PhotoFS
Your photos as files
Only for Mac
$2.99
Mac
Your whole Photos library as ordinary files in other apps. Read-only, always in sync, and iCloud photos download the moment you open them.
PhotoFS puts your Photos library on your Mac as a disk. It appears beside your other drives, and every photo and video in it is an ordinary file that any app can open, copy or read, without exporting anything first. This is really useful if you use images in Python or other scripts.
FOLDERS YOU ALREADY KNOW
• By date: every photo in a folder for its year and month.
• By album: your albums and the folders you arranged them in, exactly as they are in Photos, including smart albums such as Favorites.
• Edited photos appear as you edited them, and the untouched original sits in an "original" folder beside them.
ALWAYS IN SYNC
Import, edit, favorite or reorganize in Photos and the disk follows within moments, without remounting. Filenames stay the same from one day to the next, so scripts, bookmarks and backups keep working.
ICLOUD PHOTOS, ON DEMAND
If you use Optimize Mac Storage, photos stored in iCloud still appear on the disk, marked as not downloaded. Open one and PhotoFS fetches it for you. A progress bar appears under the file, the menu bar shows what is downloading, and a notification lets you know when a large video is taking a while. Downloaded files are kept in a cache so opening them again is instant. You can turn downloading off at any time to work only with what is already on your Mac.
MADE FOR THE TOOLS YOU USE
• Drag photos into, or open them straight from any app.
• Search and script with the terminal, rsync, ffmpeg, exiftool or your own code.
• Back up with rsync or any copy tool. An original that appears in several albums is the same file every time, so it is copied and counted once.
• A metadata file lists every photo with its date, size, dimensions, favorite status, rating, caption, keywords, albums and path, one line each, ready for scripts and spreadsheets.
• Choose any photo on the disk and use Open in Photos to jump straight to it in the Photos app.
SAFE BY DESIGN
PhotoFS never changes your library. The disk is read-only, so nothing can be edited, moved or deleted through it, and your Photos library is only ever read. Spotlight is kept away from it, so mounting does not start a reindex of your whole collection.
A QUIET MENU BAR APP
PhotoFS lives in the menu bar. It can mount the disk automatically and open at login, so your library is simply there whenever you need it.
BUILT ON FSKIT
The disk is a real file system, built on FSKit, Apple's framework for file systems that run as app extensions, using the latest FSKit in macOS 27. There is no kernel extension to install and nothing to approve in Recovery: the file system runs as a sandboxed extension inside the app, which you switch on in System Settings. The menu bar app reads your library through Apple's Photos framework and hands the file system what to show, and downloads from iCloud when you open a photo.
GETTING STARTED
1. Allow PhotoFS to access your photos.
2. Turn on PhotoFS in System Settings › General › Login Items & Extensions › File System Extensions.
3. Choose the folder that contains your Photos library, usually your Pictures folder.
4. PhotoFS builds its index once, then keeps it current as your library changes.
Requires macOS 27 or later.
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The developer, Terminal Velocity, indicated that the app’s privacy practices may include handling of data as described below. For more information, see the developer’s privacy policy .
Data Not Collected
The developer does not collect any data from this app.
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Information
- Seller
- Terminal Velocity Ltd
- Size
- 3.6 MB
- Category
- Photo & Video
- Compatibility
Requires macOS 27.0 or later and a Mac with Apple M1 chip or later.
- Mac
Requires macOS 27.0 or later and a Mac with Apple M1 chip or later.
- Mac
- Languages
- English
- Age Rating
4+
- 4+
- Copyright
- © Terminal Velocity Ltd
