Kinfolk

How it works

1. 01

   It finds the faces and groups them

   Every photo is checked for faces, and faces that look like the same person are gathered into a group. Faces too small to recognise are skipped, and a group only appears once it holds three faces, so what you see is worth naming.

   Unknown 412 faces

   Who is this?

   Unknown 79 faces

   Who is this?

2. 02

   Name someone once

   Type a name on a group and every face in it is that person. Later scans match new photos to the people you have named, mark them auto until you confirm, and ask "Is this Sara?" when a new group looks close.

   Unknown 46 faces

   Hina6 faces· 2 to confirm

   auto

   auto

   Who is this?Hina Named

   Next scan: 2 new photos matched to Hina

3. 03

   Your corrections stick

   Select any faces that are someone else, or not a face at all, and take them out. Merge two people, move a face, hide someone. Nothing you fix by hand is ever changed back by a later scan.

   Omar12 faces10 faces

   2 selected Not Omar Not a faceClear

4. 04

   Click a face to name it

   Open any photo and its faces are outlined with names underneath. Click a box to name it or fix it, and step through the rest with the arrow keys.

   NaniAli?Omar

   Omar

   New person

   3 faces Boxes

   Ali? was matched automatically

5. 05

   Find photos by who is in them

   Filter the library by people, tags, folder and date together. Sara and Ali, tagged Travel, from 2024: switch between all of them and any of them with one click.

   SaraandAliTravel Add

   1,284 photos212 photos47 photos9 photos

6. 06

   See where your photos took you

   Places puts photos with location data on a map. Zoom into a cluster, open photos from a spot, or show every photo in the area you are viewing. Download map data for your photo areas once and explore those maps offline; your photos stay on your Mac.

   Visualize

   TimelineWho’s togetherPlaces

   84 photos with a locationShow 12 in view

   LibraryMap area12 photos

7. 07

   See your people through the years

   Choose people and compare their photos over time, with a separate row for each person. Timeline counts photos by month, or by year for longer collections. Switch between chart and table, or click a bar to open that person’s photos from that period.

   Visualize

   TimelineWho’s togetherPlaces

   NaniSaraAliChart　 Table

   LibrarySara · July 202524 photos

8. 08

   Discover who appears together

   Who’s together connects people who share photos. Larger circles mean more photos of a person; thicker lines mean more photos together. Drag people to arrange the view, click a person for their photos, or click a line for photos of both.

   Visualize

   TimelineWho’s togetherPlaces

   At least　 1　 3　 5　 photos together

   Nani

   Sara

   Ali

   Omar

   Hina

   Nani and Sara
   48 photos together

   LibraryNani + Sara48 photos

9. 09

   Tag many photos at once

   Select a run of photos, type a tag, and every one of them carries it. Tags live in Kinfolk, so your files are never rewritten.

   Travel

   Travel

   Travel

   1 selected2 selected3 selectedAdd a tagTravelDone

10. 10

    Point it at a folder

    Choose a folder and it scans every subfolder, skipping system folders, the Photos library, developer folders and photos that only live in iCloud. Rescans only look at what changed, and a moved file keeps its names and tags.

    New scan

    Folder

    ~/Pictures/FamilyChoose…

    Skip

    Hidden and system foldersPhotos library packageDeveloper folders (node_modules, .git, venv, build)Photos only in iCloud (reading them downloads them)

    CancelStart scan

    ScanningDone · 3,960 photos · 5,211 faces~/Pictures/Family

11. 11

    Your photos stay on your Mac

    The face models ship inside the app and run on your Mac’s own chip. Your photos are not uploaded, and your originals are only ever read.

    Your Macface recognition

    Originals read, never changed Face models on this Mac

Who it’s for

• Families with years of photos

  Phone backups, old laptops and external drives full of folders nobody has opened in years. Find every photo of Nani, or of the kids together, without sorting a thing by hand.

• Photographers and event shooters

  Weddings, school events and team days where every guest wants their own shots. Name a person once and pull every photo they appear in, across every folder.

• People who will not upload faces

  Cloud photo services recognise faces on their servers. Kinfolk does it on your Mac, with no account or photo uploads, so your family is never in someone else’s dataset.

• Family historians and archivists

  Scanned albums and inherited collections where the hard part is knowing who is who. Name the faces you recognise and see everyone else they turn up with.