Browsing Galleries and Viewing Photos in Folio

Once you have connected your SmugMug account and synced your library, Folio makes it easy to browse galleries, view photos at full resolution, inspect and edit metadata, and search across your entire collection.

Gallery Grid View

Select any gallery in the sidebar to display its contents as thumbnails in the main area. The grid automatically adjusts to fill the available space.

Adjusting Thumbnail Size

Use the slider at the bottom-right corner of the window to control thumbnail size. Drag left to make thumbnails smaller or right to make them larger.

Layout Options

Two buttons next to the size slider let you switch between layout modes:

• Grid — Uniform square thumbnails arranged in neat rows and columns.
• Masonry — Variable-height thumbnails that preserve each photo's original aspect ratio, similar to a Pinterest-style layout.

Show or Hide Filenames

Click the text button next to the layout icons to toggle filename labels beneath each thumbnail.

Photo Viewer

Click any thumbnail to open it in a full-screen lightbox.

Image Info Panel

Press Cmd+I or click the Info button to open a panel on the right side of the photo viewer.

Editable Metadata

You can edit the following fields directly in the info panel:

• Title — Click to edit, then save.
• Caption — Click to edit, then save.
• Keywords — Uses a pill-style interface. Type a keyword and press Enter to add it. Click the X on any pill to remove it.

Click Save to push your changes back to SmugMug.

EXIF Data

The info panel displays technical details captured by your camera, including camera model, lens, focal length, aperture, shutter speed, ISO, flash status, date taken, image dimensions, file size, and color space.

Location

If a photo contains GPS coordinates, an interactive map appears in the info panel. You can edit the latitude and longitude values manually, or click the map to explore the surrounding area.

AI Tools

Buttons at the bottom of the info panel let you auto-tag or auto-caption the current photo using built-in AI features. See AI-Powered Metadata for details.

Searching Your Photos

Use the search field at the top of the sidebar to find photos across your entire library. Type a search term and press Enter. Results appear in the main area with the same grid and masonry layout options available.

The source gallery name is displayed below each thumbnail so you know where each photo lives.

You can also enter Select Mode from search results to select and download photos from across multiple galleries at once.

Advanced Search

Advanced Search builds on the basic sidebar search with client-side filtering that lets you slice results in ways SmugMug's API doesn't support on its own. After the server returns results, you can narrow them further without re-querying.

The Advanced Search filter bar sits between the header and the content area and is always visible on the search page. It has four tabs: Text, Attribute, Metadata, and Map. Click a tab to expand its controls. An orange dot on a tab indicates it has active filters.

Text Tab

The Text tab gives you fine-grained control over how your search query is matched:

• Field — choose which field to search: Any (the default, same as basic search), Title only, Caption only, Keywords only, or Filename only
• Match mode — choose how the query is matched:
  • Contains All — every word in your query must appear (in any order)
  • Contains — the exact phrase must appear
  • Starts With — the field value must begin with your query
• Scope — restrict the search to a specific folder or gallery instead of your entire account

Attribute Tab

The Attribute tab filters results by file properties:

• File type — Photos, Videos, or Source (RAW files). Each option shows a count of matching results.
• Orientation — Landscape, Portrait, or Square
• Metadata presence — toggle whether images have or are missing a Title, Caption, or Keywords. Each toggle cycles through three states: has → missing → off.

Metadata Tab

The Metadata tab filters by EXIF data extracted from your photos:

• Camera model — a list of distinct cameras found in the results, each with a count
• Lens — distinct lens values from EXIF
• Focal length — distinct focal lengths from EXIF
• ISO — distinct ISO values from EXIF
• Date — distinct dates (date taken from EXIF, not upload date)

Using Filters Together

All filters across all tabs are combinable. For example, you could search for "sunset" in the Caption field, then filter to Landscape orientation, shot on a specific Camera model, with Keywords present. Counts update live as you apply or remove filters.

Filters

The same filter bar used in Advanced Search is also available when browsing a gallery. Click the Filter button in the toolbar to toggle the filter bar above the gallery grid. It works exactly the same way — four tabs (Text, Attribute, Metadata, Map) with the same controls and live counts.

Map View

The Map tab in the filter bar replaces the image grid with a full interactive map powered by Apple Maps (MapKit). Every geotagged photo in the current gallery or search results appears as a thumbnail pin placed at the GPS coordinates where it was taken.

Clustering

As you zoom out, nearby pins cluster together automatically — each cluster shows a count badge and a representative thumbnail. Zoom in and the clusters split apart to reveal individual photos, similar to the map view in Apple Photos.

Interacting with the Map

• Click a single pin to open that photo in the lightbox
• Click a cluster to zoom into its members
• Pan and zoom using standard trackpad or mouse gestures

The map responds to all active filters from the other tabs. If you filter to a specific camera model or orientation, only matching geotagged photos appear on the map.