Mylio Photos Review

If your photos are scattered across devices and cloud accounts, and you’re still dreaming of an easy way to gather all of them into one convenient place, Mylio Photos might be just what you’ve been waiting for.

Mylio is primarily a photo-organizing app, but it goes beyond that by also helping you manage videos, documents, and other media types. With Mylio, you can finally bring your entire collection together into a single, seamless library that’s easy to use and always within reach.

What makes Mylio so appealing is how it balances powerful features with an everyday user in mind. When you launch it for the first time, you’ll feel like you’re using a photo app unlike any other. Its interface is clean and inviting, with larger fonts, thoughtfully designed layouts, and helpful tips that initially pop up along the way to guide you through the process. This hand-holding approach is perfect for new users and ensures you’re never overwhelmed as you get started.

At the same time, it’s advanced enough to offer tools like facial recognition tagging, automated backups, and plenty of places to save all the important details about your family photos. And because Mylio works across all your devices — desktops, laptops, tablets, and phones — whether you’re on Windows, macOS, iOS, or Android, you can not only view your photos but also organize and edit them wherever you are.

I won’t pretend Mylio is perfect; there are a few quirks and limitations I discovered I hope they address in future updates. That said, it’s the first application I’ve found with this many “advanced” features that genuinely delivers on its promise of keeping my media organized and accessible across devices. The fact that I can use the same tools on my phone as I can on my desktop makes it stand out from anything else I’ve tried.

In this review, I’ll share everything I’ve learned while trying out this application in an easy-to-understand way so you can see its unique qualities and benefits and decide whether it might be the right fit for you.

Starting Out — Bringing Your Photos Into Mylio

You’ll find that Mylio does an impressive job of organizing your photo collection, no matter where your images are stored. Whether your photos are scattered across your computer, external drives, or cloud services, Mylio offers flexible ways to gather everything into one organized space.

After installing Mylio, the first step is to bring your photos into the program. Mylio’s team understands that everyone has different levels of tech skills, and we all currently have our photos stored in different ways. To make things easier, they’ve provided several options to help you get started.

Whenever you click “Add Media“ — whether you’re starting in Mylio or even later when you have additional photos you’d like in your collection — a helpful window will appear with the following question: “What would you like to do?“

Here, you’ll see three options:

• Add media accessible from this device (for photos stored on your computer or attached drives)
• Add media from an online service (like cloud storage)
• Add media from Photos for macOS, iPhoto, or Aperture (if you’re in Windows, you’ll see options for apps like Microsoft Photos instead)

If you’re unsure which option to choose, you can click the fourth option, “Guided Import.” This will guide you step-by-step to help you decide what’s best for your needs.

For most people, the first option — Add media accessible from this device — is what you will use the most. This covers photos stored on your computer, external drives, or other storage devices you connect directly. After selecting it, and then choosing a folder of photos or a storage drive, a new window appears asking: How do you want to get these photos into Mylio Photos?

Understanding the options here will help you feel confident about how your photos are stored. Let’s break them down:

Copy Them

When you choose Copy them, Mylio creates a new version of the selected folder and adds it to your Mylio Photos Library. This keeps the original files in their current location while making a copy in Mylio.

If you’re unsure what’s best and want a simple solution, copying is a safe choice — especially if you have enough space on your computer. By default, Mylio saves these copies in a folder called Mylio within your main user folder (e.g., /Users/yourname/Mylio). But if you prefer, you can choose a different location for the copied files.

The best part? Mylio doesn’t hide your photos in a maze of folders like some apps. Your files remain accessible in clearly labeled folders, making it easy to find them even when outside the Mylio app.

Move Them

Selecting Move them physically relocates your photos to a new folder in Mylio, removing the originals from their previous location. For example, this option is great if you want to consolidate all your photos into one organized spot and don’t need to keep copies elsewhere.

Link Them

For those who prefer to keep their photos in specific folders on their computer or on specific external storage devices, Mylio offers a feature that lets you link directly to these folders without moving or copying anything. This is ideal if you are running out of space on your computer’s internal storage drive (making the “Copy them” not a viable option) or if you already have an organizing system you like and want Mylio to show your photos exactly as they are.

When you link folders, any changes you make in Mylio — like renaming or editing photos — will automatically update the original files. Moving a photo to another folder in Mylio also moves it in your file system. Everything stays in sync.

Linked folders also act as “watch folders.” If you add new photos to a linked folder outside of Mylio, they’ll automatically appear in Mylio the next time you open the app. This applies to all subfolders, too, so you don’t have to worry about missing anything. It’s a hands-free way to keep everything up to date.

Mylio Inbox

This isn’t part of the “Add media” process, but the Mylio Inbox is a handy feature they’ve added for when you’re working outside of Mylio and want a quick, hassle-free way to add photos or documents to Mylio without worrying about where to store them in your library right away. Think of it as a temporary holding area for new files.

Here’s how it works: When you drag and drop files into the “Mylio Inbox” folder on your computer or other device, Mylio will automatically detect and add them the next time you launch the app. The files will remain in the Inbox until you’re ready to organize them in your library.

This is especially useful if you’re in a rush or just don’t have time to decide where the files should go. Like linked folders, the Inbox feature keeps everything simple and flexible, letting you focus on your work without interrupting your flow.

The Interface — Working in Mylio With Your Photos

The Mylio interface appears quite minimal. However, as I discovered its capabilities, I found it to be surprisingly clean and free of clutter. All of the main controls are identified by simple and classic-looking line icons that fill parts of the slim lined-off edges of the left, top, and tight edges of the application window.

It’s actually a bit of a shock to see the interface for the first time if you’re someone who has spent a lot of time working in various professional photo applications in the past. Most of these applications seem to take pride in cramming many features into the interface so that a professional has quick access to the expected and often required functionality. When you first launch Mylio Photos, it’s understandable if you think, “This app can’t have many features; it looks too simple and basic.” I felt this way, at least at first.

The entire interface is dark. It’s not completely black, but it seems to unapologetically use a full range of grays to accomdate the black, with white being the standout contrasting “color” to make the feature icons and text stand out. Arguably, photos definitely “pop” more when sitting against a darker background, so I understand why they went in this direction. At least at the time, there isn’t an option to change the look if you’re one who prefers working a more cheery and bright “light” mode. 

Photo Views and Settings

On the left side, the vertical column of icons, arranged from top to bottom, represents a couple of navigation controls, search, and multiple ways to view your photos in Mylio, and a few at the very bottom provide access to the various application settings. 

Beginners in photo organization or those new to Mylio might find it a bit confusing that there are no text labels below each icon to let you know what each one is for. However, desktop users can hover over each icon, and a text label will appear explaining its function. Personally, I discovered that after a short time using Mylio, I could remember the purpose of each icon just by looking at them.

Unlike some popular photo managers, where you need to remember and understand where on your computer all of your photos are stored, which storage drives and in which specific file folders, etc., just so you can find them inside the application just to look at them, Mylio takes a different approach and lets you choose and use your photos the way it works best for you… the way you think.

All Photos

Regardless of which folders, drives, etc. you’ve told Mylio to bring photos (and other files) in from, the All Photos view will show you every photo, video, and document in your Mylio Photos Library. It’s like a big wall of photos, similar to what we are all used to now in the stock Photos application on our smartphones.

Calendar

The Calendar view arranges your library according to the dates photos were taken, presenting them in a calendar format. It can also showcase significant events from your life and allow direct access to the photos and videos related to those events.

Map

The Map view arranges photos according to their original locations and presents them on a world map. Mylio Photos automatically handles this for images that contain GPS metadata.

People

The People view organizes your library by identifying individuals in your photos, automatically generating smart collections for each tagged person. When you tag individuals, Mylio Photos’ facial recognition assists in tagging them in future images.

Albums

The Albums view enables you to organize and group photos without changing their location on your hard drive. Think of albums as virtual storage spots, similar to playlists for your pictures. A single photo can belong to several albums at once.

Folders

The Folders view illustrates the organization of your folders on your computer’s internal storage drive, external storage drives, and other devices where your media is stored.

Working with Folders: Your Photos, Your Way

The Folder view in Mylio lets you see and interact with your photos exactly how they are stored on your storage drives. If you’re already familiar with organizing files into folders — perhaps using tools like Adobe Bridge for your photos — you’ll feel right at home here.

For those less familiar, think of folders as virtual boxes where you can group similar photos, like “Vacations,” “Family Events,” or “Old Scans.” You’re free to organize your photos in a way that makes sense to you, whether that’s by event, date, or any other system you prefer. Mylio’s flexibility allows you to use the Folders view to set up, reorganize, or refine your photo collection.

One of my favorite aspects of this view is how Mylio constantly mirrors the folder structure of your actual storage drives. When you move photos between folders in Mylio, the original photo file also moves to the new folder on your hard drive or external drive. This keeps everything consistent and avoids confusion.

This direct connection between Mylio and your storage drives can be a powerful feature. For me, this setup makes managing my collection simple and intuitive while still giving me the feeling that I am in full control over how my photos are organized.

Adding Details About Your Photos (Metadata)

When you click the “Info” button to open the Information panel on the right, you’ll find everything you need to read and add details about your photos. Some people justifiably like to think of metadata as the WHO, WHAT, WHEN, WHERE, and WHY of your pictures. These bits of information are essential for helping family and friends in the future understand the story and significance of each photo.

At the top of the Info panel, you can enable Ratings (1–5 stars), Labels (red, yellow, green, blue, and purple), and Flags (unflagged, picked, or rejected). I was pleased to see these available as they have become invaluable for many serious people who are organizing their growing photo collections with precision. They provide quick, visual ways to categorize and prioritize your images.

On the right-hand side of the application, below the icons for notifications, devices, and account settings, you’ll find several tabs. The “Info” tab, in particular, is where you’ll spend a lot of your time if you want to add useful details to your photos — especially for your historical photos, like scanned paper prints and film images.

The Info panel begins with a section that automatically displays essential technical details, such as camera make and model, lens used, photo resolution, file size, and file type (if this data is available). After this, you’ll see a variety of fields where you can add or edit information. While techies this as “photo metadata,” you don’t need to be an expert to use it effectively.

A Friendlier Design

One thing you’ll notice right away is the unique design of the information fields. Mylio uses a larger, more readable font and a spacious layout compared to many professional photo applications. They often jam small fonts and tight rows of data onto the screen to fit as much information as possible — especially when it comes to displaying the details of our photos.

It feels like Mylio’s design team initially asked themselves, “Why make it like every other photo app? Why should the font be tiny and hard to read? Let’s make it bigger. Heck, let’s make it big! Let’s give the whole interface a more approachable and less intimidating look and feel.”

If you’re over 40, your aging eyes will likely appreciate how much easier the larger text is to read. However, the tradeoff is that you will need to scroll down more often to see all the information about your photos. It might take you a little time to adjust if you’re coming from another application you use all the time. But I think over time, you’ll probably get used to it, and the more comfortable, less intimidating look may outweigh the extra scrolling.

The Right Metadata Fields for Family Photos

Metadata is the hidden information attached to your photos, like details about when and where the photo was taken or who is in it. There are hundreds of potential metadata fields that have been defined by industry standards, covering everything from camera settings to descriptive labels.

But Mylio has thoughtfully narrowed them down to a practical selection. Initially, I hesitated to agree with their limited choices. However, after reviewing and comparing my preferred metadata fields that I use daily, I realized they successfully included the most essential ones for managing family photos. They simplified our experience by limiting the confusing options to only those endorsed by historical societies.

Nonetheless, experienced users might identify a few more obscure fields they may use that are currently absent. For those with specific metadata requirements, I’ve learned that the developers are planning to enhance the available fields in an upcoming update. In the meantime, for the majority of family historians, the existing selection should adequately meet most needs.

Tailored for Family History

In contrast to certain professional photo applications, I noticed there is no option to rearrange or disable particular information fields that you don’t use or just wish to temporarily hide. 

However, to my surprise and delight, there is a feature called “Family History” that you can enable at any time. When turned on, the information panel consolidates the list down to the most frequently used metadata fields for family historians. These fields utilize industry-standard tags that align with the criteria established by the Family History Metadata Working Group, making them compatible with most genealogical and family history websites, thereby enhancing the discoverability of these files for future generations.

This setting showed me how dedicated the Mylio team is to making Mylio a valuable companion to our family photo projects.

Date Created (“Fuzzy Dates”) — the “When”

Mylio has a unique advantage when it comes to managing the dates and times of your paper prints, slides, and negatives. When you take photos with a digital camera—whether it’s your smartphone, point-and-shoot, or DSLR—the date and time are automatically recorded by the camera in each photo.

However, when it comes to digitizing old family photos, the challenge is that very little information is initially known and saved in the photo by your scanning devices. This is particularly true for the date the photo was originally taken, which is almost always automatically set to the date and time you just scanned the photo, not the actual date of the event — potentially decades earlier.

In nearly every photo management app, you need to manually adjust the date and time for each photo to accurately indicate when it was taken, often down to the exact day and second. While this detail is readily available for new digital photos, many of us typically don’t have such precise information for our older family pictures—unless the original owners did a meticulous job of noting these dates on the backs!

Mylio’s “superpower” with dates lies in its flexibility, allowing you to input whatever amount of information you know about each photo. The creators describe these as “fuzzy” dates, indicating that they are somewhat unclear and missing certain information. This approach makes it easier to preserve your family’s memories accurately by allowing you to add temporary date information to your photos while continuing to work through the stages of your scanning and organizing project. As you investigate and learn more about each and every photo — often with the help of family members who might remember key details — you can update the less accurate dates to more specific ones.

So, for example, if you are looking at a photo and you only know it was shot sometime in January of 1979, but you don’t know the day, underneath the heading for “Date Shown,” you can change it from the full “Timestamp” option to “Month & Year” and then pick “January” and “1979” from the month and year pickers.

Or, maybe you have a series of photos from an event where, at the moment, you only know they were shot in 1983 — but you don’t know which month, and you certainly don’t know which day. However, you can see snow outside the window in a couple of photos, so you can deduce what season it likely was. So, in this case, for these photos, you can choose the “Season & Year” option, and this time, pick “Winter” and “1983” from the season and year pickers.

Additional options are “Timestamp” for when you actually know the exact date and time, “Date Range” to suggest you know this photo is between this start and end date, “All Day” to commit to a date but not enter any portion of the time, “Year” when you know only the year, and “Decade” when you only know the decade and nothing else. And for those photos, when you’re currently not sure about a single aspect of the date it was taken, you are given the unique ability to set it to “Undated.”

Seeing fuzzy dates in the information panel on the right is already incredibly useful, but Mylio takes this further and offers a setting to display “fuzzy” dates alongside actual known dates as annotations on your images while you browse. This innovative feature allows users to quickly glance at their photos and easily assess the status of any missing information for each image. Bravo!

Title and Description (Caption) — the “What” and “Why”

Adding a Title and Description to your photos helps preserve critical information and makes it easier to find specific images later. Both fields are searchable, which is incredibly handy when you’re looking for a particular photo in a large collection.

A detailed caption is one of the most valuable additions to a family photo. It provides the “story” behind the image — context, significance, and details that aren’t immediately apparent. Descriptions can explain who is in the photo (though this isn’t the only way to add names), what’s happening, and why the moment was meaningful. Relatives and friends unfamiliar with the photo will especially appreciate this added context.

Something I definitely find frustrating in Mylio is that while you can type in a long description, the field only shows a limited number of lines once you’re done typing. The rest of your text remains safely saved, but it’s now hidden, making viewing or editing lengthy descriptions more challenging. This description issue, sadly, is one I’ve seen in other photo-organizing apps, as well. I believe that collectively, we should encourage people to include detailed and meaningful descriptions or photos, so I truly hope Mylio addresses this obvious limitation in a future update by allowing the field to auto-expand in height to accommodate any amount of the text saved in the description (caption) field.

Thankfully, there’s a workaround — at least in the desktop version of Mylio. If you have a longer description, you can adjust the width of the Info panel by clicking and dragging the dividing line between the panel and the middle area. Making the info panel wider increases the number of characters visible in the description field.

Keywords

Keywords are another powerful way to organize and quickly find your photos. These are words or phrases you can attach to an image to describe its content or context. For example, you might use keywords like “Christmas,” “Grandma’s House,” or “Vacation.” You can add keywords during import or later, manually, in the Keywords section of the Info panel.

Mylio stores keywords in XMP sidecar files using an industry-standard format. This ensures compatibility with most other photo management software, so your work in Mylio won’t be lost if you decide to use another program in the future. Keywords can also be used in Dynamic Search and QuickFilters, giving you even more ways to locate photos quickly and efficiently.

That said, Mylio’s keyword management system feels a bit basic compared to some other photo managers. It works well for adding keywords but lacks some advanced features that make managing large keyword libraries easier. For example, there currently aren’t options for organizing keywords into hierarchical groups, bulk editing, or quickly removing unused keywords.

The good news is that Mylio is aware of these limitations. I learned from a senior company representative who confirmed that they’re very aware of its current shortcomings and are working on improving the keyword system in a future update. These enhancements should make it much easier to manage as your keyword collection grows.

People Tagging (Facial Recognition) — the “Who”

Identifying and recording the names of individuals in photos is essential for preserving memories for future generations. While we may recognize family and friends in recent photos today, this becomes harder for us all. Accurately tagging people ensures this knowledge isn’t lost as photos are passed down. Mylio tackles this challenge with its facial recognition feature, which many photo organizers offer a variation of — but likely not as seamlessly as Mylio does.

As you add photos to Mylio, it scans each one of them for human faces. Gone are the days of tediously adding people’s names as separate keyword text. Instead, Mylio uses Person Tags, adding names directly to circled overlays you can see on each face in your photos.

How does it work

Initially, each detected face displays a “?” under the person’s face. Clicking on it lets you type the person’s name. Over time, Mylio learns from your entries and suggests names for familiar faces. This way, instead of repeatedly typing the same person’s name, you simply select it from a suggested list, speeding up the process significantly. 

But there’s quite a bit more to this because each name you add links to a contact card within the app. And here’s where It can get really interesting. Let’s say you come across a person who you’re having trouble remembering their entire name, and you label him as “Mark R.” What’s really great is that if you later discover his full name is “Mark Reynolds,” updating his contact card to his full name will automatically update every tagged photo of him!

At first, you’ll be manually naming faces in many photos — a task that might seem daunting if you have thousands of images. Except to me, even more troublesome would be if Mylio was allowed to auto-tag faces, and it inadvertently got a fair portion of them wrong. However, Mylio avoids full auto-tagging, understanding that artificial intelligence isn’t always accurate. This manual process ensures you approve every match, prioritizing accuracy over speed.

Mylio’s solution for efficiency is its Batch Face Tagging feature. After you’ve identified a few faces, Mylio groups other photos with likely matches for you to review. Clicking a person’s name in Batch Face Tagging displays a set of zoomed-in faces it thinks are the same person. If you determine all the matches are correct, one click of “Approve” tags them all. If any of the faces don’t belong to that person, you can reject individual faces, removing them from the batch before you “Approve” the rest.

This compromise provides peace of mind: your tags remain accurate, even if it requires a bit more time upfront. Thankfully, Batch Face Tagging works well, making the process efficient without sacrificing reliability.

You don’t have to tag faces manually or use Batch Face Tagging immediately — or even frequently — as you work with your photo collection. You can take your time and do it whenever you’re ready. Mylio also makes it easy to turn the facial recognition overlay off temporarily, so you won’t see circles and names on top of your photos when you don’t want to. If this feature doesn’t interest you, you can even disable it entirely. That said, most users will likely find it one of the most valuable tools for organizing family photos.

The more you use facial recognition, the more useful your collection becomes — both for future generations and for you right now. For example, being able to select a person you’ve tagged and instantly see all the photos of them in your collection is incredibly powerful and rewarding.

I appreciate the small details as well, for example, how once you start tagging people in photos, you can see small images of their faces lined up, showcasing everyone captured in your photos.

Cross-Application Compatibility

Very impressively, Mylio goes the extra mile by saving face tags in a standardized format — IPTC (Extended) metadata — which can be read by other applications that support this standard. This means your hard work tagging faces isn’t locked inside Mylio. If you ever decide to use a different app or share your photos with someone else, all your facial tagging information travels with the photos.

For the tech-savvy, Mylio doesn’t use outdated metadata keyword fields for face tagging. Instead, it leverages the modern IPTC Extension metadata standard. Specifically, it saves not only the name of the person in each photo but also the X and Y coordinates to pinpoint the exact location of each face in a photo. This level of precision means you’ll always know exactly who is where in a group shot—something traditional keyword tagging simply can’t achieve.

Places: the Location Shown In Photos — the “Where”

In the Places section of the Info Panel, you’ll see fields you can enter in your information about where each of your photos was taken. Most modern cameras automatically add GPS coordinates and location information to photos, making it easy to see where a photo was taken. However, scanned photos and older digital cameras lack this capability, leaving many of your favorite family memories without any location context. With Mylio Photos, you can easily add GPS data, recreating the story of where an image was taken — even decades after it was captured.

Mylio lets you assign a location to one or multiple photos at once. Simply select the photos you want to update, then right-click on the map (or drag and drop them onto the map) to choose the correct location. Mylio automatically fills in detailed location metadata, such as city, state, and country, based on the point you’ve selected on the map. This eliminates the need to manually type out all the location details for every photo, saving you time and effort.

This batch-editing feature is particularly useful when you know several photos were taken in the same place. For instance, if you’ve scanned a series of photos from a family vacation to Disney World, you can select all of them, pinpoint the park on the map, and instantly apply the location data to every photo in the group.

Mylio also saves GPS data in the metadata of the photo, ensuring it’s portable and compatible with other applications. Whether you’re sharing your collection with family members or transitioning to another platform in the future, your carefully added location details stay with the photos, making your effort a lasting investment.

Adding GPS data not only enriches your photo collection but also makes it easier to organize and find photos based on location. Want to see all the pictures taken in a particular city or at a specific family vacation spot? Once the location information is added, you can search for photos by place or browse the map view to relive memories geographically.

SmartTags

Mylio uses artificial intelligence (AI) to automatically generate SmartTags, analyzing your photos to identify objects and visual characteristics. This process, which they call computer vision, works by recognizing subjects and attributes in your images and assigning tags that help you organize and locate specific photos.

SmartTags can be particularly helpful with photos featuring distinct subjects like animals, landmarks, or simple objects. For example, if you’re searching for a photo of a waterfall or a grizzly bear, the AI will often recognize these subjects and assign them meaningful tags. However, their usefulness can vary depending on the type of photo.

For family photos — like people gathered indoors next to a bookshelf looking at the snow falling outside — the tags may feel less precise. In my testing, instead of highlighting the unique details like “bookshelf” or “falling snow,” you might see more seemingly generic tags like “person,” “not smiling,” or “properly exposed.” While these can occasionally provide insight, they may not always add value to photos with complex or subtle details.

That said, AI technology is constantly evolving and quickly, and the potential for SmartTags is enormous. As updates roll out and the AI becomes more adept at understanding a wider variety of scenes, SmartTags are likely to become an invaluable tool for organizing even the most intricate family photo collections.

Editing Your Photos

The second of the four tabs at the top right is the “Edit” tab. Whether you’re preserving cherished memories from old family photos, enhancing snapshots of your kids, or refining pictures from a once-in-a-lifetime vacation, editing can be the key to making your images truly shine. Though not a full-featured editor like Adobe Photoshop, Mylio Photos offers a robust suite of photo editing tools that cater to most needs of beginner and intermediate users, with some advanced features sprinkled in.

Mylio Photos emphasizes non-destructive editing, which is crucial for anyone working with irreplaceable family archives. This means changes like brightness adjustments or color tweaks don’t touch your original file. Instead, all edits in Mylio Photos are saved in the Mylio Photos catalog (database used by the application) and also mirrored in XMP sidecar files, ensuring the original image stays intact. This setup gives you the freedom to experiment without fear and easily revert to the original if needed.

Another benefit is compatibility: your edits saved in XMP files are readable by other programs that support this standard. This makes Mylio a good choice for collaborative projects or moving between devices and software.

Features and Tools

Mylio Photos offers a range of essential editing tools like exposure adjustments, cropping, and basic color correction. These tools are simple-to-use, making them accessible even for those without much technical experience.

Quick-fix options like “AutoEnhance,” “AutoColor,” and “AutoTone” are perfect for improving your photos in one click. There’s also a handy “Red Eye Removal” tool for those tricky flash photos. For more creative touches, you can apply preset filters like “Antique,” “B&W,” “Color-Faded,” and “Color-Warm,” etc., with one click, adding a bit of personality to your images.

Mylio Photos’ manual editing controls are thoughtfully designed, with clearly labeled sliders that make adjustments intuitive and straightforward. The interface strikes a balance between offering a variety of helpful correction tools and keeping the experience user-friendly, avoiding the overwhelming complexity seen in some advanced editing programs.

When working with scanned prints and film, you’ll appreciate the inclusion of essential tools like Flip, Flop, Crop, and Straighten for basic adjustments. Beyond these, more specialized tools such as Clarity (to reduce haze) and Sharpening are incredibly useful for restoring details in older or faded images. Adjustments for Shadows and Highlights can further enhance photos with uneven lighting or faded areas, helping to bring new life to treasured memories.

When you discover adjustments you prefer for a specific photo, it’s straightforward to apply those same edits to other photos that need similar treatment. Just select the photo, click the copy button under “Edits,” choose one or more photos to apply them to, and hit “Paste.” This feature is particularly useful when color-correcting an entire roll of film you’ve just scanned, as all the photos may require the same exact corrections.

A significant disappointment for me, though, is that, even though you are able to undo the last edit you made by pressing Command-Z (Control-Z on Windows), currently, I’ve found no method to selectively undo specific edits made in the past while keeping others intact. For instance, you can’t remove just the vignette adjustments while preserving a few color corrections you also made. The only method to undo past edits (made before the last one) seems to be clicking the big red “Reset all edits” button at the bottom of the panel, which removes every single edit you’ve applied, forcing you to start over adding back edits you’d like re-applied.

I really hope the Mylio team introduces more granular “undo” controls across the entire palette of settings, ideally at least allowing us to undo changes in groups of similar settings, if not each individual adjustment.

Advanced Editing

For most users, the available tools will be enough to handle everyday photo edits. The Mylio team appears to be trying to align the available editing features similar to those found in Adobe Lightroom Classic. Mylio Photos focuses on essential adjustments, including altering black and white points using levels, boosting clarity, and sharpening images. It also provides sophisticated tools like a histogram and brushes for localized adjustments.

Some may still feel the software has a few notable limitations. I really miss having access to a cloning or healing tool for manually removing blemishes, dust, or scratches — features that are especially important when working with scanned film photos. Additionally, it doesn’t support layers or masks, which some users may find essential for more intricate edits. While these omissions might be a dealbreaker for advanced users seeking full creative control, they are less likely to impact family photo enthusiasts focused on basic corrections and enhancements.

Mylio, thankfully, seems to prioritize its efforts with photo organization over competing with editing-specific heavyweights like Photoshop. For those who need advanced tools, Mylio makes it easy to hand off edits to external software. Using the “Open With” command, you can edit in your preferred program and seamlessly bring the changes back into your Mylio library. In your external editor, if you save a destructive file, then that file in Mylio will pick up the changes. If you save a new file, it will be placed next to the original file in Mylio.

Finding Your Photos in Mylio (Searches)

Now that we have the who, what, where, when, and why added to our photos, the brilliance of the application lies in our ability to search our photos for whatever we are looking for. Mylio’s search capabilities are nearly second to none. And if you can’t easily find any of your photos, what would the point of all of this ever be!?

Smart, Adaptive Searching

The first option is to use the familiar search field with the magnifying glass icon at the top of the application. However, Mylio’s Dynamic Search capabilities go beyond simple keywords. As you add photos to the application, Mylio automatically scans and indexes them using an advanced database that delivers results in seconds. Over time, it even learns your habits, tailoring searches to what you look for most often.

Here’s what Mylio scans and indexes to make finding photos easy:

• AI SmartTags: Automatically tags photos with recognizable objects, activities, and scenes—like “beach,” “birthday,” or “sunset.”
• Text Recognition (OCR): Detects and reads any text in your images, from signs to handwritten notes.
• Face Recognition: Identifies people and matches them to names you’ve added.
• Image Metadata: Includes information from your camera (like dates and settings) and details you’ve added (like captions or copyright info).
• Location Details: Uses GPS data from your photos to tag locations, translating coordinates into readable addresses.

I especially love the text recognition ability. This means that if your photos contain any text, such as road signs, headstones, product labels, t-shirt designs, etc., Mylio will find this text and make it searchable.

Narrow Your Results Further

Do you want to refine the results even more? The second option is to apply what they call “QuickFilters.” These allow you to find your photos based on the way most of us think.

Mylio Photos’ QuickFilters enable you to locate specific photos, videos, and documents by refining your search based on particular criteria. You can apply QuickFilters in any view, choosing from options such as folder, date, event, file type, album, person, category, ratings, flags, labels, cameras, lenses, and more. These filters utilize both the metadata embedded in your photos and additional information you’ve provided, like people and location tags.

With QuickFilters, you can also stack multiple filters to achieve more precise outcomes. So, for example, you could type in your sibling’s name to find all of the photos your brother is in. Then, you can click and add a couple of additional filters to narrow these results even further.

You also have the option to save a set of filters as a custom QuickCollection for later use. Even with a library of hundreds of thousands of images, Mylio Photos helps you to find the images you’re looking for, often requiring just 2-3 QuickFilters to yield relevant results.

Sharing Photos

Once you’ve organized your photos and added all the important details with Mylio Photos, you may be ready to share them. You can share photos directly from Mylio Photos to social media, email, or messaging apps, making it convenient to send curated images to friends and family. The integration with cloud services like OneDrive and Google Drive also allows you to share albums and collections through cloud links, offering flexibility for larger galleries.

If you’re not very tech-savvy and simply need to transfer one or more photos from Mylio to another location—like an email you’re writing — the program has implemented a universal clipboard feature. After selecting the desired photos, click on “Copy” in the “Edit” menu (or use the keyboard shortcut). Then, navigate to the application where you want to paste the photo(s) and select “Paste.” Your photo(s) will be inserted seamlessly. This feature further supports their mission to allow you to work “the way you think.”

Mylio allows users to export photos with specific metadata and file formats, ensuring control over image quality and data privacy. This feature is especially beneficial for photographers and archivists who wish to preserve crucial details while sharing images. Moreover, the app facilitates sharing in multiple resolutions, enabling easy customization of exports for both high-quality printing and smaller versions for quick sharing.

There’s a notable feature when selecting “Get Shareable Link” from the share menu. With Shareable Links, you can share a collection of photos as an online gallery, akin to creating a Shared Album. The images are hosted on non-indexed web pages, facilitating semi-private sharing.

Mylio Photos generates a unique link to your gallery, which can be shared through email, text message, or any preferred method. Each shared gallery functions independently, with no navigation options between it and any other shared galleries, and search engines will not index it.

Access Your Photos From All of Your Devices (Mylio Photos+ Feature)

Sharing one or more photos is very nice, but what if you need more? Keeping your photos organized on your main computer device is certainly useful, but what if you want them accessible everywhere? Imagine having all your photos — thousands of them — instantly available on another device, with all the same features, and always updated with the latest edits. On your smartphone, they could be ready to view at a moment’s notice while you’re waiting for your table to be called at a restaurant or while riding on a train. Or they all could be on your tablet for easy viewing and editing while sitting on the couch.

Or maybe you would love to have some of your Mylio collection on certain devices but not the entire thing. Maybe you want to selectively choose which folders, albums, or categories of photos from your collection you sync to each specific device. This flexibility would be perfect for managing storage on smaller devices while still having your favorite photos or important albums on hand when you need them.

Now, let’s expand this way further. Picture also being able to collaborate with someone else from your family on your scanned family photo collection. Forget about Zoom calls and screen sharing. What if they could actually help you identify faces, add captions, and update dates, all from their own device of choice? And what if you, as the account holder, had full control, from your devices, of what they can see and do?

I thought I was dreaming when I realized Mylio could do everything I just mentioned. Not eventually, in a future update. It’s already here, and it works really well. I’ve been doing it.

You see, we’re all used to the magic of our smartphones syncing photos automatically with cloud services like Apple Photos, where small file sizes make it seem effortless. But syncing high-quality, uncompressed photos — like scanned TIFF files that can easily be 50 MB each — is a different story.

With Mylio, you can have thousands of these large, high-resolution images on your smartphone without worrying about storage. Thanks to its smart optimization, your phone only stores a small preview while keeping the original files safe and accessible on other devices. Even better, Mylio is fully featured across all platforms. 

Mylio calls this capability Universal Library, enabling you can connect all your computers, tablets, and phones to a single media library that works without the cloud. No matter which device you’re using, nothing is stripped down or limited. You get the same powerful tools for organizing, editing, and managing your photos.

How Mylio Syncs Your Photo Collection

Each time you add new photos or videos to one device, they automatically become available on all your other devices through syncing. This also applies to any organizing or editing work you do — everything stays in sync across your Mylio account.

Mylio stands out due to its unique use of a “peer-to-peer” connection, allowing direct file transfers between your devices. Unlike traditional cloud services, peer-to-peer syncing doesn’t rely on external servers. Your devices communicate directly with each other over a network, even if they’re halfway around the world, as long as they have internet access.

So, to explain this in the simplest of terms, imagine you have Mylio Photos running on your laptop, tablet, and smartphone. You add new photos to Mylio on your laptop, tag some faces, and write a few photo captions. Minutes after you finish, you grab your phone and leave your house to show those photos to a friend you’re having lunch with. As soon as you open the Mylio app on your phone, it checks for updates from your laptop. If your laptop is still on and running Mylio, the phone syncs the new photos and edits.

This happens because your phone connects directly to your laptop — not to a cloud service. If Mylio wasn’t running on your laptop or it was turned off, syncing wouldn’t happen until both devices were online and running Mylio again.

This peer-to-peer syncing keeps your photos private since nothing is stored on external servers that you don’t own or control. As long as two or more devices have Mylio running and internet access, syncing happens automatically.

Now, for those who prefer more flexibility, Mylio also offers a “built-in” cloud option for syncing. It’s just a simple on/off setting you can flip on in your settings, and it starts working immediately. The cloud feature stores “optimized” copies of your photos and files, so even if your devices aren’t all online at once, updates still sync. 

So, in our example above, your smartphone would download changes from the cloud instead of waiting for a connection to your laptop. While this option isn’t fully private like peer-to-peer syncing, it offers the convenience of accessing your most up-to-date media library anytime without requiring one of your other Mylio devices to be running.

Whenever you add any photo to Mylio, it keeps three versions (two of which it automatically creates for you).

• Originals: The full-size, full-resolution, and uncompressed files you originally brought into Mylio that retain every detail and are stored on designated devices.

• Thumbnails: These are tiny, lightweight versions of your photos, about 1% the size of the original files. When you’re browsing through the grid view in Mylio, these are the images you see. Their small size makes it quick and buttery smooth to scroll through even a massive wall of photos, especially on devices with limited storage like mobile phones.

• Optimized: High-quality files (based on the DNG specification), which are only about 5% the size of the original file but still look good on most screens. These optimized versions allow you to do everything you can with your original files, including edits and adjustments, without taking up nearly as much storage space.

To make syncing fast and efficient — even for large, high-resolution files like uncompressed photos that can be 50 MB or more — Mylio syncs the smaller optimized files. This multi-version system ensures your collection can fit on whichever device you want without sacrificing functionality. It also means syncing happens quickly, even if your files are large.

This screenshot below shows you my Devices dashboard panel with my current devices connected and the devices’ details panel opened up to the right. If someone ever tells me Mylio is only for beginners and lacks any advanced capabilities and control, I will show them the device dashboard panel to change their minds. There’s just so much going on “under the hood” that it’s easy to forget how much power and flexibility it offers.

Your Family Can Access Your Photo Collection Too!

Here’s where things get really interesting. To me, this is absolutely huge! You see, the devices you sync with don’t have to be yours. Family members — or even friends — can install Mylio on their devices and access your Mylio library! Sometimes, sharing a few photos isn’t enough, and you want them to view and work with the same features you use.

How it works

To grant access, they simply install and launch Mylio on their device of choice and enter your Mylio account email address. As the account holder, you’ll receive a notification on one of your devices with a 4-digit PIN. There’s never a need to share your account password — just send them the PIN. Once they enter it, their device starts syncing with yours, giving them access to all or just parts of your media collection you desire to share. Best of all, they only have to do this login and authentication process once. Once they are logged in, they stay logged in.

Here’s where things get truly impressive — and where it might save you from a lot of frustration. If you’ve ever tried to help a less tech-savvy family member with their computer over the phone, you’ll understand how absolutely amazing this is. My mind was blown when this was demonstrated to me the first time.

Once your family member is logged in to your Mylio account on their device, their device immediately appears as a new device in the Device Dashboard in your Mylio application. Now, as the account holder, you can adjust each specific device’s settings directly. And you won’t have to delve into and explain any of the technical details to them — you have complete control over what they can see and do!

For example, for each device, you can:

• Limit what photos they can access: Let’s say you want one family member to have full access to all your scanned family photos, while another only sees a subset, like only the photos they’re in. No problem. Just go into their device’s settings and set permissions for their specific device(s).

• Simplify their experience: If one family member is comfortable with technology, you might leave all or most features enabled. But for someone who struggles with computers, you can simplify things for them dramatically. 

For example, here are some limitations you might consider:

• Put them in “View Only” mode so they can’t accidentally edit or, worse, delete anything they shouldn’t be.

• Hide views that might confuse and overwhelm them, like the Map or the Folders view (which shows where original files are stored).

• Turn off certain tools or entire sections of information and settings, such as the Dashboard or the right-hand sidebar, if you know they won’t need them for the tasks they will want to do.

With all of the device settings under your control, Mylio ensures that each person gets just what they need without confusion or risk of mistakes. Best of all, you don’t have to guide anyone through these changes — you make them all from any of your devices for them.

The screenshot shows the “Manage Views & Tools” settings for a particular “Space” I set up for certain family members who want to access my family photos on their iPhones. You can see I’ve turned off a lot of views and settings, so they can only see and do a few things they know how to do and nothing more. This keeps it simple and easy for them.

When I saw this demonstrated, my mind was blown! What other application has this!? I don’t think anyone does!

Backup and Secure Your Library with Vaults (Mylio Photos+ Feature)

Mylio Photos+ offers a powerful and reliable backup solution, allowing you to connect storage devices to protect your entire photo and file library effortlessly.

In Mylio, a vault is any device specifically designated as a full repository for your photos and data. You can set up multiple vaults for added redundancy and safety, which is highly recommended. Once set up, vaults operate as a “set it and forget it” solution. Whenever a vault is connected, Mylio automatically tracks changes, updates, and edits in your library, ensuring the vault always contains the most up-to-date version of your files. It also backs up any new photos or files not already saved in the vault.

Even if a vault hasn’t been connected for some time, it seamlessly syncs and updates as soon as it’s reconnected. This feature is particularly useful for offsite vaults, such as one stored at a family member’s home or in a safety deposit box. These devices, while not routinely connected, can still provide an up-to-date backup of your library whenever they are reconnected.

Vaults store everything: thumbnails, optimized images, and, most importantly, the original files. They also hold a complete copy of the Mylio catalog and database, enabling you to restore your library or add new devices if needed. In the event of a disaster, such as a fire, if your primary computer is at risk, you can quickly grab your vault device and be assured that your entire library— photos, edits, and organization—remains intact and safe.

Ideal Vault Options Include:

• External drives, which are portable and easy to set up

• Computers with ample internal storage

• Cloud storage services, offering virtually unlimited capacity, though potentially slower transfer speeds and additional costs

By storing your library in vaults, you gain peace of mind knowing your photo collection is always secure, up-to-date, and accessible. Whether for routine access or emergency preparedness, vaults provide a reliable, non-proprietary backup solution you can count on.

For those who love dashboard settings and visualizations, here’s a screenshot of my 5TB Western Digital Passport drive I made as a Mylio Vault. You can see I clicked on the Vault icon and it opened up a detailed panel to the right that shows a lot of data about how the drive is handling the backups.

Exit Plan: Freedom to Move On From Mylio

One of the biggest concerns when investing time into a photo organizer is whether the work you put in — for example, tags, keywords, metadata, and other organizational efforts — will be stuck inside the application forever. Some photo applications “lock” you in by keeping a lot of the information you’ve entered tied up inside their proprietary databases, making it difficult or even impossible to transfer your hard work to another application.

Refreshingly, Mylio Photos takes a different approach and practically ensures you have a nearly complete “exit plan” should you choose to move to another platform. The application has actually been designed to minimize data loss, following industry standards for metadata so your efforts carry over seamlessly to other photo applications that also adhere to these standards.

Changes you make in Mylio are saved in two places: the database and as sidecar files. Sidecar files are companion files with tiny file sizes stored alongside your photos that contain metadata. If you decide to stop using Mylio, or anytime you choose along the way, you can save your metadata directly into the original photo files (e.g., JPEG, TIFF) using the “Save Metadata to File” option. This embeds the information — like captions, keywords, and star ratings — into the photo file itself, ensuring compatibility with other applications.

Additionally, Mylio’s storage structure is user-friendly and non-proprietary. Even if you’re using a Mylio Vault (their local storage system), the app maintains a standard folder hierarchy. Your folders in the vault mirror how you organize them within Mylio, meaning you can access them directly through your computer’s Finder (on macOS) or File Explorer (on Windows) without needing Mylio to interpret the structure.

That said, it’s important to note that some features in Mylio are application-specific and won’t transfer to other software. This limitation isn’t unique to Mylio — all photo applications have features like flags, color labels, and their own version of categories that don’t adhere to standardized metadata because no universal metadata fields exist for these types of information. You just need to be aware of these issues and either use these features less (if you anticipate switching apps soon) or build a contingency plan.

For example, you could add redundant keywords to your photos that mirror these attributes. If you use a red label in Mylio to highlight certain photos or files, consider also redundantly tagging those photos with a metadata keyword like “red” or “red-label” that will carry over to other applications. Similarly, you can also use keywords to replicate Mylio categories, ensuring that the essence of your organization remains intact.

In short, I believe the team behind Mylio has gone to great lengths to ensure that you maintain ownership and portability of your data. This truly reflects their confidence in the product. Whether you’re in for the long haul or just trying out the app, you won’t feel locked in. If you choose to move on, your work can move with you — intact and ready to integrate with your next photo management tool. By being mindful of a few application-specific features and planning accordingly, you can exit with confidence.

How Much Does Mylio Cost

Mylio Photos offers both a free plan and a paid option. And honestly, I was surprised by how much the free plan includes. Compared to other photo management software, which often locks most features behind a paywall, Mylio generously offers you a solid set of tools without asking for any payment.

Mylio Photos (Free)

The Mylio Photos offers an always free version (not a trial). You can install Mylio Photos on a single device and manage your entire photo collection — editing, organizing, and sorting — without hitting any major limitations.

In fact, many people could probably get a lot of work done with just the free plan and a single device, especially when starting out. But as your project grows and you want to access your collection from multiple devices or perhaps involve family or friends in the process — allowing them to add their own information to your photos — that’s when you might start thinking about upgrading to the Photos Photos+ plan.

Mylio Photos+ (Subscription)

The Mylio Photos+ elevates the experience significantly. Along with all the features of the free version, it also includes some extra capabilities. While the additional features in the paid plan are certainly advantageous, they may not be necessary for everyone.

Additional Photos+ Features:

Universal Library (Mylio on all of your devices)
With Universal Library, you can install Mylio on all of your devices, connecting your computers, tablets, and phones to a single media library. Work anywhere, and Mylio Photos+ keeps everything perfectly synced (with or without the built-in cloud option turned on). And with SpaceSaver, you can optimize your media to fit up to 2x more videos on your mobile devices. And when you need to access the full-quality files, you can download them on demand from your home computer.

Remote Control
Gives you granular library access control for every device/user on your account.

Custom Spaces
Allows you to organize photos into specific categories or projects for your own purpose or to easily share them with others for collaboration, making it simple to keep everything organized and invite input.

Create Shareable Links (Online Galleries)
Shareable Links allow you to share a selection of photos as an online gallery, similar to creating a Shared Album. The images are hosted on non-indexed web pages, making it easy to share semi-privately.

DeDupe
DeDupe is a powerful feature that scans your entire media collection for duplicates of photos. You can clean up and merge unwanted files to recover precious hard drive space.

Mylio Photos Vault Protection
Mylio Photos Vault Protection adds an extra layer of protection to your video library. With Vault Protection, you can add a large hard drive and keep a backup copy of all your media files. Backup protection is fully automatic, so you never have to worry about losing a device or catastrophic disk failures.

Final Thoughts — Should you try Mylio Photos?

As we wrap up this deep dive into Mylio Photos, it’s clear this application is designed to help you rediscover and truly enjoy your memories. Whether you’re tackling a massive family photo scanning project, decluttering years of digital clutter, or simply searching for a better way to organize your life, Mylio strikes an impressive balance between power and accessibility.

Personally, Mylio exceeded my expectations in many ways. While I did find a few areas where improvements could be made, those felt minor compared to everything the app gets right. The clean, inviting interface is unlike anything I’ve used before. Larger fonts, simplified layouts, and built-in guides make it approachable for anyone, while still offering enough tools and features to manage even massive, complex photo collections like mine.

There’s so much to love about Mylio that I couldn’t possibly cover every detail here. For example, during my testing, Mylio released a couple of updates with new features and routine bug fixes. Unlike many applications where updates roll out inconsistently across different platforms, Mylio seems to be updating all its apps — on macOS, Windows, iOS, and Android — all together at the same time. This means your devices stay perfectly in sync, with the same features available no matter where you’re working. It’s a thoughtful touch that highlights the care behind this tool.

I just love and truly appreciate Mylio’s approach to data ownership. You’re never locked into the application — your edits, metadata, and organizational work can move with you if you decide to try another tool. This flexibility gives you the confidence to dive in, knowing your hard work remains safe and portable.

I can’t overstate how incredible it feels to work on my high-resolution TIFF files on my desktop—adding metadata or making edits—and have every change almost instantly sync to my iPhone. The mobile versions aren’t just simplified apps; they’re nearly as full-featured as the desktop, allowing me to seamlessly continue viewing, organizing, editing, and managing my collection wherever I go. And with flawless synchronization across all devices during my testing, the experience has been nothing short of extraordinary.

But stepping back, what truly sets Mylio apart is how effortlessly it integrates into your workflow. When I’m organizing my scanned family photos or digital camera files, I don’t feel like I’m battling with a tool designed for someone else’s needs. Mylio feels intuitive, purposeful, and — most surprisingly, do I dare say it — fun. It’s a refreshing change in a space where photo management tools often feel dry or overwhelming.

In the end, Mylio Photos isn’t just another organizing app; it’s a thoughtful, well-executed tool that can genuinely transform how you engage with your memories. Whether you’re new to photo organization or a seasoned pro, I hope my experience has given you an easy-to-understand glimpse into everything Mylio has to offer. Give the free version a try — you might just find yourself rediscovering not only your photos but also the joy of managing them again.