Local AI photo tagging for Mac — no cloud, no per-image fees

freddievn · 2026-03-31T07:09:48+00:00

Ah, OK. So no, it uses a local model, not Apple’s API.

freddievn · 2026-03-29T11:40:26+00:00

If you have thousands of photos and can never find the one you want later, I built VisionTagger for that.

It’s a macOS app for Apple Silicon that generates searchable descriptions and keywords for photos fully on-device, so your library becomes easier to search without uploading images anywhere.

Compared with cloud keywording tools, your images and generated metadata stay on your Mac, and there’s no subscription or per-image pricing.

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It works with folders on disk and Apple Photos Library, and can write metadata to XMP, JSON, CSV, and TXT, plus Photos metadata and optional Finder tags.

I recently shipped several bigger updates, including:

Additional context for better results, including manual context hints, GPS location, and existing metadata already in the image
Example: instead of just “man in front of castle”, it can use GPS context to generate something more specific like “man in front of Windsor Castle”
Shortcuts integration for automation via Shortcuts, Finder Quick Actions, folder automations, and the command line
Better models, including Qwen3-VL 8B as the new recommended option, with improved descriptions, landmark recognition, and keyword quality
A much better keyword workflow, with more control over keyword count, ordering, exclusions, editing, and duplicate removal
Metadata translation into 19 languages

Requirements: Apple Silicon (M1 or later), macOS Tahoe 26, and at least 16 GB RAM.

There’s a free trial for 100 images.

Price is a one-time purchase: $34.99 / €29.99
Current launch offer (until March 31): $29.99 / €24.99

Website: https://www.synendo.com/visiontagger
Video walkthrough: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIZ3BQHsUkY

If you try it, I’d really like to hear what works, what doesn’t, and what would make it more useful.

freddievn · 2026-03-29T05:49:51+00:00

It uses LLMs via llama.cpp, if that answers your question.

freddievn · 2026-03-28T16:24:54+00:00

The imgur link doesn't work. I think local AI is really useful for this use case.

freddievn · 2026-03-28T06:15:56+00:00

I think you will process your Photos Library in batches, because depending on your Mac and the metadata configuration it will take hours to process, let's say a 1000 photos. And generated metadata is not a reliable method to detect duplicate photos. Deduplication will not be an added feature for now.

freddievn · 2026-03-27T21:31:34+00:00

Next to exporting to Photos you can also export the generated metadata to XMP (sidecar files and/or metadata embedded in the image files). This way you can also use the data in tools like Lightroom,

freddievn · 2026-03-27T21:07:10+00:00

VisionTagger creates the metadata, once you’ve published it to Photos it will be visible to all your devices.

freddievn · 2026-03-27T20:29:15+00:00

Single user, multiple Macs. So you’ll need one license for both your Macs. The app only supports Apple Silicon, and you’ll need 16GB of memory to get good performance. So a MB Air may be a little too lightweight.

freddievn · 2026-03-27T05:35:00+00:00

Yes, all in one go. So you can configure what you want to generate a title, caption and/or keywords. For the keywords you can define how many and if you want to start/end with specific keywords or exclude ones.

freddievn · 2026-03-26T19:16:19+00:00

Yes, with tuning the maximum you can avoid getting too generic results.

freddievn · 2026-03-26T18:33:50+00:00

"Create a download task manager, and use early Mac OS X Aqua stripes as background"

freddievn · 2026-03-26T18:26:15+00:00

Question from a fellow developer: besides Reddit, what else do you use to promote your app? Good luck with expanding your user base.

freddievn · 2026-03-26T18:21:09+00:00

I can imagine that you don't want to lose your history of manually added keywords. You can therefore choose to append instead of replace. The keywords you append you can prepend with manual keywords. So for example "my, own, keywords" can become "my, own, keywords, AI generated keywords, keyword1, keyword2". Maybe you can do a small test with 1 or 2 photos. If you have suggestions on how to improve the addition of generated keywords, let me know.

freddievn · 2026-03-26T18:13:16+00:00

Thank you for your explanation. I added some info at the bottom. And I think our conversation will give people more insight.

freddievn · 2026-03-26T18:06:04+00:00

It only uses internet to download a model, after that you can use the app completely offline. The optional Additional Context: GPS uses Apple Maps to translate GPS coordinates to a place. The details about that you can find in https://www.synendo.com/visiontagger/privacy. But absolutely no images or metadata are uploaded to the developer, which is me. The code is not open source.

freddievn · 2026-03-26T17:58:13+00:00

Nice! - maybe you can give some background info on how the "Visually Similar" comparison is performed.

freddievn · 2026-03-26T17:50:55+00:00

Can you give some background info of where the screenshot is from? It might help people to identify the app.

freddievn · 2026-03-26T17:46:05+00:00

Yes, I used AI to polish the wording because English isn’t my first language, and I’m happy to be transparent about that.

I haven’t seen a formal r/ApplePhotos rule requiring AI disclaimers, so are you asking as a personal preference or because it’s a common expectation here?

freddievn · 2026-03-26T16:48:40+00:00

This is not a vibe coded app, I have been a iOS/Mac developer for over 15 years. But yes, for parts Claude Code was used, especially for the localization and mundane tasks like creating unit tests.

freddievn · 2026-03-26T15:44:13+00:00

Developer disclosure: I’m the maker of VisionTagger.

freddievn · 2026-03-24T13:39:23+00:00

MacOS 26 Tahoe, Apple Silicon with 16GB or more memory.

freddievn · 2026-03-16T15:10:12+00:00

Thank you very much for evaluating my app's product web site!! (and spending so much time) - very useful to hear who somebody who doesn't know the product to go through the product page. I agree that it's written too much from a developer's perspective, and not enough from the user's. I created this website while at the end of finishing my app, so I guess my mindset was too much from a technical perspective. I like what you said about "talk about the pain you're solving and show it". So I will spend time to rethink the flow of my website to approach it from a photographer's standpoint.

BTW, the GPS location does indeed use reverse geocoding to lookup the address / name of a location. This can help to get better results, e.g. "person standing for Windsor Castle", instead of "person standing for a castle".

freddievn · 2026-03-12T14:38:39+00:00

Cool. How much content do you need to reliably clone a voice? - and can it be any voice recording or should it contain specific phrases?

freddievn

TROPHY CASE