FIBO

Installation

Requirements: Windows 10 or 11 (64-bit). WebView2 ships with Windows 11 and recent Windows 10. If it is missing, the installer downloads it, so an internet connection is needed in that case.

1. Download FIBO_<version>_x64-setup.exe from the home page or from the GitHub releases.
2. Run it. It installs for your user account only and needs no administrator rights.
3. FIBO appears in the Start menu.

Uninstall: Settings → Apps → FIBO → Uninstall. Your library and thumbnails stay in the data folder (see “Data and privacy”), so reinstalling loses nothing.

Getting started

1. Click + in the top right corner and choose a folder with photos. FIBO scans it with all subfolders.
2. Photos appear while scanning. Large libraries are scanned in batches, so you can see progress.
3. Double-click a photo to open it full screen with the editor.

Supported formats: JPG, PNG, WebP, GIF, BMP and TIFF. RAW, HEIC and video files are not supported yet.

Screen layout. The main screen is kept clean: the menu button (☰) top left, the + button top right and a floating view bar at the top (Library, Albums, Favorites, People, Map). Tools live in the menu on the left: search, quick actions, filters, tags, folders and appearance.

Library and albums

• Grouping by date. Photos are ordered by the date taken (from EXIF data, or the file date if missing). Headings show years or months, and the “Year” chips scroll to a chosen year. Switch it in the menu → Appearance → Grouping.
• Grid. By default, rows of equal height where every photo keeps its own proportions. You can switch to equal 4:3 tiles and change the thumbnail size in the menu → Appearance.
• Albums are folders with photos grouped by year, newest first. An album’s year is the year of its newest photo.
• Favorites shows photos marked with a heart.
• Selecting many photos: Ctrl + click adds a photo, Shift + click selects a range. “Select many” mode in the menu replaces Ctrl.
• Slideshow starts from the menu or in the viewer (space).

Search and filters

In the menu, type part of a file name, camera or tag into Search. Under Filters:

• Rating and sorting: minimum number of stars; sort newest first, oldest first or by name (date grouping is off when sorting by name).
• Tags: selecting several tags shows photos that have all of them.
• Folders: limits the library to one folder.

Active filters appear as chips above the grid; clicking a chip removes the filter.

Tags, ratings and favorites

• Tags: select one or more photos and click the tag icon on the bottom bar. Type a name and press Enter, or pick an existing tag. Tags are stored in lowercase (up to 40 characters). With several photos, a partly applied tag shows “2/5”. The same tag editor is in the viewer’s Info tab.
• Removing a tag from all photos: menu → Tags → pick the tag → “Remove tag”. The app asks for confirmation, and the photos themselves stay.
• Ratings: 1 to 5 stars (keys 1–5, 0 clears).
• Favorites: the heart or the F key.

Metadata in files (XMP)

Tags, ratings and favorites are stored not only in the FIBO library but also in XMP files next to your photos (for example photo.jpg.xmp). They do not vanish with the database, and other programs (digiKam, Lightroom, darktable) can read them. The photos themselves are not modified.

• Automatic saving is on by default. Turn it off in the menu → Metadata in files, which also has a Save everything to XMP files button.
• XMP files from other programs are left untouched: FIBO recognises them by the missing FIBO marker and skips them.
• Reading: when adding photos, FIBO picks up the tags and ratings they already have: from Windows Explorer (“Tags” and “Rating”), from XMP and IPTC in JPEG files (the way Picasa stored them) and from .xmp files next to the photos. For photos already in the library use Load tags and ratings from files. Reading only adds: it never overwrites ratings or removes tags.
• A tag the photo already has is not added a second time.

Your own albums

Albums in Albums → My albums do not depend on folders: they are your own collections, and one photo can be in many albums. Files stay where they are.

• New album: the New album button, or right-click selected photos → Add to album… → New album….
• Opening an album shows its photos in the library. Right-click → Remove from this album takes photos out of the album (not off the disk).
• Each album has rename and delete buttons. Deleting an album does not delete photos. Album names are unique (case does not matter).

Watched folders

A folder added with Add folder is watched from then on. FIBO checks it after launch, when you return to the window (at most once per 30 seconds) and every 5 minutes:

• new photos are added automatically, together with tags and ratings stored in the file (a notification appears),
• photos whose files vanished from the disk disappear from the library. If a whole folder is unavailable (for example an unplugged drive), nothing is removed,
• unchanged files are skipped, so checking a large library is fast.

The list of watched folders is in the menu → Watched folders. Clicking a folder (after confirmation) stops watching it, and its photos stay in the library. Check for new photos now checks immediately.

File operations

Right-click a photo or a selection. The menu acts on all selected photos:

• Rating (stars), favorite, Tags…, Add to album…, Collage (from two photos), Select all.
• Rename file… (one photo): the extension stays and the XMP file is renamed with the photo. FIBO rejects names with characters Windows does not allow (\ / : * ? " < > |), reserved names (CON, NUL, COM1…) and never overwrites an existing file.
• Move to folder… and Copy to folder…: nothing is overwritten, and when a name is taken FIBO appends _1, _2. The XMP file goes with the photo. Moving across drives copies, checks the size and only then removes the source.
• Move to Recycle Bin… asks for confirmation and moves the files to the Windows Recycle Bin, from where you can restore them.

Photo viewer

Double-click a photo (or press Enter) to open it full screen. The top bar has the name, rating, favorite, undo and redo, slideshow, zoom, compare with original and full screen; the bottom has a thumbnail strip. Arrows at the edges switch photos.

Zooming: the mouse wheel zooms at the cursor, dragging pans the image, and double-click toggles between fit-to-window and 100% (keys +, - and Z). Before and after: hold the compare button or the B key to see the untouched original.

The wand button (or the E key) opens the edit panel. The Info tab shows name, folder, dimensions, size, date taken, camera and tags.

Photo editor

The edit panel has four tabs. Changes show live, and you can undo without limits while editing (Ctrl + Z and Ctrl + Y).

• Basics: I’m Feeling Lucky, Auto Contrast, Auto Color and Fill Light in one click; rotate and flip; straighten; red-eye removal (click the center of the eye); cropping at 1:1, 4:3, 3:2, 16:9 and more, with zoom and pan.
• Tuning: fill light, highlights, shadows, brightness, contrast, gamma, color temperature, saturation and sharpen. Double-click a slider to reset it.
• Effects (over 30, some with a strength slider): black and white, sepia, warmify, film grain, glow, Orton, soft focus, vignette, Lomo, Polaroid, HDR, heat map, night vision, posterize, pixelate, pencil sketch, comic, neon, border and more. They stack in the order you pick them.

Saving

• Save changes overwrites the file. Before that FIBO copies the original to a .originals folder next to the photo (only the first time).
• Save as copy creates a new file with _edit appended and leaves the original untouched.
• Restore original undoes an overwrite from the copy in .originals.
• GIF, BMP and TIFF are always saved as a JPG copy. Saving removes EXIF data from the file, but the date taken, camera and GPS position stay in FIBO’s database.

Collages

Select at least two photos (up to 30) and choose Collage from the bottom bar or the menu.

• Layouts: Grid, Mosaic (rows that fill the canvas), Photo pile (scattered, in white frames; “Shuffle” rolls a new arrangement) and Contact sheet (with file names).
• Canvas: 16:9, 4:3, 3:2, 1:1, 3:4 or 9:16, four backgrounds, spacing and corner rounding.
• Saving: a new 2800 px wide JPG, kolaz_YYYYMMDD_HHMMSS.jpg, in the first photo’s folder. Originals are never changed.

Map

The Map tab shows a globe with pins where your photos were taken. Photos from one place share a pin with a count, and nearby pins form a cluster. Click a cluster to zoom in, or a pin to open a panel with thumbnails. Click a thumbnail to open the viewer.

• Positions come from the GPS data in your photos (EXIF). Photos without GPS do not appear, and the counter in the corner shows how many there are.
• Photos added before map support have no stored coordinates: choose Load locations from photos in the Map tab or Refresh photo data in the menu.
• The map downloads tiles from the free OpenFreeMap service, so it needs internet. The rest of the app works offline.

Duplicates

Menu → Duplicates. Pick a level and click Find duplicates:

• Identical files: same content (same size and checksum). Fastest and safe.
• Very similar: the same shot after resizing, recompression or a small edit.
• Similar: also bursts of shots. Different photos can show up, so check before deleting.

Results are groups of photos with dimensions, size, folder and date. The photo with the crown Best (highest resolution, then largest file) stays, and the others are pre-selected for removal. At least one photo always stays in each group. Move to Recycle Bin asks for confirmation and moves files to the Windows Recycle Bin, from where you can restore them.

Data and privacy

• Your photos never leave your computer. FIBO has no accounts and sends no photos or statistics. The only internet use is downloading map tiles when you open the Map tab (and possibly downloading WebView2 during installation).
• The library (index, ratings, tags, coordinates) is the library.db database in %APPDATA%\pl.local.menedzerzdjec, and thumbnails are in its thumbs subfolder. Back it up by copying that folder. The folder has that name for technical reasons and does not change across updates.
• Copies of originals after editing are in .originals folders next to your photos, and tags, ratings and favorites are also in .xmp files next to the photos (this can be turned off in the menu).
• Uninstalling does not delete your photos or your library.

Keyboard shortcuts

Updates

Starting with version 0.2.0, FIBO checks GitHub for a newer version by itself:

• The check runs automatically once a day (shortly after launch, and when the app stays open for long it checks hourly whether a day has passed; silently when offline) and on demand: menu → Check for updates. A manual check always shows its result in a dialog: a new version, you are up to date, or an error.
• When a new version exists, FIBO asks: Download and install, Later (it will ask again the next day) or Skip this version. The release notes are shown in the dialog.
• If you agree, FIBO downloads the installer with a progress bar, installs it and restarts. Save any open photo edits first.
• Updates are signed with the author’s key, and the app installs only updates with a valid signature. Your library, ratings and tags are untouched.
• The version number is shown in the menu header. Version 0.1.0 must be updated by hand once, because it does not have this feature yet.

FAQ

Building from source

Requirements: Node.js 22, Rust (stable) and Visual Studio Build Tools with C++.

git clone https://github.com/pmesznik/fibo.git
cd fibo/app
npm ci
npx tauri dev      # development mode
npx tauri build    # installer in src-tauri/target/release/bundle/nsis

New version: node scripts/bump-version.mjs 0.2.0 sets the version number in three files. After pushing the tag v0.2.0, GitHub Actions builds the installer and publishes a release with the file FIBO_0.2.0_x64-setup.exe. This site fetches the latest release number by itself.

License

FIBO is free software under the GNU GPL version 2 or later. You may use, change and redistribute it under the terms of that license. The program comes with no warranty. The map uses data © OpenStreetMap contributors and OpenFreeMap tiles.