Optoporter works on the photos on this device. Your photos are never uploaded, to us or to anyone else.
When you open a folder, your browser lets Optoporter read and change the photos in it, and in every folder inside it. That lasts until you close this site. Next time, your browser asks you again, unless you chose Allow on every visit.
On Android phones, the location your camera saved in each photo is hidden from websites. You can add locations here, but you won't see the ones already saved. Use a computer for that.
How Optoporter works
Your photos stay on your device
Optoporter runs entirely in your browser. It reads your photos straight from your computer or phone, and nothing from them is ever uploaded, to us or to anyone else. Our server only sends you the page itself.
A few things do use the internet, and none of them involve your photos:
The map loads its images from OpenStreetMap, so they can see which areas of the map you look at.
Searching for a place on the map sends what you type to OpenStreetMap's place search.
Smart tagging downloads its image model once, from this website. Photos are then analysed on your device.
The page loads its fonts and a few code libraries from public providers, the same way most websites do.
Opening a folder
When you open a folder, your browser asks whether Optoporter may see it and, when you first save a change, whether it may make changes. Saying yes applies to that folder and every folder inside it, and only to this website.
That permission lasts until you close every tab of this site. Then it ends by itself, and you don't need to do anything to take it back.
The one exception: newer versions of Chrome and Edge on computers can offer Allow on every visit when you reopen a folder. If you choose that, the permission stays after you leave. To take it back, open your browser's settings, go to privacy and site settings, and find this website. Websites themselves have no way to hand a permission back, which is why this lives in the browser.
How Optoporter remembers your folder
When you pick a folder, the browser gives Optoporter a reference to it. Optoporter keeps that reference in this browser's storage for this site, on this device only, along with the names of the subfolders you'd gone into. That's what the Reopen button uses.
The reference can't do anything by itself: using it again always needs your browser's permission. To remove it, use Forget it on the start screen, or Close and forget this folder at the bottom of the Folders tab.
Where your changes are saved
Keywords, titles, descriptions, creator, copyright and locations are written into your photos, so they go wherever your photos go and other software can read them.
JPEG photos: written into the file itself, in the standard places that Lightroom, Bridge, Windows and Google read.
RAW, PNG, TIFF and PSD files: written to a small .xmp file with the same name, next to the photo. The photo itself is never changed. Lightroom, Bridge, darktable and digiKam read these.
Before the first change in each session, Optoporter asks you to confirm.
Smart tagging
Smart tagging suggests keywords and lets you find photos by describing them. It compares each photo with a list of everyday words, which you can edit in the Keywords tab, and it learns from the keywords you give photos yourself, so it starts suggesting those on similar photos.
By default, suggestions wait for you to choose them. If you switch on Tag photos automatically, Optoporter adds them straight into each photo as it's analysed instead, once per photo. Any you remove stay removed, and Remove automatic keywords from this folder takes them all back out. Keywords added automatically aren't used for learning, so it can't teach itself its own mistakes.
Learn from another folder lets it learn from photos you tagged before, in Optoporter or in other software like Lightroom, without opening that folder. It reads their keywords and looks at the photos, so it knows what each of your keywords looks like. That folder is only read, never changed.
What it learns is kept in this browser's storage on this device: a small fingerprint of each analysed photo and a note of its keywords, never the photos themselves. Each browser and device learns separately. Clearing this site's data in your browser removes it, and it relearns from your keywords as you open folders again.
Phones
On Android, Optoporter works in Chrome and Edge, with one limit: Android hides the location your camera saved in each photo from websites, to protect your privacy. You can add locations to photos, and those will show, but you won't see the ones your camera saved. A computer shows everything.
iPhones and iPads don't allow websites to open folders at all, whichever browser you use, so Optoporter can't work there.
Browsers
Optoporter needs Chrome or Edge, or another browser built on the same engine, on Windows, Mac, Linux, Chromebook or Android. Safari and Firefox can't open folders.
Keyboard shortcuts
Tab hides or shows the side panels. Ctrl+A selects everything shown. Enter opens the selected photo. Esc clears the selection, then any filter or search.
In the photo viewer: ← and → move between photos, scroll to zoom, drag to move around, double-click or Z for 100%, F to fit, S held for a quick shadow lift, C for clipping, 1 to 7 for channels, Tab to hide the side panel and Esc to close.
Built by Andy Blundell. Optoporter: the photo browser, the keyword and location tagging, and the smart tagging that runs on your own computer. No plugins, no page builder.
I build small, fast WordPress sites and custom code for a fixed price. Remote, by email, anywhere in the UK. Nearly 30 years at it.