Photos

Names and tags are how you search. The photo is what tells you whether the thing you found is the thing you wanted.

The three-photo limit#

Bins and items each hold up to three photos. At three the add button disappears; remove one to make room.

Three gets you the shots that matter:

• the container, open, from above
• what is underneath the top layer
• the label, serial plate, or the detail you will want to read later

The cover photo#

The first photo is the cover. It is what appears in the bins list and grid, in search results, and anywhere a bin sits next to other bins.

To change it, long-press a thumbnail in the gallery and pick Set as cover. That is a mobile control: the web dashboard can add and remove photos, but not pick the cover.

A good cover is the one you would recognize from across the room, not the one with the most detail. Detail is what the other two photos are for.

Taking photos that stay useful#

• Shoot the contents, not just the container. Every closed box looks like every other closed box. Spend one of the three on the lid closed if you like, but make an open shot the cover.
• Fill the frame. A bin photographed from across the garage is a gray rectangle at thumbnail size.
• Re-shoot when things change. A cover showing contents you removed two years ago is worse than none, because you will trust it.

Where photos are stored#

Photos are added from the camera, your camera roll, or the web dashboard, and uploaded to whichever server you are signed in to. On cloud, storage is private: images are never served from a public bucket, and the apps fetch them through links that expire a few minutes after they are issued.

On a self-hosted server, photos are on your own hardware, which also means their backup is your responsibility. See Your data.

Offline#

Photos taken offline are held on the device and upload on the next sync, along with everything else. The app does not wait for a connection to let you carry on. Garages, attics and basements rarely have one.