Photo analysis

Every photo you upload is analyzed once, on its own, so you can search for it by what it shows — the scene, the objects, the text in it, the place. It is part of every plan, Free included, and it is never counted: it uses none of your AI actions and none of your storage. You can turn it off at any time.

---

What it finds

It also writes down what it observed, what is likely and how sure it is, what the photo is good for and what it wasn't sure about.

Where you see it

• In the viewer's details (press I on an open photo): In this photo — the scene, the time of day, how many people, the tags (click one to search your library for it), the text it read and the places it may show; Assessment — the stars, the verdict, What works, What to watch and Edits to try. More from the analysis, folded at the end, holds the rest. See A photo up close.
• In search: the words it wrote are searched with the photo's name, and the In the photo filters — Tags, Objects, Scene, Time of day, Places & landmarks, Events, Stars, People, Photo issues — come from it. Search also compares what you type with each analysis by meaning. See Searching your library.
• In Similar photos: the recommended frame of a burst is the one the analysis gave the most stars, then the sharpest. See Picking from a burst.
• In a shared album's highlights, for a photo you haven't rated yourself. See Highlights first.
• In Draft captions, which writes an album's captions from it. See Draft captions and chapter titles.
• In an export: each photo's metadata file carries its analysis. See Exporting your library.

How long it takes

A new photo joins the queue as soon as its upload has been processed, together with the others you uploaded around the same time. A few photos are usually done within a minute or two; a large upload takes a while, and its photos become searchable as they are done.

Until then, the viewer's details say Not analyzed yet — the photo is in the queue. A photo is analyzed only once. A copy, an edited version, or a new photo made by a preset or an AI action is not sent again on its own.

What it doesn't do

• No face recognition. The analysis can count the people in a photo, but it never identifies them, and no face templates are made of anyone.
• It changes nothing. It makes no new photo and doesn't touch your file, your own rating, your keywords or your captions: it only adds notes your library reads. A caption is drafted only when you choose Draft captions… on an album.
• It doesn't train AI. Your photos, and anything made from them, are never used to train AI models.

What is sent, and to whom

To analyze a photo, Media Moana sends a web-size copy of it, 1024 pixels on its longer side, with no location or other details in it. It goes to OpenRouter, which passes it to Google's Gemini model, and we tell OpenRouter to use only providers that neither store nor train on what they are sent. The answer is stored with your photo, and deleted with it.

To find photos by meaning, search compares lists of numbers: one made from the text of each photo's analysis — never from the photo — and one from what you type in the search box. Cloudflare's Workers AI makes both, and does not store them or use them to train AI models. What you search for is not stored or logged.

The privacy policy has the full account.

Turn it off or on

In Account → Privacy & GDPR, the Photo analysis card has one switch, Analyze my photos. It is on unless you turn it off.

• Off: no photo is sent from that moment. Photos still waiting to be analyzed are cancelled; only a photo already with the AI provider finishes. A new photo is then found only by its name, its folder, and where, when and with what it was taken — and by your own ratings and keywords. Photos analyzed before keep what the analysis found. Your shared albums' highlights go by your own ratings alone, and Draft captions is not available.
• On again: each new upload is analyzed. The photos added while it was off, or cancelled when you turned it off, wait for you to ask.

Analyze all photos

Photos uploaded before automatic analysis began, while it was off, or still waiting when you turned it off are not analyzed on their own. While there are any, and the switch is on, the card says how many and shows Analyze all photos: click it and they are queued. A large library takes a while; the photos become searchable as they are done, and the card counts the ones still waiting. A photo already analyzed is never analyzed again.

A photo's details in the viewer say when it hasn't been analyzed, and why — with a Settings button that leads to this card when it is waiting for you.

Your stars and the analysis's

If you rate your photos in Lightroom, Bridge, Capture One or Photo Mechanic, your stars travel inside the files you export, and Media Moana reads them. The analysis rates each photo too, from the photo alone — it never sees your rating. The two are kept apart:

Neither changes the other: the analysis never rewrites your rating, and changing your rating later in your editor doesn't change the analysis.