System Requirements

On a recommended computer, a library of 20,000 photos opens in seconds and scrolls smoothly. The first Contextual Search scan runs in the background and takes about half an hour. With a graphics card, writing a short description for every photo takes about an hour and a half; without one it takes most of a working day, which is why descriptions are optional and run quietly while you do other things.

On a minimum computer, everything works, but expect scans to take several hours, big libraries to stutter now and then while scrolling, and the computer to feel busier while Pluto prepares your photos. A hard disk as the main drive makes this noticeably worse.

Timings were measured on a 2019 six-core desktop with a graphics card. Thin laptops usually run slower than a desktop of the same age.

Pluto Photos will usually install on these, but it will be a frustrating experience, so please do not buy it for them:

• Computers from before about 2018, even if they run Windows 11
• Dual-core processors, and entry-level Intel Celeron, Pentium and Atom chips
• 4 GB of memory
• A hard disk (not an SSD) as the main drive
• Tablets and thin 2-in-1s with entry-level processors

Not sure? Start with the free 30-day trial on your own computer before you buy. Import a few thousand photos and see how long a scan takes: it is the best test there is. The download page has everything you need.

Windows: Windows 10 or Windows 11, 64-bit. Installed with a standard installer.

macOS: macOS 12 (Monterey) or later, on Apple Silicon (M1 or later) only. Pluto Photos does not ship an Intel build: Apple stopped selling Intel Macs in 2023, and the AI features are built for Apple Silicon.

Linux: a current 64-bit distribution (tested on Ubuntu 24.04), as a .deb package for Ubuntu, Debian and Mint or an AppImage for everything else.

Everything in Pluto Photos works without a graphics card: face detection, contextual search, background removal and the click-to-select step of object removal all run on the processor, which is why the processor matters most.

A graphics card helps in two optional places:

• Photo descriptions (Windows): the extra engine Pluto downloads on Windows writes descriptions about 8 times faster on a dedicated NVIDIA or AMD graphics card. Integrated graphics are not faster than the processor, so Pluto does not use them for this.
• Object Removal: the model that rebuilds the background is large. It runs best on a Windows PC with a graphics card with 6 GB or more of video memory, or on an Apple Silicon Mac with 16 GB of memory. On a computer without one it is much slower, and on Linux it runs on the processor. It is a separate download, fetched only if you use the tool.

Pluto Photos and its AI model files take roughly 2.5 GB on Windows and 1.5 GB on Mac and Linux. The models are downloaded once, after installation. The object-removal model is a further 2.6 GB, downloaded only if you use that tool. On top of that, thumbnails and the library database take about 1 GB for every 20,000 photos. Your photos stay where they are.

Pluto Photos is built and tested against libraries in the tens of thousands of photos and videos. For libraries of 50,000 photos or more, use the recommended specifications: 16 GB of memory and an SSD make the biggest difference. Import reads each file once, which matters most on a slower disk such as an external hard drive.

Not required for day-to-day use: see the offline photo organizer page for what that covers. A connection is needed to download the app, to download the AI model files on first run, and to activate a Pro license.