FolioSort vs Microsoft Photos (2026): Viewer or Organizer?

Of the two, FolioSort is the one that reorganizes the files on disk, finds duplicates and repairs Google Takeout exports. Microsoft Photos is the one that edits photos, reaches OneDrive and iCloud Photos, and costs nothing because it is already there. Many people will use both.

Disclosure: FolioSort is made by an independent developer, Tiago Trindade, who also wrote this page. That is why every Microsoft Photos claim below is limited to what Microsoft itself publishes, and anything Microsoft does not state is marked "not stated" rather than guessed.

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No, not on its own. By default Photos shows everything in your Pictures folder, and you can add other folders, OneDrive and iCloud Photos so they all appear in one Gallery timeline, newest first. Inside Photos you can create a folder and move or copy photos into it; Microsoft notes that a move in Photos also moves the file on your PC. What Microsoft does not describe is any feature that files photos into folders by the date they were taken. Ten thousand photos in one DCIM dump stay in one folder unless you drag them yourself.

That is FolioSort's core job. Point it at any folder or drive, pick a template such as {YYYY}/{MM}, and it sorts every photo and video into dated folders from its EXIF capture date. You see the new folder tree before anything moves, Copy is the default, every transfer is checksum-verified, and the whole batch can be undone. When it finishes, the result is ordinary folders that Microsoft Photos, File Explorer, a NAS or any other app reads the same way.

Microsoft has also announced Auto-Categorization to Windows Insiders: on Copilot+ PCs, Photos groups images into four categories — screenshots, receipts, identity documents and notes. It is useful, but it sorts by what a picture shows, not by date, and Microsoft's announcement does not say whether files are moved on disk.

Every photo carries two kinds of date. The date taken is written into the file by the camera or phone (EXIF DateTimeOriginal). The date modified is a file-system timestamp that Windows rewrites when a file is copied, restored from a backup, unzipped or synced from the cloud. After a migration, thousands of photos can carry the same date modified — the day they were moved.

Microsoft says you can search Photos by "date on which photo is taken", which is the right date. Microsoft does not say which date the Gallery timeline uses for files without one, and in any case Photos only displays the order — the files stay where they are.

FolioSort sorts on the date taken and ignores the date modified. Where the date taken is missing, its Dates module can fill it from the file name, the folder name or the photos around it, without overwriting a date that exists. And a Google Photos export, whose dates sit in separate .json files, gets them written back into each photo for free.

Microsoft's Photos support pages do not describe a duplicate finder, and the redesigned app's release notes do not list one either. If two copies of the same photo sit in two folders you added, Photos shows both.

FolioSort's duplicate finder uses perceptual fingerprints, so it catches exact copies and visually similar ones — resized, re-compressed, cropped or lightly edited — that byte-for-byte tools miss. Only byte-identical copies are pre-selected; visual matches arrive unticked, labelled as possible matches. Removals go to the Recycle Bin and can be undone. Scanning and reviewing are free and unlimited; the free plan cleans 20 copies, Pro has no limit. The same "Clean" job covers blurry shots and screenshots.

Microsoft Photos has several kinds of search, and they depend on where the photo is stored and on the hardware:

• Photos on your PC, any PC: search by file name, the date the photo was taken, file type (PNG, JPEG) and location — city, state or country from the photo's GPS, once you allow it.
• Photos on your PC, Copilot+ PC: describe what you are looking for ("sunset at the beach"), over photos that Windows has indexed. Microsoft lists JPG, PNG, GIF, BMP and ICO as the image types for semantic indexing.
• Photos in a personal OneDrive: Microsoft says you can describe what you are looking for to find images by content. Work or school OneDrive photos are searched by file name or tags.

So on a PC that is not a Copilot+ PC, describe-it search reaches your photos only if they are in OneDrive. FolioSort's AI Photo Search works the other way: it searches photos in your local folders, on external drives and on a NAS, in plain language ("kids at the beach", "dog in snow"), by text inside the image, by file name and by automatic event, with the model running on your own computer — on any 64-bit Windows 10 (1809) or 11 PC, and on a Mac. Nothing is uploaded and it works with Wi-Fi off. The full library is Elite; Free and Pro get a 500-photo taster. For more options, see the best offline AI photo search.

Faces follow the same split. Microsoft's page on the new Photos app says the People tab and face grouping are not in it, and that they remain in Photos Legacy. Microsoft's OneDrive help says that in Photos, face grouping for personal accounts runs in the cloud, only on photos in OneDrive, is rolling out gradually, and does not process photos that are only on your PC. FolioSort's Find a Person and People (Elite) group and search faces in local folders, on-device.

OneDrive is built into Microsoft Photos. Sign in and your OneDrive photos join the Gallery; with a personal Microsoft account you also get Albums, Moments ("On this day", themed collections) and People. Microsoft says these are not available for work or school accounts. You do not need to sign in at all to browse photos stored on your PC, and adding a local folder to Photos does not upload it.

iCloud Photos also appears in Microsoft Photos, once you install Apple's iCloud for Windows app from the Microsoft Store, sign in to your Apple Account there and turn on Photos. If you have an iPhone and a Windows PC, that is a genuinely convenient way to see everything in one place.

FolioSort connects to neither service. It works on files on disk: it runs on a synced OneDrive folder like any other folder, recognises OneDrive and iCloud Drive files that are cloud-only without downloading them, and detects iCloud exports in its Exit Kit. If what you want is a cloud gallery, Photos is the better tool. If what you want is a library you own, in folders, FolioSort is.

Microsoft Photos is a Windows app, and Microsoft's Photos pages describe no Mac version. FolioSort is a native app on both: macOS 14 or later on Apple Silicon and Intel, and Windows 10 (1809 or later) and 11 on x64. One Elite licence covers 3 devices, mixed across Mac and Windows, and because the library is plain folders, a drive sorted on the PC reads the same on the Mac. See also the best photo organizer for Mac.

More often than a comparison page usually admits:

• You want to edit. Photos crops, rotates, adjusts light and colour, applies filters and markup, removes objects with Generative erase and blurs, removes or replaces backgrounds — Microsoft says Generative erase and the background separation run on your device. Copilot+ PCs add more, such as Super resolution. FolioSort is not an editor and never changes the pixels of an original.
• Your photos are in OneDrive or iCloud. Photos brings both into one gallery, with Albums and Moments for OneDrive. FolioSort has no cloud connection.
• Your library is small and already tidy. A few thousand photos in a couple of folders do not need an organizer; Photos is free and already installed.
• You have a Copilot+ PC and the describe-it search over local indexed photos is all the AI you need.
• You trim videos. Photos trims video, and opens Clipchamp for more. FolioSort sorts videos by date but does not edit them.

And you do not have to choose. Sort and clean the folders with FolioSort, then keep browsing and editing them in Microsoft Photos — it shows whatever folders you add, in whatever shape they are in.

1. Find the folders. In Photos, the folders you see are your Pictures folder and the ones you added. They are ordinary folders in File Explorer.
2. Install FolioSort. Download it or get it from the Microsoft Store. No account, no sign-in.
3. Sort by date taken. Choose the folder, pick a template such as {YYYY}/{MM}, check the live preview of the new folder tree, and run it. Copy is the default, and every batch can be undone.
4. Clean. Review exact and similar duplicates, blurry shots and screenshots; removals go to the Recycle Bin.
5. Keep using Photos if you like. Add the new folder in Photos and browse or edit as before — or search it in plain language in FolioSort with Elite.