PowerPhotos 3.0 now available, with photo metadata editing, advanced search, and more

I’m excited to announce the release of PowerPhotos 3.0, featuring new features such as photo metadata editing, advanced multi library search, and an upgraded photo browser, among others. The primary goal with the release was for you to be able to do a lot more work on your libraries right from within PowerPhotos without even needing to open the libraries in Photos itself.

This release also lands on the 10th anniversary of PowerPhotos 1.0 (and the 20th anniversary of its predecessor, iPhoto Library Manager), so I’ve decided to run a 10th anniversary special. Anyone who purchases PowerPhotos for the next month (i.e. until May 16th) will get an automatic 10% discount. I’m still amazed I’ve been able to work on PowerPhotos for so long and that enough people have found it useful to support its development through the years. Thank you to everyone who’s supported me, and here’s hoping PowerPhotos can keep chugging along for another 10 years!

New features in 3.0

Keyboard centric metadata editing: I’ve typically shied away from adding capabilities to PowerPhotos that already exist in Photos itself. In the case of editing photo metadata though, while this can be done using the Photos info window, it’s always been a bit frustrating when trying to process a large number of photos. A new inspector pane in PowerPhotos allows for quick editing of photo titles, keywords, and captions, all without taking your hands off the keyboard. After entering values, the tab key can be used to quickly navigate to the next photo without ever having to touch the mouse/trackpad.
Batch metadata editing: Select a whole group of photos and edit their title, keywords, or captions all at once. You can modify existing metadata with a templating system that lets you include incrementing counters, dates, and other values in the newly entered metadata.
Upgraded photo browser: The photo browser in PowerPhotos has gotten a major upgrade, and can now do many of the same operations that you can do in Photos. This includes moving photos between albums, deleting photos, and moving, renaming, and deleting albums. The photo browser now also updates live when changes are made to the library, resulting in much faster loading and browsing.
Advanced multi library search: A new indexing engine allows you to set up complex searches using nested and/or predicates. You can either search one library or multiple libraries at once, and searches can be saved for easy access later on. The new search engine also features several criteria that aren’t available in either Photos search or smart albums, such as file size, video duration, and photo height/width.
New photo viewer: PowerPhotos now has its own in-window photo viewer instead of using the system Quick Look window. This provides faster loading and navigating, while also still being able to see detailed photo info in the inspector pane.
Move or copy photos between libraries: In addition to being able to copy photos/albums between libraries, you can now move them instead. When moving photos, PowerPhotos will first copy the albums/photos to the new library, and then delete them from the original library once it’s done.
Multi library selection support: You can now select multiple libraries in the library list at a time. This provides another way for initiating a merge, duplicate search, or lets you move or delete more than one library at a time.
Improved undo support: PowerPhotos has added undo support in several additional areas, including its various new editing features, as well as when configuring search predicates and rearranging the library list.

Download and installation

You can download the PowerPhotos 3.0 to your Mac running macOS Sonoma (14.0) or later. You’ll want to then move PowerPhotos from your Downloads folder to your Applications folder (PowerPhotos will offer to do this for you the first time you quit the app).

Licensing/upgrading

PowerPhotos 3.0 will be a paid upgrade for existing PowerPhotos/iPhoto Library Manager users. You can enter your license key when ordering at our web store to receive 50% off your purchase. If you can’t find your license key, you can look it up at our lost license page.

Also note that if you purchased PowerPhotos 2 on or after October 8th, 2024 (when the PowerPhotos 3 public beta first started) that license will automatically be usable with PowerPhotos 3.0 without any additional purchase required.

2025-04-16