Problems with Mylio

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#1

After testing several Photo Management applications, I decided to use and pay for the Mylio subscription. TL;DR The software seems not worth the subscription.

The base library contains approximately 60.000 images. Images from about 15 years. I imported all images from the base library, and dedicated a lot of evenings during several weeks to tag all people.

With the base library ready, we decided it was time to link more devices and sync both our phones. It took several days to sync two phones (both contained approximately 25.000 images). No problem, we just left them connected during the night.

After importing all images from our phones, we started to select the images we needed to create a photo album. We exported the images and imported the images into our photo-printing software. The first problem occurred: Mylio has no support to filter low-quality images. A lot of the selected images where turned down, because the quality of insufficient.

A second problem was the source of Mylio was on an external disk, attached to one laptop. Selecting was being done on another laptop. Performance was too slow. So I decided to switch the external disk to the other laptop. And then the nightmare begun:

  1. Before moving, we added a vault (as recommended) and this kept on syncing.
  2. Since the source was moved, I decided to switch source. After two days of scanning, the catalog was still not rebuilt (I have a powerful laptop, built for processing data, with lots of memory and processing power).
  3. The other devices kept on syncing, again, but since the scanning activity was not finished, the syncing never completed.
  4. I decided to switch the external disk back to the first laptop and detach all the devices. Mylio kept on scanning over and over again. A lot of images showed missing images (“black” previews). I tried to rebuild the catalog (startup options), but it didn’t work. Atop of that, a lot of images where imported again, resulting in 3 or even more similar images.

And now, I’m on the brink of giving up on Mylio. I searched the forum again to find solutions for my problems, but there seem to be no solution that works.

My source seems corrupted: a lot of triple images and too many “missing” images. The Mylio source is a mess. And I can’t find a way to fix it.

Is Mylio worth it? In my opinion the scope seems too limited to make the subscription worth it. You don’t manage your images just to archive them. You manage and archive your images to use them: to print images or create a photo album. It lacks support for this, because:

a. filtering multiple conditions is not really supported by Mylio (selecting two or more people on an image requires subselections).
b. There is no support to filter images with low quality.
c. Working with multiple devices turned out to be a nightmare, since there is no support to filter duplicate images.

I’m impressed by the quick responses on the forum. I liked the way you can tag people (although the automatic recognition is too often wrong). But in the end, I have the feeling this software is not worth the money. As another user pointed out: using it over a decade costs over € 1000,-

Maybe if support can solve the problems I encounter I am willing to continue using it. Else I consider it an experience and lesson there’s no tool that supports photo-management in a decent way and using Windows explorer with images is the best solution in the end (because other applications did not meet my requirements either).

#2

Hello there - very sorry you have had such a poor experience. I would like to personally assist you and help get you to a successful state. Please message me directly so we can set up a remote session.

Thx,

J.C.

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#3

I just a visitor at this topic but I have to say to you @Mylio_JC - You are the BEST.
@MyAnonymousAccount before you choose to decide such a thing about a software\company - ask for help first :slight_smile:

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#4

I second this - the support team for Mylio has been fantastic. They get back to you in a reasonably quick amount of time and know exactly how to fix these types of problems.

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#5

Hello. I am the founder and CEO of Mylio. I am truly sorry that you are having such a rocky start. JC is a great person to work with and I will stay close to this too. I am pretty sure your drive needs to be set up differently. After that you will be able to move it from one computer to another at will. In a very few weeks we are shipping a vastly upgraded query system. Together we will get there. David

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#6

I appreciate your support for the Mylio team, though I think you missed out I pointed out different messages:

  1. I picked Mylio after trying several other photo-managers. So for me, Mylio stood out of other programs. I also decided to pay the subscription. But after more extensive use, it turns out Mylio has some shortcomings. By saying they’re the best, you’re ignoring the shortcomings, which were also mentioned by others on the forum and several other users supported the request (for example selecting multiple persons), and which Mylio confirmed (no support for image size). In my opinion, public criticism shouldn’t be a problem if it’s fact-based an done with respect.

My experience with software companies is that speaking out in public about shortcomings is a better way to stimulate change than sending your suggestions to a service desk. Most companies will reply you’re the only one with such problems.

  1. Regarding the replies on the forum: as i mentioned in my post too: “I’m impressed by the quick responses on the forum.”.
#7

I agree. As I mentioned in my post, respons is quick. I have to find out if they’re able to fix my problems :slight_smile:

#8

Next time, you should recommend the team what to get better instead of tell them how bad the software is…

#9

I am not sure we if I / we ever replied about this feature list, although it seems familiar to me. In any case I’m going to address the list now.

  1. We will have a feature that allows XMP’s to be “invisible” for pictures too

  2. I find that drag and drop makes it very, very fast to geotag large numbers of pictures

  3. I have to think about this. One answer would be two accounts operating across the same folders tree

  4. Dedup is in active development and will be out this winter

  5. The same drag and drop works even better if some pictures are tagged by the phone. The phone pictures show up on the map and you drag the others on top of them. Mylio lets you then say “tag untagged pictures”. Fast.

  6. You are talking about object search. We are thinking about that.

  7. We are thinking about smart albums too.

  8. We just added generalized OCR for photos and documents. When Mylio recognizes a photo with a lot of text it already classifies it as a document (categories). And, you can search on the text. Cool.

  9. We already do watermarks; is there something specific I am missing.

Okay, about Google Photos. Google strips out the GPS data. They do this deliberately and there is no way for us to over-ride it. But . . . we are working on a new import facility based on Google TakeOut that will be far more complete and will keep the GPS data (and videos).

Make sense?

1 Like
#10

In our case we work with users whether they speak out in public or not. The main benefit of the forums is that you get to draw on the experience of other users too, which is great. We learn too. I am quite sure we can fix most, if not all of your problems, and it is a priority. You account is anonymous, but if you reach in email to JC (and cc myself) we will start the process right away. JC@mylio.com david@mylio.com

#11

yeah my onebox was a link to the topic “My Features Idea” and you already commented there dew weeks ago, thanks for the reply and all the hard work you and all Mylio team do.
@Mylio_David

#12

To “MyAnonymousAccount” – we really, really want to resolve your problems and get you going. To do that, can we be in contact with you directly through zoom or some other mechanism? My email is david@mylio.com If you reach out to me through / with your email I will make sure communication is set up. We will work hard to make this as fast and painless as possible. Appreciatively and respectfully, David

#13

Hi David,

I’m already in contact with JC. It will take some time (for me to respond too), but I appreciate your efforts.

With kind regards

#14

I would like to message you directly as well because I took ALL my pictures from my external to sync with Mylio and then decided i only wanted half of them in Mylio so deleted in Mylio and now ALL my pictures are missing from my external!! HELP.

#15

I can relate to the OP’s issue. I too merged two decades worth of photos into Mylio. At first I was wowed by the product but the more I used it the more issues I had to the point it was losing my originals through a major bug I discovered.

I will say, that support is very good, but at the end what I was trying to do - clean up many years of duplicated libraries across many applications proved to be a nightmare. At the moment, while I paid for Mylio I am not using it and instead I am performing full clean up of my consolidated libraries outside of Mylio using Photosweeper - which I am 2/3rd through after a month of work… Only once I am done, will I put the photos back into Mylio.

I lost a lot of faith in the product once it started to lose my originals during my clean up. That faith has not been restored yet and unless Mylio can improve their syncing (it appears a be buggy at times) I may not renew my subscription.

Mylio has great potential, but it is a little scary to use when it can corrupts your library vaults.