Changelog

Release notes for Visuals and Keepers.

v2.1

Videos stored in iCloud now open straight from your library, with a real progress figure while they arrive — and they go back to iCloud when you move on, so browsing them doesn't cost you the disk.
Thumbnails travel between your devices, so a second device fills in its grid without rebuilding everything.
Add a watched folder on one device and it appears on the others by itself.
Plus a steadier launch on very large libraries, and indexing that reaches 100%.

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2.0.1

macOS

New: Favorite and File Type smart-album conditions.
Fixed: semantic search, iCloud-upload indexing, and file-relink reliability issues.

iOS/iPadOS

Now available!
Browse by grid, list, or map — search by what's in the photo, by face, or by person.
Syncs across every Mac and iPhone/iPad signed in to the same iCloud account — tags, favorites, comments, albums, and people travel with you. Your photos and videos never leave your device or your folders.
Already have a library on the Mac? Import it directly, with thumbnails, people, and the AI index intact.
Multi-select batch editing — color tags, free-text tags, and comments across a selection.
Smart Albums with rule-based filtering — tag, color, date, favorite, file type, and more.
Drag a photo straight onto a folder in the sidebar to move it.

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v1.1.2

Organize your folders without leaving the app, browse People in a full lightbox, and a batch of face-detection and navigation fixes.

In-app folder management

No more dropping into Finder to organize your library.

Drag and drop to move folders — multi-select supported. Hold Option to copy instead of move.
Right-click any folder for New Folder, Rename, Move to Trash, Show in Finder, and more.
Familiar shortcuts: Enter to rename, ⌘⌫ to trash, ⌘X/⌘V to move, ⌘Z to undo.
Everything goes through the macOS Trash — fully undoable.

People gets a real lightbox

A new viewfinder toggle opens a full lightbox right inside the People page — browse faces without leaving the view.

Space to open, Esc to close, F for Face Mode.
Full multi-select: Shift-click, ⌘-click, and marquee selection across people, the pinned strip, and faces.
Drop multiple selected people onto one tile to merge them all at once.

Faces — cleaner and more reliable

Duplicate face detections are gone for good, with a one-time cleanup on first launch.
Fixed a bug where selecting one face would also select another.
Face avatars no longer get stuck loading after a folder rename.

Smarter rescanning

Rescan All Folders now follows files you've renamed or moved in Finder — your tags, faces, and ratings stay intact. A new Refresh Folders option updates the sidebar instantly when only folder names changed.

Also in this release

Open in New Window always opens a separate window, and remembers where you were scrolled.
"Reopen last viewed" now restores subfolders, not just top-level folders.
New setting: mute videos automatically on launch.
Smoother drag previews and faster folder navigation throughout.

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v1.1.1

Various minor bugfixes and improvements to Maps view and the Sidebar:

Map view rewritten for stability and correctness.
Sidebar chevron and item count fixes.
Loading state flash eliminated on cold launch.
And more.

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v1.1.0

A huge update, with on-device AI, Maps, People, and more

On-device AI

Your photos never leave your Mac. Every AI feature in Visuals runs locally — no accounts, no cloud, no data shared with anyone.

Faces — Visuals automatically detects and recognizes faces throughout your library. Name the people it finds, and navigate your collection by person.
Text-to-image search — describe what you're looking for in plain language ("sleeping dog at sunset," "people on a beach") and Visuals finds matching photos and video frames.
MCP server (experimental) — connect Claude Desktop or any MCP-compatible AI client to your library. Search by caption, apply tags and color labels, mark favorites, add comments. Enable it in Settings → Connections.

Maps & Photo Trails

Maps — every geotagged photo appears as a pin on an interactive map. Clusters split as you zoom. Toggle between Standard and Satellite views. Click any cluster to filter the grid to those items.
Photo Trails — connect geotagged photos in time order and retrace a walk, hike, or road trip. Step through each location with the inspector updating as you go.

New views

List view — a sortable table of your library with full EXIF columns, video durations, type filters, and persistent column preferences.
Insights dashboard — an overview of your library: timing patterns, gear, atmospheric moments, and top places. Every card filters the grid when clicked.
People pane — browse your library by person. Assign and reassign faces manually; drag and drop supported.

Library management

Discover — find exact duplicates or near matches and resolve them manually or with preset rules. Right-click any thumbnail to find duplicates or visually similar items.
Captions — view and edit in the inspector, visible as a list column, and included in search.
Approximate dates — assign a year- or decade-level date to undated scans without needing an exact date.
Multi-select editing — apply or change a color label, tag, caption, or comment across dozens of items at once.
Mark or unmark Favorites directly from the inspector preview.
Library export and import as CSV or JSON — a preview step shows exactly what will change before you commit.
Type to find — start typing a filename in the grid and the selection jumps to the matching item, Finder-style.
Integrated search — scope results to the current folder, the entire library, or search semantically.

UI improvements

Visual refresh — a native macOS look with a design that's distinctly Visuals.
Toolbar overhaul — controls adapt to the current view, with improved tooltips throughout.
Lightbox enhancements:
- Default zoom: choose Fit or 100% in Settings → Lightbox.
- Faces mode (keyboard shortcut F) — create or edit face records and assign them to people.
- Improved tooltips on Back, Favorite, and Faces mode.
Sidebar improvements:
- Slim mode — drag the sidebar edge to collapse it to a narrow strip, keeping Favorites, Insights, and Discover within reach.
- Larger drop targets make drag-and-drop easier to aim.
Drag to reorder thumbnails in any view — the main grid and the Lightbox filmstrip.
Open in New Window — right-click any thumbnail to open it in a new Lightbox window, including from search results, People, and Discover.

‍Several bug fixes

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‍1.0.4

Grid improvements

Added Masonry layout to existing Square and Aspect layouts. Switch between them from the View menu.
Thumbnails fill edge to edge — no white frame around images.
Filenames and index indicators are now off by default. Toggle them in the View menu when you need them.
Refined selection styling.

Other

Cloud photos now generate thumbnails on demand as you browse.
Improved support for Intel Macs.
Smoother browsing on large libraries.
Improved upgrade experience.

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1.0.3

A small maintenance release for the direct (bloosoftware.com) edition.

Clearer library location prompts

When you create or open a library, Visuals no longer pre-selects your Pictures folder — it opens at the system default so you can pick the spot that suits you.
The New Library and Open Library dialogs now show a short note explaining exactly what to choose.

Under the hood

Versioning and build housekeeping. No changes to your libraries or settings.

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1.0.1

Initial release

1.0.2

Labels and tags, right in the sidebar

Every label and tag now sits in the sidebar. Click one to see what carries it.
Drag bookmarks onto a label, tag or album to file them — a whole selection at once, with a count on what you're dragging.
Labels and tags can be taken off a selection now, not just added.

One licence, every device

A licence activated on the Mac now unlocks Keepers on your iPhone and iPad by itself.

Quicker on its feet

The grid, sidebar and menu bar stay responsive on large libraries — clicks land the moment you make them.

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1.0.1

Every bookmark in your library has its place in the grid, and the counts in the sidebar match what you see.
Duplicate copies that arrive through iCloud tidy themselves away in the background.
Upgrade options load reliably, and say what's happening if the App Store is slow to answer.
Licences bought from bloosoftware.com activate smoothly.

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v1.0

Initial release

1.1.0

Navigate folders inside a turf. Double-click a folder in a turf to look inside it — no Finder window, and the turf keeps its place on the desktop. Finder's own shortcuts work while you're in there: ⌘[ back, ⌘] forward, ⌘↑ to the enclosing folder, plus a small toolbar that appears only while you're browsing. The title switches to italic to show the folder you're in, so it's always obvious you've stepped inside rather than changed the turf itself. Anything you drop lands in the folder you're looking at. Quit Turfs and every turf is back at its own folder, exactly as you left it. Nothing is moved, and nothing is trapped.

Decide what Mission Control does to your turfs. Open Mission Control and your turfs can either fly up with your windows, or stay exactly where they are on the desktop. It's your call — the setting is in Settings › Mission Control.

Easier to read

Titles and tab labels now pick a colour that stays legible against whatever's behind them — including frosted turfs and inactive tabs, which could previously end up as dark text on a dark surface.
Selected icons dim when Turfs isn't the app you're in, the same way Finder's do.
Hovering a rolled-up turf no longer shoves your icons out of the way. The icons underneath simply hide until you move off.

Bug fixes

Improved smoothness when dragging turfs.
Tag turfs – which rely on MacOS Spotlight – now tell you if the Spotlight's index isn't available instead of just looking empty. There's a Retry button, and tag turfs recover on their own once the index is back.

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1.0.5

Show Desktop stays open. Click, marquee, and drag your desktop icons during macOS Show Desktop —
without it collapsing. Previously the first click on a Turfs icon dismissed
Show Desktop; now it stays open while you work.

Spaces survive a reboot. Per-Space turf placement now survives a restart. Previously, restarting your
Mac sent every turf to Space 1; now each turf returns to the Space you left it
on.

Smoother roll-up dragging. Dragging a rolled-up turf right after hovering it no longer jumps away from
the cursor or lags. The expand animation snaps cleanly when the drag begins,
so the cursor and the turf move together.

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1.0.4

Improved appearance management.

Appearance

Copy & paste appearance across turfs, groups, and tabs — set one up the way you like, then paste that look onto others.
Label text and tab shadows now adapt to the background actually showing through, so labels stay readable on any wallpaper or color.
Corner radius now shapes tabs too, and empty/unavailable turf placeholders pick up the adaptive color.
Fixed: tab-group labels losing their adaptive color, and the Appearance editor not following the last-clicked item.

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1.0.3

A live Appearance inspector, turfs that shrink to any size, and pixel-perfect tabs.

Live Appearance inspector

The Appearance panel and color wheel now follow your selection — click any turf or group and restyle it on the spot. Color, border, corner radius, opacity, all live.
Cleaner controls: streamlined, perfectly aligned sliders.

Shrink turfs to any size

Drop the icon size and collapse a turf — or a whole group — down to a slim single column. Groups refit instantly around their members.

Pixel-perfect tabs

Multi-row tab bars now fill each row edge to edge with full titles and balance evenly across rows — crisp at any width.

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1.0.2

Tabbed turfs grow up — multi-row tab bars that show every tab in full.

Multi-row tabs

Stack tabs across up to three rows, each sized to fit its full title — keep a dozen turfs in one group and read every name at a glance.
The active tab sits flush with its body, so the turf you're in reads as one continuous surface.

Rock-solid turf groups

Group turfs travel as one across every Mission Control Space — drag them anywhere and every member tracks perfectly.

Faster turf-making & tagging

Right-click any folder → "New Folder Turf from This Folder."
Batch-tag by drag: pull a whole selection from one tag turf to another and every file picks up the tag.
Collection turfs follow your files wherever you move or rename them.

Smarter out of the box

Each turf stays on the Space where you placed it, Turfs lives in your Dock (drag files onto it to make a turf), and it launches at login — all on by default.
⌘⌫ sends the selected desktop icon straight to the Trash.

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1.0.1

‍ Grouped & tabbed turfs

Move a whole group across Spaces in Mission Control — drag a group to another Space and every turf in it travels together as one window.
Group turfs side by side under one handle: drag to reorder, rename the group, resize it as a unit.
Frosted & translucent tabs look right — a tab's body matches its tab, the group frame follows your global appearance, and stacking tabs no longer piles up opacity.

Mission Control & Spaces

Per-Space turfs — draggable between Spaces and each remembers where you left it.
Frosted turfs stay frosted in the Mission Control overview.
No launch flash; off-screen turfs are always pulled back into view.

Desktop & Dock

Make a turf from the Dock — enable "Show Turfs in the Dock," then drag files/folders onto the icon (one folder → folder turf, anything else → collection). A reliable alternative to the Finder extension.
Resize icons with ⌘= / ⌘- for the focused turf or the desktop; the desktop keeps its own icon size.
Manual desktop icon drags land exactly where you drop them.

Folders & files

Folder turfs follow their folder when it's moved or renamed instead of breaking.
Hidden file names fixed — clicking an icon no longer selects an invisible label; press Return to reveal the name and rename.

Fixes & polish

Fixed a spinning-beachball hang from iCloud status checks on the main thread.
Single-column turfs center their column; a bit more breathing room at the top of every turf; more legible adaptive label colors.

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1.0.0

Initial release