PhotoDewey 0.20.0: What's New

Note: Changes for patch 0.20.1 are listed at the bottom of this file.

Hold on to your hats, because this is a colossal update, easily our biggest yet and absolutely packed with exciting new features. Honestly, if we weren't still in beta, this would be a version 5 kind of release. 😉

We're excited to share what's been cooking. Cloud storage, Backup & Restore, Albums and Smart Albums, a crop tool, photo locking, virtual copies, HEIC/HEIF support, a brand-new Camera Import extension, a nice cleanup of the Extensions experience, and a sneak peek at what's coming next. Let's dive in.

Connect to the Cloud

Your photos can now live in the cloud. Connect PhotoDewey to Google Drive, OneDrive, or Dropbox, or any S3 compatible storage if you're running your own setup. Once connected, your cloud storage shows up right in the folder panel alongside your local folders, and you can drag photos straight into it.

The best part? Your photos stay in the cloud, so nothing gets copied down to your PC to clutter your hard drive. You can even edit them right where they are, no downloading needed. And yes, that works even when you're offline. Your edits simply catch up with the cloud next time you're connected.

We'd love to support more providers down the road too. Jottacloud, pCloud, and Box are all on our wish list, so let us know which ones matter most to you. One we can't support for now is iCloud, as Apple doesn't offer a working web interface for us to connect to. We'll keep looking into it and hope to find a way in the future.

A heads-up if you're using Google Drive: because of a limitation on Google's side, PhotoDewey can only see the files it created itself in your PhotoDewey folder. It can't pick up changes you make directly in Google Drive, so if you add, edit, or delete files there yourself, those photos will simply "disappear" from your library. To stay on the safe side, manage your photos through PhotoDewey rather than in Google Drive directly.

One thing to know: cloud connections are still in beta. See the "Note for Beta Users" section below for how to get access.

Backup & Restore

Keeping your settings safe just got a whole lot easier. There's a new Backup tab in Settings where you pick where your backup should go, either to the cloud or to a folder on your own PC, and hit Backup Now. That's it. And if anything ever goes wrong, the new Restore button brings everything right back. Peace of mind, one click away.

One important thing to be clear about: this backs up your settings and library data only, not the image files themselves. Looking after your actual photos is still your own responsibility. That said, if you point your backup at a cloud provider, many of them make it easy to restore your files too, so it's a good place to keep them.

Albums, and Smart Ones Too

You can now group your photos into albums. Great for events, projects, trips, or just anything you want to keep together. Give each album its own colour so they're easy to spot. Albums live in their own panel (hit F8 to open it) and you can export photos straight from there.

But the real star of the show? Smart Albums. Instead of sorting photos by hand, you just tell PhotoDewey what you're after, things like a date range, a particular camera, or certain tags, and the album fills itself in and stays up to date forever. Add new photos that match the rules and they show up automatically. Imagine a "Summer in Italy 2025" album that gathers every shot from your trip, or an "All my drone photos" album that quietly collects every picture from a specific camera, no effort required. Set it once and forget it: your library practically organises itself.

Crop Your Photos

PhotoDewey now has a built-in crop tool. Trim away the edges, straighten up a shot, or zero in on what matters. When you start cropping, the view zooms to fit so you've got room to work, and the handles start nicely inset so they're easy to grab. Changed your mind later? Reopen a cropped photo and you'll see the full original again, ready to re-crop however you like.

Protect Your Photos

Got photos you never want to change by accident? You can now lock them. Locked photos show a clear lock badge on their thumbnail, on the Edits panel, and down in the Loupe view bar, and any edits are blocked until you unlock them. Perfect for keepers you want to leave exactly as they are.

Virtual Copies

Here's a great one for anyone who likes to experiment. You can now make virtual copies of a photo. Want a black-and-white version alongside the colour one, or two different crops of the same shot? Create a virtual copy and edit it however you like. Each copy keeps its own edits and metadata, but they all share the one original file on disk, so you get as many versions as you want without filling up your hard drive.

Copies of the same photo are neatly stacked together in your gallery, so things stay tidy. Expand a stack to see every version, drag them to reorder, and right-click any copy to Make Primary when you want a different version to be the one on top. Try it out!

New Extension: Camera Import

Getting photos off your camera just got a whole lot simpler. The new Camera Import extension lets you transfer images straight from a camera connected over USB, no card readers or fiddling with files needed. Plug in your camera, and PhotoDewey picks it up automatically. You'll see everything that's on it, pick the shots you want, and bring them right into your library. It works with most USB connected cameras, as well as phones and other devices that show up as a camera. Find it in the Extensions shop!

Now Reading HEIC & HEIF

PhotoDewey now opens HEIC and HEIF photos right out of the box. That's the modern, space-saving format your iPhone and many newer cameras use, so all those photos you couldn't view before just work now, no converting needed. They show up in your gallery, open in the Loupe, and can be edited and exported just like any other photo.

Coming Soon: Offline Photos

Here's a sneak peek at what's next. A new Offline Photos extension is on its way. Do you have a drawer full of SD cards and USB sticks, each with photos on them, and no idea what's where? Soon PhotoDewey will sort that out for you. It will keep track of all your external devices and give you a full overview of what's stored on each of them, even when they're sitting in the drawer. You'll be able to filter your library to show all photos, only photos you can access right now, or only the offline ones. And of course, you can even edit your offline photos. Your edits are applied the next time you plug the device in. Keep an eye on the Extensions shop!

Improvements

Extensions got a big cleanup this release. The old Plugin Manager and the Extension Shop are now one single place, simply called Extensions. It's easier to navigate, shows you clearly what's installed or disabled, and flags anything that couldn't load so you can remove it without digging around. And the best part: your extensions now update themselves to the newest version automatically, so you always have the latest and greatest without lifting a finger.

Big folders open fast. We've reworked how the gallery loads, so even folders packed with thousands of photos now open quickly and scroll smoothly.

A few smaller touches: the per-photo Extensions tab is now called Edits, the bottom strip shows a handy rotating carousel of system messages, and in the Delete dialog "Remove from PhotoDewey" is now simply called Ignore to make what it does clearer.

Fixes

We've also polished things under the hood. The app's automatic updates now work much more smoothly, so getting new versions of PhotoDewey is more reliable than ever.

The dark theme has received a complete overhaul and looks better than ever. And new in this release: PhotoDewey can now follow your Windows theme setting, so it switches between light and dark right along with the rest of your PC.

We've also smoothed out the histogram so it no longer shows odd comb-like spikes, and fixed a couple of Loupe view annoyances: the Ctrl-X shortcut now works reliably, and the image no longer blinks when you toggle edit visibility in the history.

Note for Beta Users

The new cloud connections are still in beta, so access is by invitation. Just enter the email address of your Google account in the new Beta Program tab in Settings, and we'll open the door for you. It can take a little while before your account is approved, so thanks for your patience!

That's 0.20.0. As always, let us know what you think!

0.20.1 Patch Update

• Fixed a bug in virtual copies.