How to organize photos automatically

A photo library mixes very different things. Holiday shots sit next to a photo of a parking space number, a whiteboard from a workshop, a receipt for an expense claim and forty near-identical pictures of a dog. Photographers have the same problem at a larger scale, with client shoots, personal work and reference images spread over drives and catalogs.

This guide covers the usual ways of keeping photos organized, what each one asks of you, and how to set up Fabric so photos are backed up and then labeled and grouped by what’s in them, with albums and folders left as an optional extra.

How people usually organize photos

Phone photo apps do a lot by default. Apple Photos and Google Photos sort by date and place and offer their own search, and they suit personal snapshots well. The library lives in that ecosystem, though, apart from the documents, notes and files that relate to the same trip or project, and albums still have to be built by hand.

Photographers and designers often use folders by date or by shoot, plus a catalog in an app like Lightroom where keywords and ratings are added manually. Keywording is thorough when there’s time for it, and the backlog grows when there isn’t. How to organize a photo library compares these folder and catalog approaches.

Many people do no sorting at all and rely on scrolling and memory. That holds for recent photos. For a picture from three years ago, the usual route is to recall roughly when it was taken and scroll to that month, which works if the date is the thing you remember.

Step 1: Back up your photos to Fabric

Install the Fabric mobile app on iOS or Android and turn on camera roll backup. You can sync every photo or only specific folders from the device’s photos, and the app can also sync the device’s Files section. How to back up your camera roll automatically walks through the settings.

For photos on a computer or an external drive, drag them into Fabric or click Upload a file, which handles large numbers of files at once. With the desktop app installed, you can move photo folders onto the Fabric drive like any other folder, and they take no space on your computer.

Photos also turn up in messaging apps, email and shared albums. On a phone, open the picture, tap Share and choose Fabric to send it across. Photos that arrive as email attachments can be forwarded to your Fabric email address. Either way they land in the same library as the backed-up camera roll and go through the same processing.

Step 2: Let Fabric read each photo

Each photo is processed when it arrives. Fabric understands the visual content of the image (the subject, the objects in the frame, the kind of scene), reads any text in it, and extracts its colors. It also creates embeddings so search can match the photo by meaning, writes a summary, and identifies the content type, so a photographed receipt is distinguishable from a landscape.

Suggested tags come from the same analysis. Keep the ones that help, such as the name of a project or a client, and add your own where Fabric couldn’t know the context. A comment can carry details the picture doesn’t show, like the location of a shoot or who took it.

Step 3: Group photos with smart collections

Create smart collections for the kinds of photo you need to find as a set. Useful ones include receipts, whiteboards and slides photographed in meetings, product shots, and a particular subject such as architecture or food. They fill themselves based on content, so new photos that match appear in the collection as they’re backed up.

This separates the practical photos from the personal ones without any manual sorting. Your camera roll can stay as it is on the phone, while the collection of receipts is ready for an expense claim and the whiteboards from last quarter’s workshops are together in one place.

Step 4: Search by subject, color or likeness

Press Cmd+F (Mac) / Ctrl+F (Windows) or click Search and describe the photo: “red bicycle outside a bakery” or “whiteboard with a funnel diagram”. Fabric search covers what’s visually in images as well as text inside them, so a shot of a sign or a document can also be found by its words.

To search by color, paste a HEX code or pick one with the color picker. It helps when matching images to a brand palette, and how to search images by color covers it in more depth.

For a picture you have but want more of, select it and run a similarity search. For images, similarity covers composition, color and subject, which helps find other frames from the same shoot or other references in the same style.

Step 5: Arrange and share sets of photos

Folders, tags, kanban view and canvas are all optional. When a set needs a layout, such as a mood board for a brief, place photos on a canvas alongside notes and links.

To get feedback, share a folder with someone as a commenter. They can draw on an image and attach a comment to the drawing, and you can mark each comment completed once it’s handled. Published links, by contrast, are for viewing and downloading.

Frequently asked questions

Is there an app that organizes photos automatically?

Fabric labels each photo by what’s in it, reads text in the image, extracts colors and suggests tags, and smart collections you create gather photos by content.

Does Fabric put my photos into albums automatically?

No. It labels and summarizes them, and smart collections you set up fill themselves from that. Folders are optional and stay as you arrange them.

Can I search my photos by what’s in them?

Yes. Search covers the visual content of images and any text in them. How to search photos by what’s in them has examples.

Can I find photos by color?

Yes. Paste a HEX code or use the color picker in search.

Can Fabric back up only some of my phone’s photos?

Yes. You can sync all photos or choose specific folders from the device’s photos.

Can I find similar photos to one I already have?

Yes. Select a photo and run a similarity search. For images it considers composition, color and subject.

Can I search text in photos, like a sign or a receipt?

Yes. Text inside images, including photographed text, is searchable.

Which plan do I need?

File uploads are on the free plan, which has storage and file size caps. Connections and transcription need a paid plan. See pricing for details.