Library Setup

Tonfotos is a photo cataloging tool that helps you organize your photo library by indexing images across various locations, including cloud storages, external drives, network drives, and local devices. The program doesn't actually store your photos. Instead, it helps you find them by keeping track of where they are saved. Think of it like a personal search tool for your photo collection.

Library indexing and scanning

Tonfotos keeps its database up-to-date by scanning your library regularly. These scans let the application group photos by date and location and ensure searches stay accurate.

When you add a new library location, Tonfotos performs a full indexing. It reads each file, checks metadata, creates thumbnails, and runs face recognition. This initial indexing can take time, especially for large libraries, but you can see an estimated time and progress in the status bar (see the bottom left of the application window).

After the first pass, Tonfotos scans regularly for changes. These follow-up scans are much faster, usually taking seconds to minutes. If the scan detects new or modified files, those files are indexed again.

Rescanning a folder

You may want to scan a particular folder immediately, for example, because you added a new subfolder and want to see the photos right now.

To start scanning a folder immediately, right-click it in the left pane and select Rescan folder. That folder will have priority, ensuring it gets scanned before everything else. Scanning time depends on the amount of changes; if nothing changed, scanning may finish before you even notice the scanning notification in the status bar.

Re-indexing files

In the rare cases when file information was read incorrectly, you may want to request re-adding the file to the Tonfotos database. To do so, right-click the selected files and choose Re-index file(s). Tonfotos will remove the files from its database and index them again, reading all the file information afresh.

Library locations

Tonfotos can track several library locations. Each library location is a folder with photos and subfolders. The folder may be on an internal or external hard drive, in cloud storage such as iCloud or OneDrive, or on a shared network drive.

Adding a new location

1. On Windows: Select File > Library Locations or press AltShiftL.
   On macOS: Select Tonfotos > Library Locations from the menu bar or press OptionShiftL.
2. In the Manage photo library locations dialog, click Add location... or click in the bottom left and browse to the folder.

3. Change the settings if necessary:
   • Recognize faces (on by default): Tonfotos will search the photos for people's faces and prompt you to name them. Turn this setting off if:
     • There are no people in the photos, for example, because they are drawings or documents.
     • You want to index the location quickly, review and delete unnecessary files, and enable face recognition later.
   • Scan video files (on by default): Adds videos to your library. This takes more time than indexing only photos, so consider turning it off if you only need still images.
   • Scan RAW files (on by default): Includes RAW format files alongside other common image formats.
   • Store dossier of people: Saves personal profile data—such as relationships, connections, dates, and other information—in a separate data file.
   • Store faces in image metadata: Writes face locations and names into the XMP metadata of images.
4. Click Done.

Tonfotos starts indexing the new folder immediately.

Location stats

To see the current library locations, go to the same Manage photo library locations dialog. For each location, you can see its size, the number of files, and the date of the last scan 1. The stats will be accurate after indexing is completed.

Excluding folders from the library

After adding a library location, you may decide that some of the folders don't fit into your photo library. For example, you might exclude folders containing system files, temporary exports, or documents unrelated to your photo collection.

To exclude the folders you don't need:

1. Go to the Folders tab.
2. In the left pane, right-click the subfolder you want to exclude.
3. Click Stop indexing "<subfolder-name>".
4. Tonfotos will ask you to confirm. Click Hide folder.

To return an excluded folder to the library location:

1. Go to the Manage photo library locations dialog again. Next to the location stats, see an Ignored folders: section. This section lists all folders that you excluded.
2. Click next to the name of the folder to restore it 2.

Tonfotos will pick up the information from .tonfotos.ini and re-index the folder.

Offline mode

When you add a folder on an external drive to library locations, Tonfotos indexes it as usual. If the external drive gets disconnected later, you can still see some of the info about the location, as of the last time it was online:

• The location is visible in the Folders tab, in a slightly dimmed color to show it isn't available.
• The image thumbnails are available.
• The location stats are shown.
• For each photo:
  • The people in the photo.
  • The duplicates of the photo in other locations.

The additional metadata for photos isn't available. Of course, you can't view the full photos while the location is disconnected.

When the external location gets connected again, Tonfotos will pick it up smoothly even if the drive letter changes.

If you do experience problems reconnecting to an external location, click the Set new location... link 3 and browse to where the folder is now located.

Renaming a location

If you need to rename a location, remove the location, rename the folder outside Tonfotos, and add the renamed folder as a new location. Re-indexing it will take less time thanks to the .tonfotos.ini data files in each subfolder.

You can freely rename any subfolders within a location, though.

Removing a location

If you no longer need Tonfotos to index a folder, you can remove that folder entirely from library locations. This ensures Tonfotos doesn't keep scanning it in the future.

To do so:

1. Go to the Folders tab, right-click the location name, then select Remove <location name> from the library.
   Or go to the Manage photo library locations dialog, select the location, then click in the bottom left.
2. Tonfotos will ask you to confirm. Click Delete.

Where Tonfotos stores its data

Tonfotos uses an internal database that acts as a cache for faster access to the information about your photos and their contents, including image and video thumbnails.

With Tonfotos, users can edit image metadata such as tags, captions, and GPS locations, link faces to individuals, and organize images and videos into albums. Please note that any modifications made to the metadata are saved directly within the image files, meaning that the files ares altered during the editing process. However, this editing only affects image metadata, the image itself does not get re-compressed, so this is completely safe.

By default, unless the Store faces in image metadata option is enabled, Tonfotos only stores information about recognized faces and their associations with individuals in .tonfotos.ini files, which are located in the same folders as the photos.

To store additional information about individuals, such as family relationships, please enable the Store dossier of people option for one of the designated Library locations. This creates a people.tnfp file in the main folder of the selected location.

Multi-user collaboration

Tonfotos makes it easy for multiple users to work on the same photo library in near real-time, with no cloud service required. If the library is on a shared network, everyone can tag faces, edit metadata, and make other changes simultaneously. Tonfotos saves these updates automatically and synchronizes them with other application instances so that the other users can see them too.

If two people make conflicting changes, Tonfotos keeps the most recent update, ensuring the library stays consistent.