AI-Powered Auto-Tagging and Captioning in Folio
Set up AI metadata generation with Claude or Apple Intelligence to automatically tag, title, and caption your SmugMug photos.
Folio uses AI to automatically generate meaningful titles, captions, and keyword tags for your photos. This saves hours of manual metadata work and helps your photos get discovered through search on SmugMug and beyond.
Setting Up AI
Open Settings
Open Folio's settings with Cmd+, or by selecting Folio > Settings from the menu bar.
Go to the AI tab
Click the AI tab in the settings window.
Enable AI metadata
Toggle AI-powered titles, captions & tags on.
Choose your AI provider
Select one of the two available providers:
Claude (by Anthropic) — Enter your API key from console.anthropic.com. Photos are sent to Anthropic's API for analysis. Your data is not used for model training and is deleted immediately after processing.
Apple Intelligence — Available on macOS 26 (Tahoe) and later. Photos are analyzed directly on your Mac. Some requests that exceed local capabilities may use Apple's Private Cloud Compute servers, but no data is stored.
You can also configure your AI provider during the Setup Wizard (Step 5) when first setting up Folio. See Getting Started for details.
Auto-Tag a Gallery
Select a gallery
Select the gallery you want to tag in the sidebar.
Start tagging
Click Tag Gallery in the toolbar. Folio begins analyzing each photo and adding keyword tags.
Monitor progress
A progress indicator shows the current status, for example: "Tagging: sunset-beach.jpg — 15/120".
You can click Stop at any time. Photos that have already been tagged will keep their keywords.
AI Captioning
Select a gallery
Select the gallery you want to caption in the sidebar.
Start captioning
Click Caption Gallery in the toolbar. This button is only shown when an AI provider is configured.
Wait for processing
Folio analyzes each photo and generates a title and caption. Metadata is saved to SmugMug automatically as each photo is processed.
Per-Photo AI
You can also generate AI metadata for individual photos from the photo viewer.
Open a photo
Open the photo you want to tag or caption in the photo viewer.
Open the Info Panel
Press Cmd+I to open the Info Panel.
Generate keywords
Click Auto-Tag to generate keyword tags for the photo.
Generate title and caption
Click Caption to generate a title and caption for the photo.
Review and save
Review the generated metadata in the Info Panel, then click Save to apply the changes.
Privacy
How each provider handles your photos:
- Claude (Anthropic) — Photos are sent to Anthropic's servers via API. They are processed and immediately discarded. Photos are not stored or used for model training.
- Apple Intelligence — Photos are analyzed locally on your Mac. When a request exceeds local capabilities, Apple's Private Cloud Compute servers are used to process the data without retaining it.
Apple Intelligence requires macOS 26 or later with Apple Intelligence enabled on your Mac.
Related Tutorials
- Settings — Configure Folio preferences including AI providers
- Browsing Galleries — Navigate and explore your SmugMug galleries in Folio
Managing Galleries and Folders in Folio
Create galleries and folders, configure privacy and display settings, reorder photos with drag-and-drop, and move or delete images across your SmugMug library.
Sharing Photos from Folio
Share photos in any available size by copying direct URLs or saving specific resolutions to disk from the Folio photo viewer.