Frames 1.3 · A universal family of apps
Frames for Mac is available now. iPhone, iPad and Apple TV are coming soon.
Previously Mac-only, Frames 1.3 introduces a universal family of apps for Mac, iPhone, iPad and Apple TV. Choose and edit photographs on Mac, iPhone and iPad; enjoy your Photos library and slideshows on Apple TV.
The Frames apps
A RAW editor and catalogue for Mac, iPhone and iPad. A new arrangement on Duo. A dedicated way to enjoy your photographs on Apple TV.
Frames for Mac macOS
Bring Apple Photos and folders into one catalogue. Review from the keyboard, compare the contenders, develop your selects and export.
macOS 15.2+
Try Frames free · MacFrames for iPad iPadOS
Give your photograph a larger canvas. Browse, choose and develop with touch controls, with a keyboard when you want one.
iPadOS 26.1+
Coming soon
Frames for iPhone iOS
Browse the shoot, keep and rate your favourites, and make edits with controls arranged for a smaller screen.
iOS 26.1+
Coming soon
Frames on Duo Folding iPhone
Review on the outer display, then open the device to keep the whole photograph beside a 100% detail preview and its controls. Prop it on a table and the photograph stands above its controls.
iOS 26.1+
Coming soon
Frames for Apple TV tvOS
Your library arrives as shelves Frames curates by itself, and one press plays a show on the biggest screen in the room.
tvOS 27+
Coming soon
Allow Photos access on Apple TV to browse its Photos library. Use the remote to choose a shelf and press Play. Apple TV is for viewing and presentation; editing happens on your other devices.
Explore the apps above. Follow the photographic workflow below.
See every App Store screenshot Browse · Choose · Develop · ExportI The workflow
A shoot on a card. A library in Photos. Years of work on a drive. Bring them into one catalogue, then browse on Mac, iPhone or iPad.
01 · Import
Connect a USB PTP camera or insert a memory card. Frames groups photographs into sessions and marks what is new, already imported or a possible duplicate. Choose what to bring into Apple Photos or a folder, and place photographs without a location along a route you recorded.
Choose an album or organise folders with date and sequence naming patterns. Existing files are never overwritten. Add an existing folder as a source to browse photographs already on disk.
Import continues after the sheet closes. Frames marks duplicates before you select photographs. To browse photographs already on disk, add their folder as a source without copying them.
02 · Sources
Browse photographs from Apple Photos, local folders and connected drives. Your files stay where they are. Each source has its own row in the sidebar, with its albums or folders beneath it, and choosing a source shows all of its photographs. When a drive is disconnected, its previews, ratings, verdicts and edits remain in Frames.
The grid uses local previews without downloading originals. Frames can fetch an original when you pause in Loupe, zoom in Loupe or Compare, develop or export. Memory cards are used for import: copy selected photographs to Photos or a folder, then eject the card.
Originals stay in their source. Edits stay in Frames’ catalogue.
On Mac, iPhone and iPad, review missing originals and scan failures with file locations and retry actions.
03 · Finding
Search by subject, people, lighting, composition or text visible in a photograph. Frames analyses previews on your device. The strip above the grid shows the album or source you are searching, and each search term can be removed separately.
Explore people, nature, animals, places, food and visual styles with suggestions from your collection. Show kept and developed photographs in a slideshow with large controls that fade away. With Library Sync on, capture details read on one device reach the others without downloading RAW files. On Mac, edit descriptions and capture details, then read or write XMP sidecars without changing your originals.
04 · Organise
Gather photographs into collections in Frames, from your Photos library and your folders side by side. Arrange them in folders, put the photographs in your own order, and find them on your other devices when Sync is on. Under each source in the sidebar are its own albums and folders. Create, rename, move and delete Photos albums there, and the changes appear in Photos. Sort by capture date and the grid groups photographs into trips and days: name a trip, and add the whole of it to a collection from its heading.
Dropping photographs on a Photos album adds only the ones it does not hold yet: ten photographs on an album that already holds three of them adds seven. Deleting an album leaves its photographs in your library, and Frames asks for confirmation first. ⌘Z undoes changes to collections. It cannot undo changes to Photos albums.
Explore featuresCollectionsOrganising the library
Drag the selection onto an album or a collection, or right-click a folder.
0 added · 0 already in the album0 added · 0 already in the collectionOnly albums and collections accept photographs.New album created.
Spotlight · Siri · Handoff
Press ⌘Space and type an album’s name, a filename, a caption or a keyword. Spotlight lists your Photos albums, your Frames collections and the photographs you kept, rated, captioned or gave keywords. Choose a photograph to open it in Loupe, with your words in Frames’ search and its source highlighted in the sidebar.
Spotlight, Siri and HandoffChoose an album or a collection to open its grid, highlighted in the sidebar. Spotlight receives names, filenames, and the captions and keywords you wrote. Detected scene words stay in Frames’ own search. Turn off Settings › General › Show photographs in Spotlight to clear everything Frames added.
Say “Open Golden Gate in Frames” or “Present Golden Gate in Frames” with the name of a Photos album or a Frames collection. Shortcuts lists both phrases.
Open a photograph in Loupe or Develop, then continue on your iPhone, iPad or another Mac, where the same photograph opens in the same mode. When the photograph has yet to reach that device, Frames says so and downloads nothing.
Put Left to Choose, Left to Develop, Recently Edited, Highest Rated or a collection on the Mac desktop or an iPhone or iPad Home Screen. Lock Screen sizes show compact counts. Frames refreshes local previews as your library changes. Judge the next photograph from a widget. How widgets work
Start Present from a slideshow widget, a Control Centre control, or the Apple TV Top Shelf. Show work from outside Frames
Long jobs appear as Live Activities on iPhone and iPad, and on the Mac Dock icon. Background progress
Write Frames treatments beside folder photographs, opt into automatic XMP exchange and export your catalogue for another Mac. Changes that need a decision wait for review.
Portable treatments and cataloguesSpotlight, Siri and Handoff work on Mac, iPhone and iPad. Apple TV has none of the three.
Journey · Mac, iPhone & iPad
Follow a day through the places you photographed, or see every day on one map. Photographs from a camera without GPS are placed by the phone photographs taken beside them. Wheel or pinch to look closer, drag to explore, then fit the whole day back into view. Open a photograph and return to the same place. Quick springs bring previews and visible cards into place; Reduce Motion keeps their arrivals still.
Explore Journey
World · Mac, iPhone & iPad
Zoom Journey out past the continents and every located photograph glows on a dark globe. Brush the years to light one span, fold them onto one calendar to see every October at once, and select a place to see each time you went back. Open a place’s photographs beside the map and save its search for later. Follow month and year labels to choose dates and scrub a selected span.
Explore World
II The workflow
Start with a quick pass, then give the strongest photographs a closer look. Choose by touch on iPhone and iPad; Duo can put a comparison on both halves.
05 · Choose
297 photographs from one afternoon, with 19 kept. The diagram shows their proportions and the shortcuts for each phase.
05 · Choose · try it yourself
Start with twenty undecided photographs. Keep or reject each one. Related photographs remain together until every member of the set has a verdict.
Verdict
Rating
Click the window, then P keep · X reject ·U clear · 1–5 rate ·←→ move · ⌘Z undo. Double-click a frame to open the Loupe; double-click again to return to Grid.
06 · Three views
Browse a selection in Grid, open a photograph in Loupe or compare photographs side by side. Switch views with ⌘1, ⌘2 and ⌘3. Your selection stays the same. B, C and D switch between Browse, Choose and Develop.
07 · Loupe and looking closely
Open a photograph in Loupe and give it your full attention. Check focus, expression and fine detail from fit to 400%. Use the magnifying glass to look closer while the whole photograph stays in view.
Press ⌘2 for Loupe, G for the glass at fit, K for focus peaking and N for the faces up close. When you zoom into the photograph, the navigator shows where you are and lets you move around. Its corner position stays with you between photographs and sessions.
Keep the whole photograph in view.Open Loupe with ⌘2. Go from fit to 400%, with a filmstrip to keep the rest of the shoot close.
Explore Loupe ↗02 / THE GLASSPress G at fit to bring up the glass. Inspect at 100%, 200% or 400% without losing the whole photograph.
Look more closely ↗03 / FOCUS PEAKINGPress K to highlight sharp edges measured from original pixels. Judge the detail before choosing your keeper.
See how it works ↗Inside Frames
Real photographs. The actual workspace. From the first pass to the final edit.
Review the shoot and keep your decisions in view.
Look at neighbouring frames side by side.
Shape the light, colour and final crop in Develop.
III The workflow
Shape the whole photograph, work on a small detail or try a different treatment. Grade colour, correct perspective and compare versions through shared framing. On iPad, keep the photograph beside its controls; on Duo, judge fine detail at 100% while the whole photograph stays visible.
08 · Develop
Move between Looks, Adjust, Crop and Local. Related adjustments stay together in Light, Colour and Finish.
Composition review
Choose what you want the photograph to do. Frames reads the photograph and says what it seems to be about, with up to three ways to strengthen it. It brings forward a measured observation and, when available, one crop comparison to judge by your intention, as a layer over the photograph while you edit.
Explore composition reviewAn illustrated reading. In Frames, the card on the photograph says what it seems to be about; expand it for the suggestions, each marked for this photograph or for next time.
Compare Before and After. Keep current, Use comparison or Adjust further. Save a note with the photograph and carry a relevant shooting prompt to the camera.
Explore the illustration above. Frames measures each photograph individually. Your intention guides the review; confirmed protections constrain automatic crops. Comparisons and shooting prompts appear when available. The reading needs Apple Intelligence; the measured review works without it.
09 · Local work
10 · Masks by part
Frames finds each person on your device and offers masks for the face, skin, eyes, eyebrows, lips, teeth, hair and clothes. Choose the parts, then create a layer for each or combine them in one layer.
When a mask misses something, use the Select tool. Click an object or draw a box around it, click to add a missed area and Option-click to exclude one. Each click is one undo step.
Explore featuresPeople, part by partThe Select tool
11 · Sensor spots
Repair the spots on one photograph and save them as a dust map. Apply the map to a selection, or to every photograph from that camera between two sensor cleanings.
Press ⇧K in Develop to highlight possible dust in amber. Frames skips spots that an existing repair already covers and warns when a photograph comes from a different camera body. The whole run is one ⌘Z.
Explore featuresRepairing a photograph
Put L1004120 on 247 photographs
7 spots · collected on a landscape frame
every frame from this camera in the span
12 Mar – 18 Jun · 247 photographs
205 have never been developed · each becomes a photograph Frames counts as edited, and takes the badge in the grid
Originals are not fetched or rendered · a spot whose dust is already marked is left out · ⌘Z puts them all back
Put 1,693 spots on 247 photographs · 36 spots already covered
12 · Looks
Choose from 32 included looks in packages for Colour or Monochrome mode, then adjust their strength. Descriptive cards help you choose a style. Controls you change yourself keep their settings when you adjust the strength again.
Explore colour, film styles, split tones and monochrome. Save and share your own looks, or import Lightroom presets with a clear report of unsupported settings.
13 · Monochrome
14 · The picture itself
Frames uses Apple’s newer RAW decoder for supported cameras. It processes colour, noise and fine detail for the editing canvas, histogram and exported file.
The newer decoder helps reduce noise in high-ISO shadows and false patterns in fine textures such as fabric and feathers. Photographs from other cameras use the older decoder. Frames shows the controls available for each photograph. All processing runs on your device, without uploading photographs.
15 · Versions
Create as many treatments of a photograph as you like and switch between them in the version picker. Each treatment has its own edits. Choose ORIGINAL to view and export the photograph as shot. Your edits remain saved.
Keep a colour treatment, a monochrome interpretation and another idea alongside the original. Each has its own edits, ready to revisit or export.
16 · Reuse
Press ⌘⇧C to copy a treatment and ⌘⇧V to apply it to another photograph. Adjustments, curves, the colour mixer and masks are copied. Detected masks are recalculated for the new photograph. The crop and decoder version stay with the original photograph, and unsupported RAW controls are omitted.
Copy a recipe once and review its application to one or many frames. New versions keep previous treatments available; Undo restores the applied frames. The copy stays available across restarts and windows on this device.
IV The workflow
Carry a treatment across the shoot. Prepare the finished files, publish to Photos and present your photographs on Apple TV.
17 · Export
Export JPEG, HEIF, 16-bit TIFF or PNG to a folder or the macOS share sheet. Choose a colour space, output size, metadata and filename pattern. Resizing never enlarges photographs; output sharpening applies only after resampling. Location metadata is off by default. The export sheet estimates downloads and disk space before you start.
Exports run in the background, can be cancelled and report any files that could not be written. For photographs in Apple Photos, after you allow publishing, Frames sends a full-resolution rendering when you leave a changed photograph. iCloud Photos can then sync it to your other devices. Photos keeps the original, and Revert restores it.
Allow Photos publishing to sync full-resolution edits through iCloud Photos. Revert restores the original in Photos.
APPLE SHORTCUTS · AUTOMATOR · SCRIPTS
Find photographs, organise your library, apply treatments and export with Apple Shortcuts on Mac, iPhone and iPad. Process files without adding them to your library, and pass the results to your next step. On Mac, connect your shortcuts to Automator and scripts.
Find rated photographs → Export files → Save to your destination
Explore workflow automation18 · Getting started
Once your photographs arrive, small tips point at Choose, Keep and Develop in turn, and each one goes once you have used its control. Later tips point out other features when they would help, at most one a day. On Mac, open Getting Started whenever you want guidance beside your photographs. Eight short tasks lead from adding photographs to exporting an edit.
Press ? to show shortcuts and gestures beside the controls. In Develop, the field guide explains each adjustment, what to try and how the processing works, and it is available offline. Help › Getting Started opens the companion whenever you want a closer look at the interface. Bookmark topics in the in-app manual to keep useful advice close; bookmarks sync through iCloud across your devices.
Explore featuresGetting startedLearning to develop
Getting Started
2 of 8 tasks
Hover over a control in the window to read what it does.
Modes B · C · D
Browse finds photographs in a collection, Choose reviews a shoot in four phases and Develop edits one photograph.
Views ⌘1 · ⌘2 · ⌘3
Grid shows the selection, Loupe shows one photograph and Compare puts photographs side by side.
Keep and reject P · X · U
A verdict says whether a photograph stays. It is separate from the rating.
Rating 1 – 5
Rate a photograph from one to five stars. 0 clears the rating.
Export E
Write the selected photographs as files, or open the macOS share sheet.
NextLook at one up closePut two side by sideKeep one, reject oneGive one a ratingDevelop oneExport oneAll eight tasks are done. Put Getting Started away when you are ready.
19 · Your work, your originals
Frames stores ratings, verdicts and edits in its own catalogue. Editing leaves the original file unchanged. Photos also keeps the original when Frames publishes an edited rendering. Cleanup is the only place to delete a photograph, and deletion requires confirmation. There is no Frames account or library reporting.
Photo processing and analysis run on your device, including mask detection and scene search analysis. Composition review currently runs on Mac. Frames does not upload photographs for processing or analysis. Machine learning helps detect subjects, skies and faces, and find similar photographs. It does not choose your photographs.
The details that keep work moving
Find the right photograph, finish the small adjustments and keep your export settings ready for next time.
Press S to find up to 100 visually similar photographs, subject to active filters.
Explore featuresAdd keywords to a photograph and search them alongside detected words.
Explore featuresAdd captions and credit for export; on Mac, edit capture metadata and exchange XMP sidecars.
Explore featuresSave queries and filters under a name in the sidebar, with counts that update as the catalogue changes.
Explore featuresSet a starting point for the six Tone sliders with one click and undo it in one step.
Explore featuresApply a saved lensfun profile or manual distortion adjustment before other edits.
Explore featuresSave sensor spots and apply them to a selection or camera date range, with a summary and one-step undo.
Explore featuresLimit individual mask shapes to matching colour and brightness, including subtracting shapes.
Explore featuresPreview sRGB, Display P3, Adobe RGB or ProPhoto and highlight out-of-gamut colours.
Explore featuresAdd text or image watermarks with nine positions, size, inset and opacity controls.
Explore featuresSave, rename and reuse export settings, including the destination.
Explore featuresBuild folder and filename patterns from dates, sequence numbers and photograph metadata.
Explore features20 · Pricing
Every feature in one app: organise a collection, select the strongest photographs and make the final edits. Buy once at the limited launch price, with no subscription. After purchase, choose from six app icons in Settings: Silver, Glowing, Halo, Obsidian, Porcelain and Contour.
Available now at the launch price. The App Store shows the price for your region.
Before you bring a shoot
Yes. Add local folders, connected drives or your Apple Photos library as sources. Your files stay where they are. Read about sources →
Editing leaves your original files unchanged. Frames stores edits in its catalogue. Apple Photos also keeps the original when you publish an edited rendering.
There is no Frames account. Each device keeps a local catalogue. Fetching originals stored in iCloud requires a connection.
Yes. One App Store purchase unlocks Frames on your devices. Use the same Apple account and choose Restore Purchase in Settings if your purchase does not appear.
Your 30-day trial starts on the first launch. The start date is shared through your iCloud account, so another device uses the remaining days. After the trial, buy or restore a purchase to continue. Your photographs, ratings and edits remain preserved.
RAW support depends on your camera and the Apple RAW decoder available on your device. Try a few original files during the free trial before buying.
You have thirty days to try every feature with your own photographs. The launch price is $99.99 once, with no subscription. Frames requires macOS 15.2 or later on a Mac, and iOS 26.1, iPadOS 26.1 or tvOS 27 or later on other devices.
21 · Get Frames
Frames for Mac is on the App Store with a thirty-day trial, and the apps for iPhone, iPad and Apple TV are coming soon. Every feature is included. Add a folder or your Photos library, review a shoot and try the editing tools.
Choose your keepers, make the edits and export the results. Every feature is included in your 30-day trial.
