Ask Your AI · MCP server · Labs (Beta)
“How many photos did I take in 2019?” “Find the photo with the wifi password.” “Photos of Maria from last summer.” FolioSort turns the AI assistant you already use into one that knows your photo library. It connects to Claude Desktop in one click, and to ChatGPT's Codex, Cursor, VS Code and any app that speaks MCP — and it answers from the indexes FolioSort already keeps on your computer. Free on Mac and Windows. Read-only. The images never leave your computer.
How many photos did I take in 2019, and which camera do I use most?
Used FolioSort · library_stats
You have 4,212 photos and videos from 2019. Across your whole library, the camera you use most is your Canon EOS R6 (18,040 files), then an iPhone 11 (9,402). And 1,204 photos have no place yet — Places in FolioSort can fill those in.
Find the photo with the wifi password from my parents' house.
Used FolioSort · search_photos · text in photo: “WPA”
Found it: IMG_2231.HEIC in Phone backup/2023/03, taken on
12 March 2023 — a photo of the router's label. The text in it reads “WPA2 key”. Want the other two router photos
from the same day?
Illustration of a conversation in Claude Desktop. The numbers and names are an example; yours come from your own library.
You ask Claude or ChatGPT to draft an e-mail, plan a trip, explain a contract. Ask it for “the photo of the whiteboard from Tuesday's meeting” and it has nothing: your photos are on your drives, and the assistant has never seen them.
The usual way round is to upload them somewhere — which is exactly what people who keep their photos on their own drives do not want.
FolioSort already reads your library on your own computer: the Library knows every photo's date, camera and place; AI Search knows what is in each photo and the text written in it; Find a Person knows the people you named.
Ask Your AI opens those indexes to your assistant through MCP — the Model Context Protocol, the open standard Claude, Codex, Cursor and VS Code use to talk to local tools. The assistant asks FolioSort a question; FolioSort looks it up on your computer and answers in words. No upload, no copy of your library in anyone's cloud, no image ever sent.
What you can ask
search_photos finds photos by what they show, by the words written in them — receipts, signs, screenshots — and by date, from your AI Search index.
find_person answers with the photos of anyone you named in FolioSort. It only returns faces you confirmed — it never guesses who someone is.
library_stats counts across the Library, or one folder of it: by year, by type, undated, without a place, and your top cameras — the same numbers as Library in numbers.
photo_info gives one photo's date, camera, lens, ISO, aperture, shutter, GPS and the people named in it.
And library_status, which the assistant calls first: which folders and drives FolioSort
knows, how many photos are indexed for search, which drives are unplugged — and, when something is missing, what
to do about it in FolioSort.
How to connect
Switch on Let AI assistants on this Mac search my FolioSort library (this PC on Windows). It is off until you turn it on, and it takes effect straight away.
Connect to Claude Desktop adds FolioSort to Claude's settings for you, keeping a backup of them. For any other app, copy the setup — as JSON, or as TOML for Codex — and paste it in.
In Claude Desktop, Settings › Developer lists foliosort as running. The lab tells you exactly what to do if it is not there.
The lab suggests questions built from your own library, so they have real answers. The first time, Claude asks to use FolioSort — choose Allow.
Works with
One honest limit: a regular ChatGPT chat in the browser only connects to servers on the internet, so it cannot reach FolioSort on your computer. Use the ChatGPT desktop app's Codex, or Claude Desktop.
What the assistant receives
When the assistant asks, FolioSort answers with file names and folders, capture dates, GPS coordinates, camera details and the names you gave people. The assistant sends what it receives to its own provider — Anthropic for Claude, OpenAI for ChatGPT — as part of your conversation, like anything else you type into it.
It never receives the images. No photo, no thumbnail, no pixel: FolioSort answers from the index it already keeps on your computer, so there is nothing to upload.
An assistant can search and read details. It can never move, rename, change or delete a file — there is no tool for it to call.
It only ever sees the folders you added to the Library or to AI Search; a path outside them is refused. Only apps running under your own user account can connect. And the switch in Labs turns it off at once: the assistant is then told to turn it on in FolioSort, instead of being left waiting.
Why it's safe
Ask Your AI costs nothing, on Mac and on Windows. What the assistant can answer is what FolioSort has read: the Library covers every photo on every plan; AI Search reads 500 photos for free and your whole library with Elite; and people are found once you have named them in Find a Person. When the index is missing something, the answer says so — and says where in FolioSort to fix it. See pricing for the plans. Ask Your AI is a lab, marked BETA: tell us how you use it, and whether it should stay.
Ask Your AI is only as good as the indexes behind it. These build them — on your own computer.
What is in every photo and the text written in it — with AI that ships inside FolioSort, no model to connect.
AI Photo Search → Every photoOne timeline over every folder and drive, with dates, places and cameras — free on every plan.
The Library → Labs (Beta)Resize, crop, combine, find reminder photos, and map where moved files went.
Labs →FAQ
MCP, the Model Context Protocol, is the open standard AI assistants use to talk to tools on your own computer. Claude Desktop, the ChatGPT desktop app's Codex, Codex CLI, Cursor and VS Code all support it. FolioSort ships an MCP server inside the app, so an assistant can ask it questions about your photo library and get the answers back.
Yes, through the ChatGPT desktop app's Codex and through Codex CLI: copy the setup from Labs › Ask Your AI as TOML for ~/.codex/config.toml. A regular ChatGPT chat in the browser only connects to servers on the internet, so it cannot reach FolioSort on your computer. Claude Desktop is connected in one click.
No image is ever sent. FolioSort answers the assistant from the index it keeps on your computer, in words: file names and folders, capture dates, GPS coordinates, camera details and the names you gave people. The assistant passes what it receives to its own provider, Anthropic or OpenAI, as part of your conversation. FolioSort itself sends nothing about your photos anywhere.
No. Ask Your AI is read-only: the assistant can search and read details, and there is no tool that moves, renames, changes or deletes a file. It can only ask about the folders you added to the Library or to AI Search.
Ask Your AI is free on every plan, on Mac and Windows. The assistant can answer what FolioSort has read: the Library covers every photo on every plan, AI Search reads 500 photos for free and the whole library with Elite, and people are found once you have named them in Find a Person.
No. FolioSort's own AI — the one behind AI Search and Find a Person — is built into the app and runs on your computer. Ask Your AI only lets the assistant you already use read FolioSort's answers. There is no API key to enter and no FolioSort account.
No. If FolioSort is not running when the assistant asks, it is started in the background, so the first answer can take a few seconds. If the switch in Labs › Ask Your AI is off, the assistant is told to turn it on in FolioSort instead of being left waiting.
Download FolioSort, open Labs › Ask Your AI, and connect Claude Desktop in one click — your photos stay on your own drives.