Frequently Asked Questions

Yes – old photos fade, yellow, and can be irretrievably lost through moisture, fire, or simply the passage of time. Digital copies last forever, can be shared with the whole family, and are always at your fingertips. With PhotoScanner, the effort is surprisingly low: a whole photo album can be digitized in just a few hours.

Scanning delivers significantly better results. A scanner captures photos without distortion, without shadows, and at higher resolution (up to 1200 DPI). Smartphone photography is convenient for individual snapshots, but for long-term archiving we recommend scanning.

For anyone who wants to preserve analog photos – whether it's a shoebox full of prints, several albums, or an entire estate. PhotoScanner is designed to be so simple that no technical knowledge is required.

PhotoScanner requires macOS 14.6 or later and runs natively on both Intel and Apple Silicon Macs. The app is only 15 MB.

No, PhotoScanner is developed exclusively for macOS. For scanning without a physical scanner, there's the free iPhone companion app.

The iPhone app acts as a mobile scanner: you photograph your photos with your iPhone and transfer them to the Mac app. The Mac app then handles all further steps – sorting, adding metadata, and exporting. If you have a physical scanner, you can skip the iPhone app entirely.

Yes. Since PhotoScanner is downloaded from the Mac App Store, you can use the app on all Macs linked to your Apple ID – at no extra cost.

No problem! Download the free PhotoScanner iPhone companion app and use your phone as a scanner. Photograph your photos with the PhotoScanner iPhone app and transfer them directly into PhotoScanner on Mac to organize and export.

Any scanner compatible with your Mac – whether from Epson, Canon, Brother, or another manufacturer. The only requirement is that it works with Apple's native scanner driver. That covers over 10,000 scanners.

Connect your scanner to your Mac (via USB or Wi-Fi) and turn it on. When macOS detects the scanner, it will automatically appear in PhotoScanner – no additional configuration needed. Click in the top left corner of the app and select your scanner from the menu.

Yes, as long as the scanner is recognized by the Mac operating system. Most modern Wi-Fi scanners work without any issues.

First, check whether the scanner appears in System Settings under "Printers & Scanners." If not, reinstall the manufacturer's driver or briefly disconnect the scanner from power. Then restart PhotoScanner. Also check whether the scanner can be detected and used by the native app Image Capture. If all that works, make sure no other app is open that might also be trying to use the scanner.

PhotoScanner automatically detects photos on the scanner bed and crops each print individually – even when multiple photos are scanned at once. This saves a lot of time compared to manual cropping.

It depends on the size of your scanner and your photos. Typically, 4–6 photos in the 4×6 inch format fit on an A4 scanner.

With 4–6 photos per scan, it takes about 1–2 hours for 100 photos and half a day for 500 photos. Thanks to automatic detection, no manual cropping is needed.

Yes. PhotoScanner processes both color and black-and-white photos and handles yellowed or slightly damaged prints well.

Yes, as long as you can lay the pages flat on the scanner glass. For thick albums, it helps to keep the lid slightly raised and reduce the pressure. We still recommend removing photos from the album for best results.

PhotoScanner is designed for digitizing photos. Documents can be scanned, but the app does not offer OCR (text recognition).

For normal family photos, 300–600 DPI is sufficient. For large prints or archival quality, we recommend 1200 DPI. The resolution can be set directly in the scan menu.

Clean the scanner glass with a lint-free cloth. Remove dust particles from photos with a soft brush. No further preparation is needed – just place them flat and scan.

Album by album: remove the photos if possible, place 4–6 at a time on the scanner, and let PhotoScanner automatically detect and crop them. Then add date and location before moving on to the next batch.

Yes. You can place multiple photos at once, and PhotoScanner uses its selection feature to detect each print individually. For follow-up scans, simply place new photos and scan again.

Yes. Next to the scan button you'll find a scan menu where you can adjust all settings – including the resolution. To rescan with different settings, simply place the photo again.

Yes! You can add a date and location to each photo. This metadata is preserved when exporting to Apple Photos or other formats.

Yes. You can have photos automatically detected or manually crop and edit them.

PhotoScanner scans the photo as-is. In editing mode, you can for example remove scratches or refresh colors.

Check that the scanner glass is clean and the photo lies flat. If necessary, increase the resolution in the scan menu and adjust the brightness in the scanner settings.

There are two export options: click "Export to Apple Photos" to transfer your photos directly to Apple Photos – including all metadata like date and location. Alternatively, export as files to a folder of your choice – also with all metadata included.

Scanned photos can be saved as PNG, JPEG, or TIFF – the most common formats for photos, compatible with all devices and apps.

Yes. Date, location, and all other metadata you've entered in PhotoScanner are automatically transferred during export.

Yes, indirectly. Export the photos to Apple Photos (automatically synced with iCloud) or as files to an iCloud Drive or Google Drive folder.

Yes. Simply select a folder on your external hard drive as the destination when exporting files.

Yes. After exporting to Apple Photos, you can share them via a shared album, AirDrop, iMessage, or email.

Yes. Scan at a minimum of 300 DPI and export as a JPEG file – the standard format for all common photo printing services.

Absolutely. All photo processing happens locally on your Mac. Your photos never leave your computer.

No. PhotoScanner processes everything locally on your Mac. No data is transferred to the cloud – unless you deliberately export to iCloud or another service.

Yes, fully. PhotoScanner requires no internet connection – all features are available offline. For scanning with the iPhone, however, both devices should be on the same network.

We regularly release updates with new features and improvements. Updates are automatically installed via the Mac App Store.

You can reach us by email at support@alfaline-apps.eu. We typically respond within 24–48 hours.

Absolutely! Just send us an email at it@alfaline-apps.eu. Many existing features were developed based on user feedback.