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:
- Before moving, we added a vault (as recommended) and this kept on syncing.
- 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).
- The other devices kept on syncing, again, but since the scanning activity was not finished, the syncing never completed.
- 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).