RELEASE NOTES

What's New

Tracking the evolution of Aegis Photo Voyager. New features, enhancements, and performance optimizations delivered every two weeks.

September 2026 (v1.7.12)

Library Manager

A new bulk-cleanup tool under Tools → Photo Tools. Find unwanted photos by minimum image dimensions, minimum file size, AI quality score, or capture date range, combined with either "match any" (OR) or "match all" (AND) logic.

Live Impact Dashboard

Library Manager criteria update a live summary of the impacted photo count, earliest and latest capture dates, and estimated disk space, with a paginated thumbnail table so you can review and uncheck individual photos before removing them.

File Size Tracking

Photo file sizes are now recorded as photos are discovered, with a background scan that backfills sizes for existing libraries so file-size filtering and cleanup work immediately.

CPU Inference with llama-cpp-python

Added an in-process CPU engine that loads GGUF vision models directly, with no server to run. The LLM Setup Wizard now defaults to it on machines without a discrete GPU, alongside Ollama, LM Studio and vLLM.

Watermark-Free Maps

The map view migrated to OpenStreetMap basemaps, removing the "API key required" watermark, and now loads its data in the background so the view opens immediately.

Rendering & Shutdown Fixes

Added an OpenGL visual warmup that prevents flicker when loading views, and resolved an application exit hang and socket teardown errors on Windows.


September 2026 (v1.6.224)

"Find Similar" Toolbar Button

Added a dedicated Find Similar action to the selection toolbar. With several photos selected it targets the first one chosen in chronological order, with context-aware tooltips.

Adaptive Paging Controls

Pagination now switches between numbered page buttons in wide views and compact icon navigation when the window is narrow or the side detail panel is expanded.

iPhone Auto-Photos Cleaner

A specialized utility to detect, sort, clean and deduplicate imported Apple iPhone media libraries, with improved wrapping for long file paths.

Windows Store Packaging

Built a complete Windows MSIX packaging pipeline with a native launcher, automated build scripts, store asset generation and signing workflows.

Dynamic AI Timeout Scaling

Local LLM request timeouts now scale to your GPU availability and hardware profile, with automatic repair of malformed JSON responses during structured extraction.

Parallel Face Recognition

Face recognition gained multi-threaded background workers, incremental scanning, cluster conflict handling and faster vector lookups.

Quality Sorter Dialog

A dedicated quality analysis dialog and worker covering score computation, attribute breakdowns (sharpness, noise, focus, composition, contrast), caching, star synchronization and soft delete.

Test Suite Hardening

Overhauled test orchestration across 44 suites and 273 unit tests with offscreen platform configuration, headless WebEngine and multimedia mocks, and clean thread teardown.


July 2026 (v1.6.203)

Persistent Metadata Side Panel

A toggleable, non-modal right-side panel for inspecting photo metadata, AI summaries, EXIF attributes, ratings, tags and collection membership without leaving the grid.

Two-Column Panel & Rating Dropdown

The side panel switches to a two-column layout past 500px, caps landscape previews at 350px, and replaces the star button with an explicit 0–5 star dropdown.

Side Panel Navigation Controls

Added zoom and pan controls, quick map centering, external editing in the companion photo editor, spoken narration and keyboard shortcuts to the panel preview.

Auto-Advance & Maximize

The panel advances to the next photo when one is removed, and gained a maximize/restore toggle plus a resizable splitter handle.

Map Group Selection

Selecting a photo group thumbnail or cluster marker on the map now shows the first photo of that group in the side detail panel.

Trip Builder

A new module for grouping photos into logical travel journeys, with its own database schema and improved background worker status tracking.

Collection Insights

A Collection Details dialog with a date distribution histogram, statistics, GPS distance tracking and a chip-based layout for AI-driven insights.

Storytelling Slideshow

The slideshow player gained storytelling modes, subtitle rendering of photo narrations, playback controls and additional transition effects.

Incremental Drive Imports

Imports from external devices now use persistent file metadata caching and synchronization history to avoid rescanning media you already have.

Custom TTS Voices

Added support for custom Piper text-to-speech voices, audio padding adjustments and a unified voice management interface.

Startup Welcome Dialog

A "Welcome to version x.y.z" dialog highlights each month's release notes, with an Appearance setting to restore it if you dismiss it.

Offline File Handling

Optimized SQL joins and added graceful handling of offline files with thumbnail fallbacks and clear alerts instead of broken entries.


June 2026 (v1.6.193)

Contributor Profiles & Curation Queue

Imports can now be attributed to a contributor or device, and a Curation Staging Queue lets you stage, preview, visually deduplicate and sort new imports before committing them to your library.

AI Metadata Regeneration

Regenerate AI metadata for a single photo directly from the detail view, with a prompt editor for fine-tuning the instructions sent to your local model.

Make Collage Tool

Compile up to 100 photos from a collection into a single high-resolution PNG — landscape or portrait, Clean Grid or Scattered Polaroid, with a customizable background.

Generational Tree Layout

A Sugiyama-framework layout algorithm aligns generations, groups couples and minimizes crossing lines on the family tree canvas.

Tree Canvas Controls

Added zoom, fit and pan buttons directly on the tree canvas, automatic edge-scrolling while dragging a portrait, and a tidy grid for people not yet connected to anyone.

Hover Previews in Person View

The Person Photos dialog now shows instant full-resolution popup previews on thumbnail hover, matching the main library view.

Metadata & Resolution Exposure

Media resolution, format and file size are now surfaced in the main interface, and the default local vision model was updated.

Video Frame Extraction Fallback

Added an ffmpeg fallback for video thumbnail and frame extraction when the standard image utilities cannot read a file.

Faster Actions Dialog

Database queries and statistics in the Actions dialog now load per tab, on demand, with wait cursors during long operations.


May 2026 (First Half)

Interactive Time Scrubber

Upgraded the date chooser with a premium, high-precision TimeSpinnerWidget. Users can now drag-scrub or directly type into year, month, day, hour, and minute fields.

Intelligent Date Range Correction

Implemented automatic chronological swapping for "From" and "To" filters. If a user selects an end date earlier than the start date, the application intelligently swaps them to maintain a valid range.

Enhanced Time Precision

Date filters now consistently include and preserve hour/minute precision, with the "Enable Precise Time Entry" toggle removed in favor of a always-available high-fidelity interface.

iOS Integration

Added dedicated mount scripts and enhanced scan progress reporting for iOS devices, including file-by-file metadata tracking during import.

Advanced Rating System

Replaced the legacy binary star toggle with a multi-level rating system, allowing for more nuanced organization of photo libraries.

Website Protection

Added password protection, custom site descriptions, and purpose fields to the static website generator for improved privacy and context.


April 2026 (Second Half)

Technical Quality Analysis

Introduced a specialized AI-powered tool for technical quality assessment, providing overall scores and attribute breakdowns for every photo.

Website Builder Wizard

Added a streamlined wizard to the sidebar to help users quickly generate and customize shared photo galleries.

Activity History & Metrics

Implemented a database-backed activity log that tracks all background AI jobs, providing a persistent history of imports, assessments, and website generation.

Dual-Engine AI Configuration

Split AI settings into independent "Metadata" and "Quality" tabs, allowing users to configure different models (e.g., GPT-4o for metadata vs. Ollama for local quality checks).

Custom Quality Prompts

Added support for user-defined LLM prompts specifically for technical quality assessment, enabling tailored AI analysis criteria.

Optimized Image Engine

Refactored image/video handling to enforce consistent exclusion of deleted and duplicate photos across all analytics and UI views.


April 2026 (First Half)

Persistent Assessment Notes

AI-generated quality assessments now include mandatory reasoning notes, stored in the database for future reference and transparency.

Circular Star Badges

Redesigned the thumbnail overlays with modern, circular rating badges that adjust dynamically to the application theme.

LLM Context Management

Added configurable Ollama context window sizing to optimize local AI performance on varied hardware.

Smart Timeline Navigation

Improved the Timeline Tunnel's "seek" performance and synchronization with manual filter inputs.

Unified Build Tools

Consolidated the build orchestration scripts for Linux and macOS, ensuring environment consistency across DEB, SNAP, and DMG packages.


March 2026 (Second Half)

Dynamic Theme Engine

Rolled out a comprehensive dynamic theming system supporting seamless switching between Light and Dark modes across all GUI components, including the Timeline Rail and Detail View.

LLM Setup Wizard 2.0

Major overhaul of the onboarding experience with provider-specific checks, vision/embedding model selection, and real-time connectivity validation.

Photo Journey Theming

Extended theme support to the Photo Journey and Cluster views, using JavaScript injection and CSS variables to ensure visual consistency in web-based views.

OpenCV Lazy Loading

Optimized application startup time by implementing lazy loading for computer vision dependencies, preventing delays on systems without hardware acceleration.

Face Recognition Caching

Introduced icon and metadata caching for the People View, significantly improving responsiveness when browsing large libraries of identified faces.


March 2026 (First Half)

Multi-Platform Packaging

Finalized automated build and deployment pipelines for Windows (Installer), macOS (DMG), and Linux (DEB/SNAP), including dlib bundling and virtual environment isolation.

Detail View Robustness

Implemented a startup watchdog and improved error handling for the main detail view to prevent hangs during heavy metadata extraction.

Integrated Slideshow Window

Added a dedicated slideshow mode with smooth transitions and theme-aware controls for presenting photo journeys.

Resource Bundling

Migrated legal documents, licenses, and assets into the application bundle for improved portable execution and compliance.


February 2026 (Second Half)

Smart Start Onboarding

Launched the "Smart Start" dialog, a comprehensive onboarding experience that guides users through AI configuration, library indexing, and initial system checks.

Actions Dashboard

Introduced the Actions Dialog to centralize background task management and provide a unified interface for manual tool execution.

Location Caching

Implemented persistent geolocation caching to speed up place-based filtering and reduce external API calls.

Security & Licensing

Introduced a Cythonized security module and updated license verification logic to protect application integrity.

Desktop Integration

Enhanced desktop presence with high-resolution icons, desktop file association, and standardized application naming.


February 2026 (First Half)

Core GUI Architecture

Established the foundational multi-threaded GUI architecture using PySide6, featuring a responsive Sidebar, Timeline Rail, and asynchronous Image Grid.

Initial Windows Pipeline

Built the first Windows-specific deployment flow featuring a PowerShell installer for face recognition dependencies and virtual environment awareness.

Snapcraft Automation

Implemented automated Snap package generation for Linux, ensuring easy distribution across various distributions.

Image Handling Foundation

Developed the core image loading and thumbnail generation engine with support for HEIF/HEIC and basic metadata extraction.

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