Kresty Initially I answered in deleted thread, so I move my answer here:

Tonfots can read pretty much all useable metadate there is, and most of it then actively used in UI, except for ratings and color tagging. Everything else - people, tags, location, time stamps, captions, etc - this all will be used by Tonfotos if it is stored in image metadata.

Apart from reading metadata and using it, Tonfotos can also edit most of it (except for location, but that is coming too), and it saves it back into file metadata so other applications can pick it up and use it. However, information about people is not stored in XMP by Tonfotos (see below).

Even though XMP metadata is standartized to some extent, most tools use it sligtly differently and put slightly different meaning into it. Therefore, you can’t be compatible will of them at the same time. There is a list of apps that I am testing against, and among them is Windows Photos (standard app for Win 10 and 11). I can guarantee that when you add tags or caption by Tonfotos, it will be picked up by Photos. However, Windows Live Photo Gallery is not in compatibility list so far. AFAIK, it is outdated and not supported by Microsoft for many years already, right?

Apart from simple things like tags, “standard” XMP record about people is not really adequate for practical use. It is not capable of storing of lots of critical information that Tonfotos has. Therefore as of now, Tonfotos will read People information from files and use it, but will not write it back when it changes, it relies on its own database, as well as .ini files for that purpose.

At this point of time, IMHO, Tonfotos provides most advanced capabilities for working with people, which includes relationship with the people, for example. I am not aware about any other similar application that can show this information, let alone working on data exchange with it.

Nevertheless, building up compatibility with other apps is strategically important for Tonfotos, so this part will only inprove in the future, including based on the feedback from the users.

It is up to you to decide what app for photo archive management you choose, but I would like to encourage you to at least give a try to Tonfotos. You can use free version for as long as you want, there is no time limitation as you can see wtih some other applications. So you can see for yourself if it is adequate for your needs or not.

Yes, Photo Gallery is deprecated. Which is why I’m trying to get off of it However, I have LOTS of pictures and have spent hundreds of hours tagging them, so I really don’t want that data to get lost.

I’m annoyed that the Photos app isn’t compatible with their prior stuff either. I have an old installer of WLPG I’ve been using on new machines. It’s starting to show cracks though from age.

And the metadata looks silly It has a name and rectangle… and other proprietary stuff (like an GUID ID to your skype contact or whatever). I can see why they did that, but that bit’s not very portable IMO. The name + rect should be pretty straightforward though.

I’d (perhaps) be willing to migrate the data to a form Tonfotos understands, if there’s a tool to do so.

I can share examples of people tagged photos with you if that’d help.

The other bit I use a lot is the 1-5 star rating. I’m not surprised different systems have different ways of doing that, but with 100K photos, it’s helpful to be able to look for the 5 star photos of my daughter and not just all the photos of my daughter

One more question: If you add XMP data to a photo, do you step on the existing data that you don’t recognize? Or do you tack on the extra data?

Kresty did you already install Tonfotos? If WLPG really writes face information to XMP, then Tonfotos should just pick that up, so you can just try on few images and see it for yourself. My bet is it will just work. And if not - just send me few sample images for analysis, I think I can fix that pretty easily.

Kresty The other bit I use a lot is the 1-5 star rating. I’m not surprised different systems have different ways of doing that, but with 100K photos, it’s helpful to be able to look for the 5 star photos of my daughter and not just all the photos of my daughter

As a suggestion, you can tag your favourite photos first in your current app, and then Tonfotos will pick those up as tags.

Kresty If you add XMP data to a photo, do you step on the existing data that you don’t recognize? Or do you tack on the extra data?

Tonfotos merges information in XMP - overwrites only what is necessary, and leaves everything else intact. It does not delete what it does not use.

Kresty please send me some of the images that have marked faces to support@tonfotos.com.

Andrey Sent, one attached, and a OneDrive share with a bunch more. (I can send EVEN MORE if you really wanted).

Thanks for looking at this! I’d like to have other options for photo organization.

(Oh, and I’d like stars to work too ;-)

Kresty thank you very much for sharing samples. This is different format from what other applications are using, but I think I can add support for this too. Can’t promise anything about stars though…

Andrey starting from 1.3.12 Tonfotos can undestand WLPG format in XMP and will import faces during indexing. If you already indexed your archive you will need to reindex it. The easiest way would be to remove it from library and add again.