Photos in OScar: folders, albums and a lightbox

Photos is the picture side of OScar's file tools: a private photo library that you can browse by folder. Holiday shots, family pictures, the photo of the parking spot, screenshots you'll need exactly once. This post covers everything it does today, from the first upload to albums, the lightbox and share links.

Getting started with your private photo library

Photos lives inside a project, like every OScar tool, so a project for the summer house can keep its own pictures apart from your family album. Open a project and press the Photos tile.

Photos opens on All photos: your top-level folders, then the photos that sit in no folder yet (more on it below). The word "Photos" sits up in the sidebar beside the OScar logo, with a small green grid icon next to it that takes you back to the project's page. The toolbar is a small floating pill of icons at the top of the page (hover one to see its name): Upload in green, Upload folder (on a computer), New folder, a search field, list and grid view, a sort picker, and inside a folder a red Delete folder bin. It stays put while you scroll, so search is never a long scroll away.

The fastest way in is still the old-fashioned one: drag a pile of pictures from your computer into the window and they upload into the folder you're looking at. Photos takes images only, each up to 200 MB.

The sidebar: groups and folders

The sidebar holds the structure, laid out like Notes and Draw. New group and New folder sit at the top, then All photos with a count. Below come your groups: extra-bold capital headings with a count, closed until you click them, each holding folders. Your existing folders start out in a group called Starter; make more ("Trips", "Family", "Work") and spread folders over them.

Click a folder and it opens in the sidebar: its little folder icon turns from grey and closed to green and open, and what it holds appears one step in, under a thin guide line: its subfolders first, then its photos (each with a tiny thumbnail before its name, so you spot the sunset without opening anything) and Add photos. The guide lines turn green along the way to the folder you're in, and a photo you have open is marked in blue. On a phone the menu shows three levels at a time: a folder on the third level has a small arrow and opens as its own panel, with a back button and the full path on top. The sidebar remembers which folders you left open, even after a reload. Meanwhile the folder's page appears on the right: the toolbar with the folder's name in a small pill under it (click the name to rename it), then the photos as a grid of square thumbnails.

Further down sit Albums, then My favorites, Stray photos, Shared links (every link you've made, with a count) and Recently deleted.

Stray photos

Not every picture needs a home straight away. Stray photos gathers every photo that sits in no folder at all, with a count in the sidebar. Upload from there, or from All photos, and the pictures land right in it, ready to be dragged into a folder whenever you get round to it (or never; they show up on All photos either way).

What happens when you upload

Uploads go through a queue at the bottom of the screen with a progress bar per file, Retry for anything that failed and cancel for anything you changed your mind about. While each photo uploads, OScar quietly reads what your camera saved inside it:

• The date it was taken. If the camera didn't save one, OScar tries the file name (phones often name files after the date). If neither works, you can set the date by hand in the info drawer.
• The camera and lens, plus settings like aperture and shutter speed.
• Where it was taken, if your phone saved a location.

iPhone HEIC photos get a proper preview too, while the original file stays exactly as you uploaded it. And if the same photo is already in your library, the queue asks: Skip duplicates or Keep both.

All photos

All photos is where Photos opens, and it's always one click away at the top of the sidebar, with the number of photos you have beside it. The page works exactly like All documents: your top-level folders come first, then the photos that aren't in a folder. Open a folder to step in, switch between list and grid with the two round buttons, and drop pictures on the page to upload them. Photos dropped on the All photos row in the sidebar move out of their folder.

The lightbox

Click a photo to select it, double-click (or press Enter) to open it in the lightbox. On a phone, a tap opens it. The lightbox fills the screen with a large preview and lets you:

• Step through photos with the left and right arrow keys or the on-screen arrows. The next photos load ahead so it feels instant.
• Zoom with the mouse wheel, the + and − keys (0 resets), a double-click, or a pinch on a touch screen, then drag to look around.
• Press F to favorite the photo, or click its name to rename it.
• Press I (or the Info button) for the info drawer.
• Press Esc to go back to where you were.

Flicking through a hundred photos still counts as one step back in your browser history, so the back button takes you to the grid, not to photo 99.

The info drawer

The drawer holds everything about one photo: its folder, the Taken date (editable, with a small note when it came from the file name or was set by hand), a description, favorite and colour, the added and modified dates, the camera, and the location with an Open in Maps link. A collapsible EXIF section lists the raw camera details for the curious. From here you can also Download, Move…, Share…, Add to album… or move the photo to the trash.

Photographed a menu, a whiteboard or a receipt? Press Read text and OScar reads the words in the image so search can find them later. It uses a few of your monthly AI credits.

Albums

Folders are where a photo lives. Albums are collections that can borrow photos from anywhere, so the same picture can be in "Best of 2026" and "Grandma" without being copied. Ways to add photos:

• Add to album… from a photo's right-click menu, the lightbox, or the bulk bar with several photos selected. You can make a new album right in that picker.
• Drag photos onto an album in the sidebar. This adds them; it never moves them out of their folder.

The sidebar's Albums section has + New (a name field, with Create and Cancel right under it), and a right-click on an album gives you Rename and Delete album. Inside an album, click the heading to rename it, right-click a photo for Set as album cover or Remove from album, and use Delete album in the toolbar when you're done with it. Deleting an album never deletes photos: they stay in the library.

Folders, favorites and colours

Right-click a photo for the full menu: Open, Download, Rename, Move…, Favorite, Share link…, Share with people…, Color…, Add to album…, Info and Move to trash. Folders have their own menu with Download as zip, New subfolder, Rename, Move… and Color…. In the sidebar a right-click on a folder gives the short version (New subfolder, Add photos…, Rename, Color… and Move to trash), and on a group New folder here, Rename and Delete group.

A colour puts a small dot in the corner of the tile, and favorites get a little star and gather in the sidebar's My favorites.

Folders sort by name with numbers in natural order, so "1 Spring" comes before "10 Winter". Drag photos onto a folder or a sidebar folder to move them, drag folders and groups around the sidebar to rearrange it, or drag between two projects' Photos open in two browser windows to move them to another project.

Search

Press Ctrl K (Cmd K on a Mac) for quick search. It finds folders and photos by name, description and any text read from the image. Narrow it with the kind picker, or type is:favorite into the box. See all opens the full results.

Selecting many and downloading

Shift-click selects a range and Ctrl or Cmd-click adds single photos. A small bar floats at the bottom with the count, Select all and Clear, and a row of round icon buttons: move, download (several photos arrive as one zip, folders included), colour, add to album, favorite and trash. Hover an icon to see its name; on a phone they line up under the count. Arrow keys move the selection around the grid, and ? shows every shortcut.

Trashed photos wait in Recently deleted for 30 days, each showing the days it has left, so a slip of the finger is always fixable with Restore. The red bin icon beside the search field there empties the trash for good (it asks first).

Sharing photos

• Share with people… gives another OScar user access to a photo or a whole folder, to view and download. They find it under Shared with me. On the family plan your family members are one-click chips.
• Share link… makes a link for anyone: pick 1, 7 or 30 days (links always expire) and a gate, either a password or the visitor's email address. A folder link shows that folder's own photos. Copy it right away, as it's shown only once, and revoke it whenever you like from the dialog or the Shared links view, which also shows who came by.

On your phone

• Tap a photo to open it, swipe left and right to browse, pinch to zoom, double-tap to zoom in.
• Press Select in the toolbar to pick several photos, then Done.
• Long-press and drag a photo onto a folder to move it.
• The search icon in the toolbar opens quick search.

A few tips

• Keep folders for where photos belong (a trip, a project) and albums for stories that mix them.
• After importing old scans, give them a rough date in the info drawer, so sorting by date puts them in the right spot.
• Use a time-limited link with a password when sending wedding photos to relatives, rather than a public album that lives forever.

Wrapping up

Photos is a quiet, private place for your pictures, sitting right beside the notes, documents and lists of the same project. See how the tools fit together on the OScar page, or browse all the tools.

Photos is part of the OScar plan, €18 a month or €172 a year with 50 GB of storage. Take a look at pricing and give your camera roll somewhere nice to live. Checkout opens soon.