Importing photo from Photo Library

Version 2.7 adds ability to add multiple photos from the photo library into the app and this page describes the subtleties of the import process.

Importing a single photo.

If you pick the option to import a single photo, a photo preview/editor will be open offering to pick the photo that you want to add to the app. You can then review the imported photo, edit its notes or add hand drawn notes and Save the photo. Saving the photo on this will add it to the app.

Importing multiple photos.

“Finding address” deserves a note for the multiple images import.

Apple geocoding services are used to find the photo address based on its location and Apple limits access to these services per device and minute/hour/day.

The app follows all the requirements set by Apple for the geocoding services fair usage. When you decide to import with Address Resolution active, the app will only issue one geocoding request to Apple services at a time and - this can make the whole batch import slower, but this is not enough to ensure that all of the geocoding requests will be successful.

At the moment it looks that Apple limits number of requests from one device to something like 50 per minute. If there are more photos in your import batch and all of them are having a location and you asked for address resolution - please count with exceeding the fair usage policy and some of the photos having no address after the import.

It can be reasonable to limit number of photos in a single import batch to something like 50. Please experiment, it may even differ by country.

Importing a batch of photos will apply the currently setup notes to every imported image. You can edit these notes later (MENU > POINTS).

Importing when access to the library is limited.

iOS 14 and higher enables a new privacy mode to its users: “Access to only explicitly selected by a user photos”. When you have this level of access setup, the app will only have access to location data in photos that it is granted access to. The app will be able to import any photo that you pick for the import, but if you pick the photo that you have not explicitly granted the app access to, the app will not be able to read location of the photo.

With iOS 14 Apple provided very safe photo picker that the app uses. It is very safe approach with one big omission at the moment: You can’t see which photos in this picker you’ve already granted access to the app. Thus it is up to the user to only pick photos that they granted the app access to or otherwise the app will not be able to read location data that belong to the imported photo.

This only applies if you decides to give the app access to “Selected photos” only. These selected photos can be managed in iPhone settings > scroll to the app row > tap and pick “Photos” to manage the access.