Say hello to a brand new PhotoStructure! We’re really excited by what’s in this new release: thanks to our beta users for their help and their feedback!

We’re excited to announce a new release of PhotoStructure! This is the biggest update to PhotoStructure ever, containing over 30 new features and bug fixes, many of them driven by beta user feedback.

A long time ago, in a different millennium, a young nerd convinced his beautiful wife to give up her SLR film camera, and switch to digital.

Every time you take a digital photo or video, your camera or smartphone records a bunch of information about the image that you just captured.

That guy smiling at you is my Dad, David McEachen. He taught English Literature to a surprisingly large portion of the teenagers growing up in Santa Barbara from 1965 to 2004.

When you set up your library, you’ll see this option: PhotoStructure uses the word “drive” interchangeably with the word “volume.

When you upgrade to a new version of PhotoStructure, you may see this progress bar: What’s going on here?

PhotoStructure has a number of filters that all must pass for a photo or video to be added to your library:

PhotoStructure is designed for million-asset libraries, so you shouldn’t need to switch between libraries in most cases. If you want to have a couple separate libraries, though, you certainly can.

Your copy of Windows 10 may be configured to only support Latin-character filenames. This may prevent programs (like PhotoStructure) from accessing your files.

Your PhotoStructure library contains your image database, library settings, as well as preview images that make viewing your photos and videos instantaneous.

When PhotoStructure encounters errors, it automatically sends a report to our error system, Sentry. These error reports include system information as well as recent log messages to help us determine both what resulted in the error and how to resolve it in the future.

When PhotoStructure is importing files, it automatically excludes all hidden files, as well as operating system and application support directories.

Browsing with PhotoStructure is designed to be fun and fast. If you’ve got a bunch of files that are of the same photo or video, and you have to click “next” several times to see something different, it’s irritating and decidedly not-fun.

PhotoStructure is designed to be a very safe home for the images of your life. You should consider older hard drives, especially more than 5 years old, as fragile parchment that must be handled with care.

Windows can be persnickety when it comes to network shares, causing processes to “hang” or get stuck. You can run a quick “health check” just by opening the About page (from the System Tray).

When you close the main PhotoStructure for Desktops window, PhotoStructure continues to run in the background, which may include synchronizing your library’s photos and videos.

If your photos and videos are disorganized, PhotoStructure can bring some order to your chaos. If you’d like all your photos and videos to be organized into one, tidy place, choose “Yes” on PhotoStructure’s settings page:

If your PhotoStructure library isn’t opening due to database corruption, you can restore your library’s database to a previous version. Although the PhotoStructure database is very robust, an incomplete backup or incomplete shutdown may lead to this situation.

If you’re on a desktop or laptop, knowing a couple keyboard shortcuts will help you get around your library faster.

PhotoStructure uses a bunch of methods to pull out keywords you may have added to your photos and videos already.

So, you’ve got PhotoStructure installed, and it looks like it’s importing every photo and video you’ve got. What should you know now?

Your PhotoStructure library contains your image database, library settings, as well as preview images that make viewing your photos and videos instantaneous.

PhotoStructure’s settings page is pretty simple (by design), and only offers a handful of configuration options. There are more than 60 configurable settings within PhotoStructure, though, including

🎥 Do you have videos? Please follow these steps. It’ll only take a minute. 📖 See also: Where should I install PhotoStructure?

Your library’s disk space is proportional to the number of photos and videos you have in your library, and whether or not you choose to have PhotoStructure organize your photos and videos by copying them into your library.