Find any photo in a big archive without keywording it first

The request never mentions the date

A client asks for the shot of the chef laughing by the window from a shoot two years ago. An editor wants anything you have of a red bicycle against a white wall. You want the frame with the handwritten menu board for your portfolio. Each request describes what is in the picture, and your archive is organized by when it was taken.

Keywording fixes this, and it is also the most skipped job in photography. It is slow, it has to happen after every shoot, and the words you choose today may not be the ones you search for later.

How photographers find old shots

Local AI search sits between these: it understands what is in each photo without tags, and runs on your own computer.

It is not a replacement for your catalog. Ratings, edits and delivery still live in your photo editor. Search is for the moment you need to find a frame the catalog was never told about.

• Catalog keywords and collections. Precise and portable when kept up. The gaps are the years you didn't.
• Cloud photo services with AI search. Often good at finding things, but they work on what you upload, and client work may not be yours to upload.
• Scrolling by date. Works if you remember roughly when. Slow when you don't.

Four ways to search a photo

MediaFind indexes JPG, PNG, HEIC, WebP, GIF, TIFF and BMP files on your computer. Once a folder is added, a photo can be found by:

• Scene and objects: “chef laughing next to a window,” “red bicycle against a white wall.”
• Text in the picture: a sign, a menu board, a race bib or a banner. See searching photos by the text in them.
• Color: frames dominated by a palette, useful for building a set that hangs together.
• A sample image: drop in a reference and get visually similar photos. See reverse image search for your library.

Working with RAW files: PhotoFind

MediaFind does not read camera RAW files. If your archive is mostly RAW, look at PhotoFind, a free app from the same family that reads RAW, points at the folders you already have instead of importing them, and can write picks back as XMP sidecars Lightroom reads. Check its page for current limits.

MediaFind is the better fit when photos live next to video and audio, as they do for hybrid shooters and event photographers who also film. One search then covers stills, video frames and what was said in the footage. Export JPEGs from your RAW editor if you want the finished images searchable here.

Culling and people (partly Pro)

Exact duplicates, such as the same export saved twice, are found for free. With Pro, smart cleanup adds near-duplicates and blurry or low-quality images with a keeper suggestion, and nothing is deleted until you approve it from a reversible quarantine.

With Pro, People and Faces groups faces so you can click a person and see every photo they are in. It runs on-device, and can be switched off with all face data deleted in one click. Face data about clients and the public is personal data, so use it where your agreements allow.

Client work stays on your drives

Nothing is uploaded to index or search your photos, and there is no account. That matters for unreleased commercial work, private portrait sessions and anything under a usage agreement. Tags and saved searches are free; Pro collections group photos into nested folders of your own.

Frequently asked questions

Does MediaFind read RAW files?

No. It reads JPG, PNG, HEIC, WebP, GIF, TIFF and BMP. For RAW archives, the free PhotoFind app from the same family reads RAW natively.

Do I need to keyword my photos first?

No. Photos are searchable by scene and objects, by text in them, by color or with a sample image, without any tags.

Can I find every photo of one person?

With Pro, People and Faces lets you click a face and see every photo it appears in. It runs on-device and can be switched off, with all face data deleted, in one click.

Are my photos uploaded to be analyzed?

No. Indexing and search run on your computer. After the one-time model download it works offline.