).
    It could probably handle the copyright requirements as a bonus…

    Am I dreaming, are there complexities that are beyond my aging gray cells?

    thank you again for the research, any chance you are working on an update?

    cheers
    Burt

    Reply
    1. 

       Paul Skidmore

       September 29, 2019 at 2:14 am

       Hi Burt,

       Thanks for the reply – glad you found the article interesting. My aim with these articles is to give viewers a wealth of options to choose from – I tend to stay away from choosing one specific program above the rest as personal preference and opinion also factor into the argument.

       Regarding your question – this type of renaming may be a little more advanced than what’s offered in these programs. I would suggest looking at a separate file-renaming tool – a program that is specifically built for that purpose. That being said, Lightroom does have a renaming tool that allows Metadata to be inserted. Users can create detailed renaming templates and apply them to multiple files – examples of the metadata you can include; title, creator name, date taken, photo size, photo settings – basically anything you enter manually in the metadata info section of the RAW files. Moreover, most photo editing software provides functionality for adding watermarks and copyright notices on your photos.

       Hope this helps,

       Paul

       Reply
14. 

    Paul Skidmore

    September 24, 2019 at 11:15 am

    Hi Noeil,

    Thanks for sharing this – looks like an interesting program!

    Reply
15. 

    Robz0102

    September 8, 2019 at 1:39 am

    Thank you for this info Paul.
    Perhaps I am being a bit daft, but my problem is that I have thousands of photos in my dropbox folder just copied from backups and photos taken over the years with little to no organisation (I have 2 “sort” folders that I have been meaning to get to lol).

    I would like to be able to organise it, but was looking for software to “organise with one click” to folders or such, like those based on dates or moments. And then it should be easier for me to sift through to organise further, delete duplicates etc.

    Which of the above programs would you say has this feature please?
    It is a daunting task but has to be done!

    Thanks!

    Reply
    1. 

       Paul Skidmore

       September 24, 2019 at 11:13 am

       No problem Rob,

       I can appreciate your conundrum haha – sorting through old photos can be a nightmare. For the future, I would advise organizing your photos as soon as you transfer them from your camera haha.

       In relation to your question – there is no such “wonder button” unfortunately. Most of the programs listed, such as Lightroom, ON1 and DijiKam Photo Manager do however have advanced search functionality. This means that you can search and sort your photos using different criteria such as date or keywords. You could use this feature to search for all photos on a specific date, for example. Once the program finds them, you could then simply create a new folder and move the corresponding photos into it. I know this still isn’t exactly quick, but it works. Also, you could just use the search function to find specific photos, without actually creating new folders. I would suggest looking at the search and sorting features of a program you are considering. I personally use Lightroom – I have 10,000+ photos and I find the photo organization tools this program has really helps!

       Reply
16. 

    Bob Snow

    September 4, 2019 at 6:08 pm

    Thank you for your superb info.

    Reply
17. 

    Tim Loper

    August 19, 2019 at 11:34 am

    Paul, thanks for your reply! I’ll check out that device. Also looking for systems to look to my own hard drives (via WiFi) for such display of my photos. Hoping to keep my images local and not on a public cloud (albeit private account). I’ve learned Roku has apps that will pull data from Web services, but again, from web services, not my own NAS drives.

    Appreciate the help and input!

    Reply
18. 

    Paul Skidmore

    August 19, 2019 at 10:31 am

    Hi Tim,

    Glad you found the reviews helpful! To create a system like this, you would need to purchase a portable device that supports WiFi and can connect to a cloud storage system such as Dropbox or Google Photos.

    I’m assuming you mean something like a digital photo frame that scrolls through your pics? There are a myriad of devices that can do this, and that have WiFi connections. The NixPlay 10.1 for example uses WiFi connection and can connect to various programs and storage systems. Hope this helps!

    Reply
19. 

    Tim Loper

    August 13, 2019 at 8:13 pm

    I appreciate the reviews, quite helpful. My photos are all family photos that I want to be able to display slideshows on portable devices in our home by reading the images over wifi from a central hard drive or “personal cloud”. Are there any ideas on how to create such a system?

    Reply
    1. 

       Ronda

       September 25, 2023 at 4:14 pm

       Its much easier and faster (not cheaper though) to take all your pictures to a service to scan. I’ve used Scan Cafe and really like them. Now I am looking for an app to manually tag people since the Photo app is now worthless for that.

       Reply
20. 

    Diane

    January 17, 2019 at 12:53 pm

    I have thousands of paper photos, some very old, to scan and sort, as well as importing photos from various phone cameras over the years. None of the reviews addressed scanned photos–tagging them and labeling them to resort and find later. Any recommendations?

    Reply
    1. 

       Diane

       February 20, 2020 at 8:11 am

       Have you checked out Vivid-Pix software? I am checking out the free trial now and there is tagging available in the software that allows for searching later.

       Reply
    2. 

       jeff Cal

       September 6, 2022 at 3:26 pm

       Scanning can take a while… Each scan….load photo, scan…wait…

       One way I would recommend is to set up a hi resulotion digital camera on a stand facing down to fully capture a rectangle area the size of a standard photo.
       Set up light so it doesnt reflect (from the side, make sure clear of shadows)
       Get a photography app that allows continuous shots at intervals (Photo every 3 seconds)
       then place your photo
       Start the continuous photo capture
       then replace each physical photo in between the digital shots.
       you can cover taking 100 photos in the time a high res scanner can do 1 or 2.
       But from there it is a matter of inputting meta data and editing names on the computer.

       But the digital capture will be much easier this way. It will take some time to set up but well worth it once done.

       “If I only had an hour to chop down a tree, I would spend the first 45 minutes sharpening my axe.” – Abraham Lincoln.

       Reply