# Photo Stream Assistant

A macOS desktop app for managing a Flickr library. It talks to Flickr's own API with your account, and it is not affiliated with Flickr or SmugMug.

## Platform and price

- Requires macOS 12.0 or later on Apple silicon or Intel.
- Current version 1.3.5, distributed through the Mac App Store: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/photo-stream-assistant/id6759663701?mt=12
- Free to download.
- Pro Unlock: one-time in-app purchase of 12.99 EUR. Not a subscription, and it restores on the buyer's other Macs.
- Interface languages: English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, Chinese.
- Requires a Flickr account. Insights additionally requires Flickr Pro, since Flickr serves per-day statistics only to Pro accounts.

## What the app does

- Browse a whole Flickr library: photos, videos, albums, collections, galleries, groups, tags, contacts and favorites
- Contacts feed and activity on your own photos
- Advanced search with filters and geo radius
- Bulk editing for tags, metadata, privacy, licensing and dates
- Library-wide tag rename, merge and removal
- Album, gallery and collection renaming
- Album curation with photo reordering and covers
- Group pool submissions that respect each group's limits
- Interactive map of geotagged photos
- Places browsing and bulk geotagging
- Insights with view trends, referrers and per-album figures
- Guest Pass share register
- Back up the library to a local folder with metadata sidecars

## Free versus Pro Unlock

Free: the whole library browsable, the contacts feed and activity, search and Explore, the map, account stats and upload defaults, renaming albums and galleries, bulk edits and tag changes 10 photos at a time, and backups of 25 photos per run.

Pro Unlock: Insights with trends, referrers and per-album figures; Library health, the scan that counts what the library is missing; Places browsing and bulk geotagging; the Guest Pass register; unlimited backups; album curation; library-wide tag rename, merge and removal; and bulk editing and group submissions with no per-batch limit.

## Feature pages

### Flickr Bulk Edit

URL: https://my-flickr-assistant.monier.tv/flickr-bulk-edit
Markdown: https://my-flickr-assistant.monier.tv/flickr-bulk-edit/page.md

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.

**Why bulk editing matters**

Large Flickr libraries become expensive to maintain when every metadata correction has to be repeated manually. Bulk editing turns those repetitive edits into one controlled batch workflow, and Pro Unlock removes the per-batch limit.

**Typical bulk edit workflow**

1. Open your library or album and select the photos that need the same correction.
2. Choose the metadata field you want to update, from tags to privacy or geolocation.
3. Apply the change once and review a consistent result across the whole batch.

**Questions**

- 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

URL: https://my-flickr-assistant.monier.tv/flickr-album-manager
Markdown: https://my-flickr-assistant.monier.tv/flickr-album-manager/page.md

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.

**Album workflows get slow quickly**

Albums are often where cleanup work actually happens. When an album contains inconsistent metadata, privacy settings, or ordering issues, switching between views costs time and concentration.

**How album work gets faster**

1. Open the album and scan the full contents in a larger desktop view.
2. Select the exact photos that need changes or cleanup.
3. Apply updates directly from the album context and move on to the next set.

**Questions**

- 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

URL: https://my-flickr-assistant.monier.tv/flickr-metadata-editor
Markdown: https://my-flickr-assistant.monier.tv/flickr-metadata-editor/page.md

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.

**Metadata quality shapes library quality**

When titles, tags, descriptions, and dates drift over time, search quality drops and long-term organization gets harder. A dedicated metadata editor keeps the library useful.

**What the editor helps you do**

1. Search or filter down to the exact photos that share the same issue.
2. Review the set in a large desktop layout before changing anything.
3. Apply metadata corrections with bulk tools or focused edit dialogs.

**Questions**

- 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

URL: https://my-flickr-assistant.monier.tv/flickr-photo-organizer
Markdown: https://my-flickr-assistant.monier.tv/flickr-photo-organizer/page.md

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.

**Organization breaks before the library does**

As libraries grow, small inconsistencies spread across albums, tags, favorites, and visibility settings. Strong organization requires faster review and better management tools.

**How organizers use it**

1. Search or browse the area of the library that needs attention.
2. Review related albums, tags, favorites, or collections without losing context.
3. Apply organization changes with faster desktop controls and batch tools.

**Questions**

- 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

URL: https://my-flickr-assistant.monier.tv/flickr-favorites-manager
Markdown: https://my-flickr-assistant.monier.tv/flickr-favorites-manager/page.md

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.

**Favorites become messy over time**

When favorites are part of your research, inspiration, or curation workflow, you need a faster way to browse them, preview them, and decide what still belongs.

**What favorites management looks like**

1. Open your favorites list and scan it in a desktop layout built for speed.
2. Preview images individually or in slideshow mode to review them quickly.
3. Use the favorites workflow as part of a broader curation and organization process.

**Questions**

- 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

URL: https://my-flickr-assistant.monier.tv/flickr-desktop-app-mac
Markdown: https://my-flickr-assistant.monier.tv/flickr-desktop-app-mac/page.md

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.

**Why a desktop app matters**

Mac users managing serious Flickr libraries benefit from a dedicated workspace with more room, better flow control, and fewer browser constraints than the standard web experience.

**What you can do in the app**

1. Search and explore public Flickr content from a larger Mac workspace.
2. Organize your own library with albums, tags, favorites, and management tools.
3. Use Pro Unlock when you need unlimited batches, bulk geotagging, view insights, or album curation.

**Questions**

- 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

URL: https://my-flickr-assistant.monier.tv/flickr-map-view
Markdown: https://my-flickr-assistant.monier.tv/flickr-map-view/page.md

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.

**Geotagged photos are invisible in a grid**

When your library spans dozens of countries and trips, a list or grid view loses all spatial context. A map view makes it instantly clear where you shot, when, and how many.

**How the map view works**

1. Open the map view to see all your geotagged Flickr photos plotted across the world.
2. Type a location or keyword and set a date range to narrow markers to a specific trip.
3. Click any marker to preview the photo, then open it for full detail or bulk editing.

**Questions**

- 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

URL: https://my-flickr-assistant.monier.tv/flickr-tag-manager
Markdown: https://my-flickr-assistant.monier.tv/flickr-tag-manager/page.md

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.

**Why tag vocabularies rot**

Tags accumulate over years: singulars and plurals, two spellings of the same place, a typo that spread before anyone noticed. Flickr offers no way to rename or merge them, so the mess is permanent unless something edits every photo for you.

**How a rename works**

1. Pick the tag in My Tags and choose Rename or Remove; the number of affected photos is shown first.
2. The app adds the new tag and removes the old one on each photo in turn, which is what Flickr's API allows.
3. Every photo is accounted for at the end, including any the search listed but that no longer carried the tag.

**Questions**

- 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

URL: https://my-flickr-assistant.monier.tv/flickr-insights
Markdown: https://my-flickr-assistant.monier.tv/flickr-insights/page.md

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.

**A view count tells you nothing on its own**

Flickr shows you a number. It does not tell you which photos moved, whether a spike came from a group, a search engine, or somewhere off Flickr entirely, and it keeps per-day detail for only 28 days before it is gone.

**How Insights works**

1. Choose a range - the last few days, two weeks, or the whole 28-day window Flickr retains.
2. Read the trend, then open the most-viewed list for that same range.
3. Check the referrers to see which groups, searches, or outside sites sent the traffic.

**Questions**

- 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

URL: https://my-flickr-assistant.monier.tv/flickr-geotagging
Markdown: https://my-flickr-assistant.monier.tv/flickr-geotagging/page.md

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.

**The photos without a location are the ones you cannot find**

A map only shows what has been geotagged. Everything else quietly drops out of every map, every place search, and every trip you try to revisit - and there is no obvious list of what is missing.

**How bulk geotagging works**

1. Open Places to see where you have photographed, and how many photos have no location.
2. Filter by taken or upload date to focus on one trip rather than the whole library.
3. Select the photos from that trip and set their location once, for all of them.

**Questions**

- 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

URL: https://my-flickr-assistant.monier.tv/flickr-guest-pass-manager
Markdown: https://my-flickr-assistant.monier.tv/flickr-guest-pass-manager/page.md

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.

**Private shares are easy to lose track of**

Guest Pass links keep working until you revoke them. Six months later it is very hard to say which albums are still reachable by a link you sent to someone once, because nothing keeps a list.

**How the register works**

1. Create the Guest Pass on Flickr, which is the only place that can issue one.
2. Record it in the app against the photo or album, with who it went to and any note.
3. Review the list later, and open Flickr to expire anything that has outlived its purpose.

**Questions**

- 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

URL: https://my-flickr-assistant.monier.tv/flickr-backup
Markdown: https://my-flickr-assistant.monier.tv/flickr-backup/page.md

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.

**A photo file on its own has lost most of what you wrote**

Downloading photos one at a time is slow, and the copy you end up with is not the whole thing: the title you gave it, the description, the tags, the album it belonged to and often the location live in Flickr's database, not inside the image file. Save only the pixels and the years of work around them are gone.

**How a backup runs**

1. Choose a folder once. The app remembers it, external disks included, and asks nothing further.
2. Pick the whole library or one album, original or large, and how the folders should be laid out.
3. Leave it running. Progress is shown photo by photo, and one failed download does not stop the rest.
4. Run it again whenever you like. What is already saved is skipped, so only new photos are fetched.

**Questions**

- 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

URL: https://my-flickr-assistant.monier.tv/flickr-library-health
Markdown: https://my-flickr-assistant.monier.tv/flickr-library-health/page.md

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.

**Flickr will never mention any of this**

Photos arrive from a camera or a phone with a filename instead of a title, and unless you stopped to write something at the time, that is how they stay. Flickr shows IMG_4821 as though it were a title, has no way to list what is untagged, and will not tell you how much of your library never got a location or an album. The mess is real but invisible, so it never gets dealt with.

**How a scan works**

1. Open Library health and start the scan. It reads your library once, which on a large account is a few minutes and several hundred requests to Flickr, so it runs when you ask rather than on its own.
2. Read the counts, largest first: no real title, no tags, no description, no location, in no album.
3. Open the one you want to work on, and select photos from the grid underneath it.
4. Apply the fix that matches: tags, a location picked on a map, an album, or a group submission.
5. Scan again whenever you want to see where it stands.

**Questions**

- 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.

## How-to guides

### How to get a Flickr API key

URL: https://my-flickr-assistant.monier.tv/guides/get-a-flickr-api-key
Markdown: https://my-flickr-assistant.monier.tv/guides/get-a-flickr-api-key/page.md

A Flickr API key is issued by Flickr, free of charge, from the App Garden at flickr.com/services/apps/create. You need a Flickr Pro account to create one, the process takes about five minutes, and you get two values back: a key and a secret. Any third-party app that talks to Flickr on your behalf, including Photo Stream Assistant, needs both.

1. **Sign in to Flickr with a Pro account** Flickr issues API keys only to Pro accounts. A Free account can still use the API through someone else's key, but cannot create one. Sign in on flickr.com before you start, or the App Garden will send you to the login page half way through.
2. **Open the App Garden and request a key** Go to flickr.com/services/apps/create and choose Request an API Key. Flickr asks whether the use is commercial or non-commercial. For your own photos in your own app, choose non-commercial: it is granted immediately, where a commercial key goes through a review.
3. **Name the app and describe what it does** The name and description are for you and for Flickr, not for anyone else. Something like "Photo Stream Assistant on my Mac" is enough. Tick the two boxes that say you have read the terms, then Submit.
4. **Copy the key and the secret** Flickr shows both on the next page. The key is public in practice, since it travels in every request. The secret is what signs requests as coming from your app, so treat it like a password: store it only where the app asks for it.
5. **Set the app type to Desktop Application** Open the app's settings page in the App Garden, find the Authentication Flow section, and set App Type to Desktop Application. Without this, the sign-in step of a desktop app fails with an error about a missing callback URL, which reads as a bug in the app when it is a setting in Flickr.
6. **Paste both values into the app** In Photo Stream Assistant, Settings has a Flickr API credentials section with two fields. Paste the key and the secret, save, then continue to Flickr authorization, which opens Flickr's own sign-in inside the app and asks you to allow it. The values stay on your Mac.

### How to download your whole Flickr library

URL: https://my-flickr-assistant.monier.tv/guides/download-your-flickr-library
Markdown: https://my-flickr-assistant.monier.tv/guides/download-your-flickr-library/page.md

There are three ways to download everything you have on Flickr, and they differ in what you get back. Flickr's own data export is the fastest first copy and comes by email in zip files. The website downloads selections of up to 500 items at a time. An app that uses the API can fetch originals one by one, and can save the titles, tags, dates and locations that Flickr keeps in its database rather than in the image file.

1. **Decide what "everything" means for you** A photo file on Flickr has lost most of what you wrote about it. The title, description, tags, album membership and often the location live in Flickr's database, not inside the JPEG. If those matter, the method has to save them alongside the files. If you only want the pixels, any method will do.
2. **For a first full copy, request your data from Flickr** Open flickr.com/account, find Your Flickr Data, and choose Request my Flickr data. Flickr prepares zip files of your photos and a separate set for your account data, then emails you links. On a large library this takes hours to a day, but it is the only method that is not slowed by Flickr's per-application download limit.
3. **For a few hundred photos, use the website** On flickr.com, select photos in your camera roll or in Organizr and choose Download. Flickr builds a zip, capped at 500 items per download. Titles and tags are not included; you get the files.
4. **For a copy that keeps its metadata, use an app** Photo Stream Assistant's Backup writes each photo to a folder you choose on your Mac, in original size where Flickr offers one, with a small JSON file beside it holding the title, description, tags, dates, licence, coordinates and albums. It skips what is already saved, so a second run fetches only new photos.
5. **Expect Flickr's download limit, and let it wait** Flickr limits how quickly any application may download and does not publish the number. When the limit is reached, Flickr answers with HTTP 429 for a while. A well-behaved app waits as long as it is told and resumes; Photo Stream Assistant does this on its own, with a countdown on screen. A large library is one run you leave alone, not several you have to remember.

### How to rename a tag across all your Flickr photos

URL: https://my-flickr-assistant.monier.tv/guides/rename-a-flickr-tag
Markdown: https://my-flickr-assistant.monier.tv/guides/rename-a-flickr-tag/page.md

Flickr has no way to rename a tag. Not on the website, not in Organizr, and not in the API: there is no method that says "call this tag something else". Every rename is really two operations on every photo that carries the tag: add the new one, remove the old one. That is what any tool that offers a rename is doing, and on a tag used by a few thousand photos it is worth knowing before you start.

1. **Find every photo that carries the tag** On flickr.com, your Tags page lists each tag with a count. Clicking one shows the photos. In Organizr you can search by tag and select the results a page at a time. Photo Stream Assistant's My Tags shows the same list with counts and opens any tag as a selection of all its photos at once.
2. **Add the new tag to all of them** In Organizr, select the photos, open Edit Tags in the batch panel and add the new tag; it is applied to the selection. Adding is safe: Flickr's addTags call appends and touches nothing else. If the new tag already exists on some photos, they simply keep it.
3. **Remove the old tag from all of them** Still in Organizr with the same selection, remove the old tag. Do this second, so that at no point are the photos carrying neither tag. On a large tag, Organizr's page-at-a-time selection makes this the slow part.
4. **Or let an app do both, photo by photo** Photo Stream Assistant's rename dialog does exactly the two steps above for every photo in one run, and shows the count before the button: "439 photos carry this tag". It states plainly that Flickr has no rename, that each photo is edited in turn, and that the app cannot undo it. The free version handles 10 photos per run; the one-time Pro Unlock removes the limit.
5. **Check the machine tags survived** Machine tags, the ones like geo:lat=48.85, live alongside normal tags. A tool that renames by replacing a photo's whole tag list would destroy them. Any tool worth using adds and removes single tags instead of rewriting the list; if you are unsure, compare one photo before and after.

### How to bulk edit Flickr photos

URL: https://my-flickr-assistant.monier.tv/guides/bulk-edit-flickr-photos
Markdown: https://my-flickr-assistant.monier.tv/guides/bulk-edit-flickr-photos/page.md

Flickr's own bulk editing lives in Organizr, the tool linked from the You menu. It can change titles, tags, dates, permissions and licences on a selection, and it works a page of photos at a time. For a few dozen photos it is fine. For a library where the same correction applies to thousands, the limit is not the editing but the selecting, which is what a desktop app changes.

1. **Open Organizr and build a selection** On flickr.com, choose You, then Organize. Drag photos from the strip at the bottom into the batch area, or use Select All for the current page. Filtering by tag, date or album narrows the strip. Everything you drag in is the selection the edits apply to.
2. **Apply one change to the selection** The batch panel has Edit Titles, Edit Tags, Edit Dates, Permissions and more. Each applies its change to every selected photo. Tags are added, not replaced, so existing tags stay. Titles set the same title on every photo, which is rarely what you want on a batch; descriptions and tags are the usual bulk edits.
3. **Know where Organizr stops** The strip shows a page at a time, and a selection does not survive a filter change. There is no way to select every photo matching a search across the whole library and act once. Nor can you filter on missing things - untagged, untitled, no location - which is where bulk editing is most needed.
4. **Use a desktop app for library-wide changes** Photo Stream Assistant's Bulk Edit filters the whole library by tag, date range, or a radius on a map, selects across every page of results, and applies tags, title, description, privacy, comment and tagging permissions, safety level, search visibility and dates to the selection in one pass. The free version applies a change to 10 photos at a time; the one-time Pro Unlock removes that limit.
5. **Change one thing at a time on a first run** Whatever the tool, a bulk edit is not undoable as a unit. Run the first change on a small selection and open a photo on flickr.com to confirm it did what you expected. Then widen the selection.

### How to geotag Flickr photos, one or hundreds at a time

URL: https://my-flickr-assistant.monier.tv/guides/geotag-flickr-photos
Markdown: https://my-flickr-assistant.monier.tv/guides/geotag-flickr-photos/page.md

A geotag on Flickr is a latitude and longitude stored with the photo, and it is what puts a photo on your map. Cameras and phones often write one into the file; older scans and many exports have none. Flickr lets you add or fix a location on the website one photo at a time, or in Organizr by dragging onto a map. A desktop app can do it for a whole selection from one point.

1. **Check your geo privacy setting first** In your Flickr account settings, under Privacy and Permissions, there is a default for who can see location data on your photos. It applies to every geotag you add from now on. Set it before geotagging in bulk, or hundreds of photos will inherit a default you did not choose.
2. **Geotag one photo on flickr.com** Open the photo, find the map area on the right, and choose Add this photo to your map. Search for a place or drag the pin. Save. This is the right tool for a single photo and the wrong one for a hundred.
3. **Geotag a batch in Organizr** In Organizr, open the Map tab, search for the place, then drag photos from the strip onto the map. Each dropped photo takes the point you dropped it on. It works, page by page, and it is where most people give up on a large library.
4. **Geotag a selection from a Mac app** In Photo Stream Assistant, select photos anywhere - My Photos, Bulk Edit, or the "No location" count in Library health, which lists exactly the photos with none - and choose Set a location. Pick a point on the map or type coordinates; the same point is written to the whole selection. Free for 10 at a time, unlimited with the one-time Pro Unlock.
5. **Understand why Places may still look empty** Flickr's Places pages are built from place records that Flickr attaches when a photo is geotagged through its own site. Photos geotagged through the API get coordinates and appear on the map, but Flickr does not always attach a place record to them. So an account can have tens of thousands of geotagged photos and an empty Places hierarchy. The map is the reliable view; Places is Flickr's.

## Limitations

- Flickr keeps per-day statistics for 28 days. No app can show a longer daily history.
- Flickr has no tag rename API. A rename is add-then-remove, photo by photo, so a large library takes time.
- Places is built on Flickr's place records. An account can have geotagged photos and no place records, and then the hierarchy cannot be built.
- A backup asked for originals falls back to the largest available size where Flickr offers no original.
- Flickr limits how fast any application may download. A backup of a large library takes hours and several waits, whatever app is used.
- Guest Pass links are created and expired by Flickr. The app keeps the register and opens the right page on flickr.com.

## Privacy

Flickr credentials are stored on the Mac and never sent anywhere else. The app reaches Flickr's API, the Mac App Store for the purchase, and - only on the map screen - an OpenStreetMap geocoder and a tile server. There is no analytics service inside the app and no account with the developer.
Full policy: https://my-flickr-assistant.monier.tv/policy

## Support

- support@monier.tv
- https://my-flickr-assistant.monier.tv/support

Last updated: 2026-09-22