PowerPhotos 2.0 public beta now available

I’m excited to announce that a public beta of the next major release of PowerPhotos, version 2.0, is now available for people to try out. This new update has been a long time coming and has a bunch of major new features. Given the larger than normal amount of change, I’d like to put it through a more limited beta release for a little while to work out the kinks before releasing the final version.

Version 2.0 introduces a number of new features, outlined below, and the public beta can be downloaded by anybody interested in testing it out. This is beta software and may contain bugs. It is highly recommended you back up your photo libraries before trying the PowerPhotos 2.0 beta

Download and installation

You can download the PowerPhotos 2.0 beta to your Mac running macOS Big Sur (11.0) or later. If you already have PowerPhotos 1.x on your machine, it’s OK to have both installed on your machine and switch back and forth between them.

Licensing/upgrading

PowerPhotos 2.0 will be a paid upgrade for existing PowerPhotos/iPhoto Library Manager users. The PowerPhotos beta is free to download, but a license is still required to use PowerPhotos advanced features such as merging, copying, deleting duplicates, and (new!) exporting. If you already have a PowerPhotos 1.x or iPhoto Library Manager 4.x license, those will work with the PowerPhotos 2.0 beta as well.

If you purchase a new PowerPhotos license now (i.e. on or after April 6, 2022) that license will automatically be usable with PowerPhotos 2.0 once the final release comes out. Anybody with a PowerPhotos 1.x or any iPhoto Library Manager license from a prior date will be able to purchase PowerPhotos 2.0 for a special upgrade price once the final release is out.

Support and feedback

If you encounter any problem or have other feedback while using the PowerPhotos 2.0 beta, please select the “Contact Support” menu item from the Help menu while running PowerPhotos. This will allow you to send logs and other information that will help troubleshoot whatever problem you may be having.

New features

• Full iCloud Photos support: If you use iCloud Photos, PowerPhotos 1.x was only able to see photos in your library that had already been downloaded to your local hard drive. For users with the “Optimize Mac Storage” option enabled, this could mean a significant portion of your iCloud library would not be visible to PowerPhotos. In PowerPhotos 2.0, it can now see and work with any photos in your iCloud photo library, and will automatically download any photos from iCloud as needed.
• Advanced exporting: Photos has an export command, but it is fairly limited in what it can provide. PowerPhotos 2.0 has a new, more fully featured export function with options such as:
  • Export as a flat folder or as a folder hierarchy in the Finder that mimics your album hierarchy
  • Export unmodified photos, or as JPG, PNG, HEIF, or TIFF of different sizes
  • Include captions, dates, keywords, and titles in EXIF metadata
  • Retain or strip location metadata
  • Optionally include videos from Live Photos and all photos from a burst
  • Set Finder creation/modification dates to the photo’s EXIF date
  • Video export support as H.264 or H.265
• Global menu bar item: Get fast access to your libraries via a global item in your menu bar even when PowerPhotos itself isn’t running.
• Library groups: For those with lots of libraries, you can now organize your libraries into groups in the PowerPhotos sidebar.
• Multiple windows: You can now open each library in a separate window in PowerPhotos, allowing for easier comparison between libraries, and dragging and dropping photos/albums between libraries.
• New duplicate search engine: PowerPhotos 2.0 uses a new duplicate comparison algorithm that can find more duplicate photos which are not quite 100% identical, such as scaled down copies of photos, photos that have been resaved in a different format or with different compression, and even photos with minor edits applied to them.
• Faster library loading: PowerPhotos 2.0 has rewritten a bunch of its internals to load your library much faster than PowerPhotos 1.0.

Screenshots