Can you recommend a Photos alternative?

Hi, is there a good alternative to the built-in default Photos app that anyone can recommend? I’m looking for an alternative because Photos seems to create it’s own archive and duplicates Photos into this archive. TIA

I use… Google Photos as backup measure (side-by-side with iCloud and OneDrive) and as a good photo viewer.

With years of experience of collecting user data, their AI is really good, recognizes faces —even pets, words, I can search for any obscure photo by keyword (for example, I found the photo below by «banner night» keyword. filters all other night sky photos and banners/ads.)

Click to reveal the photo I found with «banner night»

There is “Utilities Tool” that identifies duplicated and incorrectly rotated photos/pictures, and possibly unwanted temporary pictures (announcement posters from WhatsApp Group, impulsively saved funny pictures). The tool also recommend some photos that are similar to be a short animations (a la Live Photos), or Movie.

The iOS app is a pleasant to navigate around. It is a really good service that I loath to use it because I loathe Google.

When you say it creates it’s own archive, what do you mean.
I suspect you’ve found that it keeps the original unaltered, and if you make changes, it keeps a changed copy, but also retains the unchanged original.

There is always Adobe Lightroom Classic if you don’t want to rely on the “cloud” but Adobe’s “cloud” does work pretty well. Unlike Photos, all images files are in folders, out in the open.

Downside it it’s a subscription.

Back 15+ years ago when I was using Windows I enjoyed using acdsee. They have been erratic with Mac offerings so I’ve lost interest, but they do have Photo Studio For Mac 7 for $70. Unless it’s changed, it also keeps all image files in folders.

If you just want asset management, there is always Adobe Bridge, which appears to be free. You can combine that with any image editor.

Can you explain more about the source of the photos you are managing and your issue with the Photos app?

For photos taken with iOS devices, my opinion is, use the Photos app, anything else is swimming against the current.

For photos taken with other devices, you may want to keep the originals in your own organized folders and access those with Lightroom, and then possibly put favorites into Photos.

There’s a Photos Library manager app that may help you get rid of duplicates: PowerPhotos – Merge Mac Photos libraries, find duplicates, and more

And, there’s a famous Mac blogger and podcaster who wrote a Field Guide on the subject :slight_smile:

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Perhaps if you could be more specific on what you want t do with the photos we could give more helpful suggestions. There is everything from Finder to Lightroom Classic. The former is mderately flexible but not very powerful, and the latter is very flexible and powerful and probably overkill for many people.

There are many, many options in between. Each will fall in different places on a few spectra: asset management, editing, sharing, printing, and probably more I’m not thinking of now.

Wow, that is impressive!!
Sadly, I won’t use it because Google.