The Pluto Photos Team
Makers of Pluto Photos
Pluto Photos started because one of us had about 80,000 photos scattered across five drives, a couple of phones, some SD cards, and a few Google Takeout exports. They all ended up in a folder called "Unsorted" that nobody wanted to deal with. We looked for an app that could at least sort the duplicates from the originals. Nothing did. So we built one.
We're still a small team, and we still write about the same kind of problem: the parts of managing a big photo library that are more work than people expect. Getting face search to run fast on a normal computer instead of a server somewhere. Reading the JSON files Google buries your photo dates in. Making a first import actually finish without taking all day.
Articles by The Pluto Photos Team
- Google Photos Takeout Helper: What It Does and the Alternatives
What the free Google Photos Takeout Helper does, where it falls short, and how its Neo fork, immich-go and Pluto Photos compare.
- Google Takeout Photos Missing Metadata? Causes and Fixes
Google Takeout photos with wrong dates, no location or missing files? Find your symptom, the cause and the fix.
- How to Install Pluto Photos on Linux
Pluto Photos ships for Linux as a .deb and an AppImage. Here is which one to pick, the exact commands for Ubuntu, Debian and Mint, and what happens on first launch.
- How to Redact a Photo Before You Send It
A lawyer forwarding a contract, an agent emailing a listing, a parent posting a birthday photo. All three have the same problem: part of the picture should not leave the building. Here is how to redact just that part, and why cropping or painting over it in an editor is not actually enough.
- Multicam, Sequences, and an Edit That Survives a Moved Drive
Pluto Photos v2.4.10 rebuilds the video editor for longer projects: multicam angles that sync themselves from audio, several sequences in one project, nested sequences, hand-drawn keyframe curves, and media relink.
- Vectors, Smart Objects, and Output You Can Send to a Printer
The Pluto Photos image editor gains a vector pen tool, non-destructive smart objects, CMYK soft proofing against a real printer profile, spot inks, and press-ready PDF/X export.
- What Are Google Takeout JSON Files?
Every Google Takeout photo has a JSON file beside it holding its real date and location. Here is what is inside, and why not to delete them yet.
- How to Remove Duplicate Photos Safely
How to remove duplicate photos without deleting the wrong copy: exact vs near matches, a keeper rule, and four look-alikes that are not duplicates.
- How AI Photo Search Works
Searching photos for "dog on a beach" without anyone ever tagging them is not magic and it is not a cloud service. Here is the actual mechanism, and why a model small enough to ship in an app can do it on your CPU.
- How to Organize 100,000 Photos
A library that large breaks the habits that work at 2,000 photos. Here is the order to run Pluto Photos in so the first pass finishes and the rest sorts itself.
- How to Organize Photos on an External Hard Drive
External drives are where big photo libraries actually live. Here is how to set one up so Pluto Photos indexes it fast and keeps working when the drive is unplugged.
- How to Organize Photos Without the Cloud
You can have search, face grouping, albums and a map without a subscription or an upload. Here is what Pluto Photos needs from you to make a fully local library work, and the one job it genuinely makes harder.
- How to Organize Photos on Windows
Windows gives you Explorer and the Photos app, and neither is built for fifteen years of photos across three drives. Here is how to set up Pluto Photos on top of what Windows already does well.
- Best Photo Management Apps in 2026 (Free & Paid)
A practical comparison of the best photo management apps for 2026, including local desktop tools, self-hosted servers, and cloud services. What to pick if you actually want to keep your library.
- The Best Offline AI Photo Editor in 2026
Most AI photo editors upload your images to a server. These local AI photo and image editors run fully offline, and some are free. Compared side by side.
- Best Self-Hosted Photo Management in 2026
A practical guide to self-hosted photo management options in 2026: Pluto Photos, Immich, PhotoPrism, and others. What to run on your NAS, what to skip.
- Google Takeout Organizer: How to Actually Use Your Exported Photos
Google Takeout dumps your photos into a chaotic mess of dated folders and JSON sidecars. Here's exactly how to turn that export into a working, correctly-dated photo library.
- Remove Background from Product Images: Photoshop vs Online Tools vs AI in 2026
Comparing the three real options for removing backgrounds from product images in 2026. Photoshop, online tools like remove.bg, and local AI like Pluto Photos. With cost math.
- Cinematic Video Effects, Green Screen, and a Pro-Grade Image Editor: All in One App
Pluto Photos v2.3.14 adds letterbox bars, film grain, LUT color grading, chroma key, and a full photo editor with tone curves, HSL, portrait blur, and more.
- Pluto Photos Now Has a Video Editor
We just shipped a full multi-clip video editor inside Pluto Photos, timeline, transitions, audio overlays, color grading, and export. Here's what it does.
- I Had 6,000 Duplicate Photos. Here's How I Found Them.
After years of importing photos from multiple devices, I ran a duplicate scan and found 6,000 wasted files. Not all of them had identical filenames.
- The Simplest Way to Get Photos Off Your Phone and Into a Real Library
Phone storage full? Move photos from your iPhone or Android to your computer, keep them organized, and stop worrying about space. No cloud subscription.
- The Tagging System I Use to Actually Find My Photos
After trying five different organizational systems, here's the one that stuck: a simple tagging approach that makes any photo findable in seconds.
- Why Your Google Takeout Dates Are Wrong (And How to Fix Them)
Google Takeout dates wrong? The real dates sit in JSON files, not the photos. Here is why photos get the wrong date, and how to restore your timeline.
- Running Pluto Photos on Your NAS with Docker
A guide to self-hosting Pluto Photos as a Docker container on your NAS or home server — no desktop app required.
- I Left Google Photos. Here's How I Did It Without Losing Anything.
A walkthrough of exporting from Google Photos via Takeout and actually keeping all your dates, locations, and albums intact in a local photo manager.
- I Had 80,000 Photos in a Folder Called "Unsorted." So I Built an App.
The story behind Pluto Photos: why I quit using cloud services, what made me start building my own photo manager, and the mistakes I made along the way.