Questions about Photo Stream Assistant
55 answers, covering the app itself and each of its features. Everything here is also available as plain Markdown for readers that prefer it.
About the app
What is Photo Stream Assistant?
A macOS desktop app for managing a Flickr library: browsing everything you have, editing in bulk, renaming tags across the whole library, seeing photos on a map, reading your contacts feed and activity, and backing the library up to your own disk. It signs in with your own Flickr account and talks to Flickr's own API. It is an independent app, not affiliated with Flickr or SmugMug.
What does it cost?
The app is free to download from the Mac App Store and stays usable for free with no time limit. Pro Unlock is a one-time in-app purchase of 12.99 EUR, not a subscription, and it restores on the buyer's other Macs.
Which Macs does it run on?
It requires macOS 12.0 or later and runs on Apple silicon or Intel, as a universal build. Both architectures are in the same download.
Do I need a Flickr Pro account?
Not for most of the app. A Flickr account is enough to browse, edit, tag, map and back up. Insights is the exception: it reads the per-day statistics that Flickr provides only to Pro accounts, so without Flickr Pro there is nothing for it to read.
Where do my Flickr credentials go?
They stay on your Mac. There is no account to create with the developer and no server in between: the app signs in with Flickr directly and keeps the resulting token locally. There is no analytics service inside the app.
Is it available in my language?
The interface is available in English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, Chinese.
Does it work with Flickr's own limits?
It has to, and it says so rather than pretending otherwise. Flickr keeps per-day statistics for 28 days, offers no tag rename API, and limits how fast any application may download. The app paces itself to what Flickr accepts and waits when told to, but it cannot exceed what the API allows, and neither can anything else.
Flickr Bulk Edit
Photo Stream Assistant is a macOS app that applies one change to many Flickr photos at once: tags, title, description, privacy, licence, safety level, dates, rotation and location. Select photos from your library or from an album, set the fields, and the change is sent to Flickr for the whole selection. The free version applies a change to 10 photos at a time; the one-time Pro Unlock removes the limit.
What can I bulk edit on Flickr?
Photo Stream Assistant covers titles, descriptions, tags, privacy, licenses, dates, rotation, safety, search visibility, and geolocation-related fields.
Is Flickr bulk editing available in the free version?
Bulk editing is in the free app, applied to 10 photos at a time so you can see how it behaves. Pro Unlock removes that limit.
Can I bulk edit from albums too?
Yes. The same workflow runs from an album, so you can select album photos and edit them directly.
Flickr Album Manager
Photo Stream Assistant manages Flickr albums from a Mac: create and rename them, re-describe them, reorder the photos inside one by dragging, set any photo as the cover, and reorder the albums themselves. Album renaming is free; reordering photos and albums and setting covers are part of the one-time Pro Unlock.
Can I edit multiple album photos at once?
Yes. Select photos inside an album and edit them together. Pro Unlock also adds curation: reordering photos, setting the cover, and reordering albums.
Does the app help with large albums?
That is exactly where the desktop workflow helps most. Larger albums benefit from the bigger overview and faster selection process.
Is this only for albums?
No. Albums are one part of a broader photo management workflow that also covers photos, collections, groups, and metadata editing.
Flickr Metadata Editor
Photo Stream Assistant edits Flickr metadata from a Mac, one photo at a time or across a selection: title, description, tags, dates, licence, safety level, content type, privacy and location. Title and description are always written together, so editing one never erases the other, which is a real risk when talking to Flickr's API directly.
Which metadata fields can I manage?
The app supports titles, descriptions, tags, dates, privacy-related settings, licensing, and other key Flickr management fields.
Who is this built for?
It is designed for Flickr Pro account owners who need stronger library control than the default browser workflow provides.
Do I need Pro Unlock?
No. Editing metadata is in the free app, in batches of 10 photos. Pro Unlock removes the batch limit and adds Insights, Places and album curation.
Flickr Photo Organizer
Photo Stream Assistant is a macOS app for organising a large Flickr library: photos, videos, albums, collections, galleries, groups, tags, contacts and favorites in one window, with search, filters, bulk editing and a map. Browsing all of it is free; the deeper tools are a one-time Pro Unlock rather than a subscription.
Can I manage more than albums?
Yes. Photo Stream Assistant covers photos, tags, albums, collections, groups, favorites, and broader management workflows.
Does this help with large Flickr libraries?
That is one of the main reasons to use it. The app is designed around faster control for larger libraries.
What is free versus paid?
The free app browses and edits your whole library, in batches of 10 photos. Pro Unlock is for larger libraries: unlimited batches, bulk geotagging, view insights and album curation.
Flickr Favorites Manager
Photo Stream Assistant shows the photos you have favorited on Flickr as a browsable grid on a Mac, with the photographer, the metadata and the full-size view a click away. Favorites are included in the free app.
Can I browse favorites in fullscreen or preview mode?
Yes. Favorites workflows include preview and slideshow experiences built for faster review.
Is favorites management part of the free app?
Yes. Favorites browsing and management are in the free app.
Does this connect with the rest of my library workflow?
Yes. Favorites are treated as part of the overall organization and review system, not as an isolated feature.
Flickr Desktop App
Photo Stream Assistant is a native macOS desktop app for Flickr, built for people with large libraries: browse everything, search and filter, edit in bulk, see your photos on a map, read your contacts feed and your activity, and back the library up to your own disk. It needs macOS 12 or later on Apple silicon or Intel, and is free to download from the Mac App Store with a one-time Pro Unlock.
Is Photo Stream Assistant a Mac app or a web app?
It is a macOS desktop app built for Flickr Pro account owners who want stronger management workflows than a browser-first setup provides.
What does the free version include?
The free app includes your whole library, the contacts feed, activity, the map, basic stats, search and Explore, and bulk edits 10 photos at a time. Pro Unlock adds Insights, Places, Shared Links, Library health, album curation, and unlimited batches.
How do I get access?
Download Photo Stream Assistant from the Mac App Store. The free app works immediately, and Pro Unlock can be bought once inside the app.
Flickr Map View
Photo Stream Assistant plots every geotagged photo in your Flickr library on an interactive map on macOS, and lets you narrow what is shown by when the photos were taken or uploaded. The map is part of the free app.
Which photos appear on the map?
Only photos with geo coordinates set in Flickr appear as markers. Photos without location data are not plotted.
Can I filter the map by location or date?
Yes. Use the search, media type, and date range filters to narrow the map down to a specific trip, place, or time period.
Do I need Pro Unlock for the map?
No. The map is in the free app. Pro Unlock adds Places, which browses by country and region and geotags the photos that have no location yet.
Flickr Tag Manager
Photo Stream Assistant renames a tag across an entire Flickr library, merges one tag into another by renaming it, and removes a tag from every photo that carries it. Flickr's own website has no way to do this: it offers no tag rename at all. The app adds the new tag before removing the old one, photo by photo, so nothing is left untagged if a run is interrupted, and it never rewrites the whole tag list, which would destroy the machine tags Flickr stores there.
Can Flickr rename a tag itself?
No. Flickr's website and API offer no rename, which is why this works by adding the new tag and removing the old one on each photo.
Will this damage machine tags?
No. Only the tag you named is removed, by its own identifier. Geo, camera and imported machine tags are left untouched, because the app never rewrites a photo's whole tag list.
Can it be undone?
Not from the app, which is why the number of affected photos is shown before anything happens. Renaming back is possible, since the operation is symmetric.
Is this part of Pro Unlock?
The free app applies tag changes to 10 photos at a time so you can see how it behaves. Pro Unlock removes the limit.
Flickr Insights
Photo Stream Assistant reads Flickr's own statistics and shows how your views moved over any range inside Flickr's 28-day window, which photos led that range, and where the views came from inside and outside Flickr, with the same figures available for a single album. It needs a Flickr Pro account, because that is who Flickr provides statistics to, and Insights is part of the one-time Pro Unlock.
Why only 28 days?
That is Flickr's own limit: its API serves per-day statistics for the last 28 days. Anything older is no longer available to any app, including this one.
Do I need Flickr Pro for Insights?
Yes. Insights is built on Flickr's statistics, which Flickr provides for Pro accounts. Without Flickr Pro there is no per-day data to read.
Is Insights part of Pro Unlock?
Yes. Basic stats are in the free app; Insights - ranges, trends, per-range rankings and referrers - is part of the one-time Pro Unlock.
Flickr Geotagging
Photo Stream Assistant adds locations to Flickr photos in bulk on a Mac: pick a point on a map, set the accuracy and who can see the location, and apply it to a whole selection, including the photos that currently have no location at all. Bulk geotagging and the Places hierarchy are part of the one-time Pro Unlock.
Can I geotag several photos at once?
Yes. Select any number of photos and set one location for all of them, which is the point of the Places backlog view.
Does this change the photos themselves?
No. The location is stored on Flickr against each photo, exactly as if you had set it on flickr.com. Your original files are untouched.
Is Places part of Pro Unlock?
Yes. The map view of your located photos is in the free app; browsing by place and geotagging in bulk is part of the one-time Pro Unlock.
Flickr Guest Pass Links
Photo Stream Assistant keeps your own register of the Flickr Guest Pass links you have handed out: what you shared, with whom, and when, so an old share can be found and reviewed. Flickr itself creates and expires those links, so the app opens the right page on flickr.com to extend or revoke one. The register is part of the one-time Pro Unlock.
Can the app create a Guest Pass link for me?
No. Flickr does not offer that through its API, so links are created on flickr.com. The app opens the right page and keeps the register of what you shared.
Does the app control who can see my photos?
No. Flickr remains the authority on privacy and on expiring links. The register tells you what to review; Flickr enforces it.
Is this part of Pro Unlock?
Yes. Shared Links is part of the one-time Pro Unlock.
Flickr Backup
Photo Stream Assistant downloads your Flickr library to a folder you choose on your own Mac: original files where Flickr offers them, laid out by year and month, by album, or all in one folder, with a JSON file beside each photo holding the title, description, tags, dates, licence and coordinates that Flickr keeps in its database rather than in the image. A run can be stopped and resumed, and a second run downloads only what is missing. The free app backs up 25 photos per run; the one-time Pro Unlock removes the limit.
Where do the files go?
Into a folder you pick on your own Mac, and nowhere else. The app has no server and uploads nothing: the only writes it can make are inside the folder you chose, which macOS enforces through the App Sandbox.
What is in the JSON file beside each photo?
The title, description, tags, date taken, date uploaded, licence, coordinates when the photo has them, and the albums it belongs to. Flickr strips some of this from the image file itself, so for those fields this is the only copy you get.
Do I get the original files?
Where Flickr offers an original, yes. Where it does not, the largest size available is downloaded instead, so a photo is never skipped for want of an original.
How long does a full backup take?
Longer than you would like, and that is Flickr's doing rather than the app's: Flickr limits how much any application may download in a period. The app paces itself to a rate Flickr accepts, and when the limit is reached in full it waits for it to lift and carries on by itself, with a countdown on screen. A large library is one run you can leave to it rather than several you have to remember. For a first backup of a very large library, requesting your data from Flickr directly is faster than anything the API allows.
What happens if it stops halfway?
Nothing is lost. Every finished photo is recorded in the folder, so the next run reads that record and downloads only what is missing. A part-downloaded file is never left behind under a name that would make it look complete.
Will it download the same photos twice if I rename them?
No. Photos are matched by their Flickr id rather than by file name, so retitling a photo on Flickr does not cause it to be fetched again.
Is backup part of Pro Unlock?
The free app downloads 25 photos per run, which is enough to see the whole thing work on your own library before you decide. Pro Unlock removes the limit, and is a one-time purchase rather than a subscription.
Library Health
Library health scans your whole Flickr library once and counts what is missing from it: photos with no real title, no tags, nothing written about them, no location, and photos that are in no album. Opening any count shows those photos, so you can select a batch and fix it on the spot by adding tags, setting a location on a map, adding them to an album or submitting them to a group. A camera filename like IMG_4821 counts as having no title, because it is not a title anyone chose. It is part of the one-time Pro Unlock.
What counts as a photo with no title?
An empty title, or a camera filename left in its place: IMG_4821, DSC00123, dscn0042, P1010101, GOPR0102 and the like. Flickr displays those as titles, so a check that took them at face value would report a library full of untitled photos as fully titled.
Does the scan change anything?
No. It only reads. Nothing is written to Flickr until you select photos and apply a fix yourself.
How long does the scan take?
It reads your library in pages of 500, so a library of 10,000 photos is 20 requests and a moment, while one of 100,000 is 200 requests and a few minutes. It is deliberately not automatic, because those requests share a rate limit with everything else the app does.
Why is my score zero?
The headline counts photos with nothing missing at all, so on a large library of camera-named photos it is close to zero and stays there for a while. The per-problem counts are the ones to work from, and each shows its share of the library so you can see progress where it actually happens.
Is a photo in no album a problem?
Only if you use albums. It is reported because a photo in no album is reachable only by search or by scrolling your whole photostream, which for most libraries means it is never seen again. If you do not sort into albums, ignore that line.
Does it check private photos too?
Yes. The scan covers the library as your account sees it, private photos included. Privacy is a choice rather than a problem, so it is never reported as one.
Is Library health part of Pro Unlock?
Yes. Reading a hundred thousand photos and turning them into five counts is the most expensive thing the app does, and nothing on flickr.com does it, so it sits with Insights and Places behind the one-time unlock rather than the subscription there is not.