Everything it does, on one page.
SpectraSort is an on-device AI photo picker for iPhone. Free for five sorts a week; Premium is $19.99 once. Below: every tool, control and limit, and what each tier includes. Current as of version 3.0.5, September 2026.
Six tools. One tap each.
| Tool | You give it | You get back |
|---|---|---|
| Your Taste | Nothing — it learned from your reviews (30 picks to start) | The library ranked by what you tend to keep |
| Best Shots | A lean: technical ↔ artistic | Sharpest, best-exposed, best-composed first |
| Find a Subject | Words — “roses”, “dogs at the beach”, “cozy” | Every match, ranked best-first |
| Like This Photo | One example photo | Everything like it, most similar first |
| Dedupe | A slice of the library | Duplicates, bursts and look-alikes in stacks, sharpest flagged |
| Photos of a location | A pin on the map, or a place name | Everything shot there, ranked |
Scenes and a Timeline.
Scenes — trips, themes and series gathered automatically. No albums to make, no tags. Each Scene sorts on its own.
Timeline — year → month → day, with photo counts. Tick any months and sort them together. A Show reviewed switch hides what you have already finished.
Narrow any sort.
Date range — last 24 hours, 7 days, 30 days, or a custom range.
Location — search a place or pick a pin on the map; photos without location listed separately.
Album — any album, or Not in Album.
Exclude — photos in albums you choose, screenshots, photos already reviewed.
Scored, best first.
Gestures — right to pick, down to keep, left to let go. Tap for full screen.
Stacks — Duplicates (exact copies), Bursts (shots seconds apart), Similar (same scene). Each switchable. A wheel rolls through a stack without leaving the photo.
Autopick — files the whole queue by score tier in one tap: best to Picked, middle to Kept, weakest to Discard. Nothing is applied to your library until you act.
Multi-select — press, hold and drag across the grid.
Profile label — the grid names the profile that sorted the photos.
Finish in one screen.
Save — picks into one or more albums, new or existing. They show up in Apple Photos.
Favorite — star the picks.
Share — the system share sheet.
Delete — discards go through the system confirmation dialog into Recently Deleted, where they stay 30 days.
Photos count as reviewed only after you tap Done.
The manual controls.
Seven quality axes — Sharpness, Exposure, Contrast, Noise, Composition, Color Harmony, Visual Balance — weighted one by one or moved together on the Technical / Artistic slider. Up to three subjects per sort. A balance wheel that trades subject match against quality. Any configuration bookmarked as a named profile. The Studio page →
A profile that learns.
Built from the photos you keep and the ones you let go. Needs 30 picks to start; every review after that refines it. Pause it, reset it, or bookmark a snapshot and keep going. Stored on the phone, never uploaded.
Free vs Premium.
| Free | Premium | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $0 — forever, not a trial | $19.99 onceNo subscription |
| Sorts | 5 a week — counted when Review opens, reset Monday | Unlimited |
| Six tools, Discover, filters | All included | All included |
| Save · share · delete | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Studio | Open and look; sorting from it needs Premium | Custom sorts and saved profiles: seven axes, three subjects, balance wheel |
| Account or card to start | None | Apple ID purchase — restores on a new phone |
Index once. Then a moment.
The first sort builds an on-device index, at up to 100 photos a second on recent iPhones. Every sort after that runs on the index and comes back nearly instantly. New photos are indexed as they appear.
Nothing leaves your phone.
Search, scoring and the taste profile run on the iPhone's Neural Engine. No uploads, no account, no server in the path. Anonymous usage analytics are opt-in — off by default in the EU, UK and EEA — and never include photo content. How it works →
iPhone, iOS 18.5 or later.
Runs on Apple's Neural Engine; newer chips index and sort faster. No Apple Intelligence required, no region locks. Languages: English and 简体中文 (the Mainland China edition is 光谱挑片). No iPad, Mac, Android or web version. It works on top of your existing library rather than replacing it — see SpectraSort vs Apple Photos and vs Google Photos.
- No cloud backup or sync — it is not a storage tool. Apple Photos stays your library.
- No “GB freed” counter. Deleted photos sit in Recently Deleted for up to 30 days, so the number would be wrong when shown.
- No editing. It picks; it does not retouch.