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How it works

Tap Choose Folder and pick any folder in Files. Photos show one at a time.

• Swipe up (or tap Delete) to delete a photo. Swipe down (or tap Keep) to keep it.
• Swipe sideways to move between photos without deciding.
• Tap the photo for full screen, and tap again to go back; pinch or double-tap to zoom.
• Grid shows the whole folder. Tap Select there to pick several photos, then Delete, Keep, Share or Compare them together.
• Compare shows 2 to 4 selected photos side by side (iPad) or stacked (iPhone). Keep Only This keeps one and deletes the others.
• Share (top right of the photo) sends it or saves it to Photos. Options holds sorting, what Keep does, whether the Delete and Keep buttons show, and History.
• Reopen a folder and a note says how many photos are new since your last visit; Show jumps to them.
• Tap the folder name at the top ("Change folder") to switch to a recent folder, pick another, or refresh this one.

To see the tour again, open Options → How Thumb Through Works. It covers the swipes, then Select, Compare, what's new and hiding the buttons.

Questions

I deleted a photo by mistake.

Tap Undo in the bar that appears for a few seconds. After that, open Options → History and tap Put Back. On iCloud Drive and On My iPhone, deleted photos go to Recently Deleted in the Files app for 30 days. Dropbox folders have no Recently Deleted on iPhone, so photos there are deleted straight away; Dropbox keeps them on dropbox.com under Deleted files, where you can restore them.

How do I know a folder is finished?

When every photo is decided, the folder says so with a big green done screen, and it's marked Done in your recent folders, the folder menu and the Grid. Recent folders also show how many photos are left in each one.

Can I choose where to start when I come back?

Yes. Open a folder you've worked in before, with photos still left or new ones added, and a card asks: pick up where you left off, see the new photos first, or start from the first photo left. Each choice says where it lands, including whether picking up would skip the new photos. Swipe the card away to take the highlighted choice. If you started partway through, swiping past the last photo shows an end page that says how many earlier photos are still to decide and takes you to the first one.

Can I use Siri or Shortcuts?

Yes. Say "Keep going in Thumb Through" to reopen the folder you used last, or "Open a folder in Thumb Through" to pick one of your recent folders. Both are in the Shortcuts app too, so you can put a folder on your Home Screen.

Any shortcuts I might miss?

Press and hold the app icon for Keep Going and your recent folders. Press and hold a photo in the Grid for Open, Keep, Share, Details and Delete. On an iPad keyboard, hold ⌘ to see every shortcut.

How do I get around a big folder?

In the Grid, drag the month strip down the right edge to jump to any month (when the folder is sorted by date).

Can I make the photo bigger?

Yes. Options → Screen hides the Delete and Keep buttons; the swipes, and the keys on a keyboard, still work.

How do I know my deletes are happening?

Under each photo, next to "12 of 200", a running count says how many you've deleted and kept in that folder.

The folder renames its files by itself.

That's fine. Thumb Through recognises each photo by its size and dates, not just its name, so a folder that renames or renumbers its files (on your Mac, say) keeps your place and your ✓ marks, and a delete always removes the photo you were looking at. If names change while the app is open, it notices and refreshes; Refresh Folder is in the folder menu too.

Where do kept photos go?

By default they stay exactly where they are and get a ✓ Kept mark. Once kept, a photo is skipped the next time you open the folder (until then you can still swipe back to it, and its label says “Kept · skipped next time”), so you only ever see what's left to decide; it stays in the Grid with its ✓, and Options → Show Kept Photos brings kept ones back for another look. In the Grid, kept photos come last, under a "Kept" heading, so the photos still to decide are at the top; turn off Options → Kept Photos Last to keep every photo in sort order. You can change this in Options → Keep to move them to a "Keepers" folder, or to any folder you choose.

Does it work with my Photos library?

No, on purpose. Thumb Through is for photos in folders: iCloud Drive, Dropbox, Google Drive, On My iPhone, SD cards and drives. Your Photos library already lets you swipe through it.

The dates look wrong in a Dropbox folder.

Some cloud services report a file's "created" date as the day it reached your phone. Thumb Through uses the earlier of the created and modified dates, which is the real one. You can also sort by Date Modified or Name in Options.

Which files does it show?

Images: JPEG, HEIC, PNG, GIF, TIFF, WebP, BMP and DNG. Other files in the folder are left alone.

Can I use a keyboard on iPad?

Yes. ← and → move, ⌫ deletes, K keeps, ⌘Z undoes, S shares, F is full screen (Esc goes back), N jumps to what's new, ⌘R refreshes the folder, G is the grid, H is History, R reverses the sort and ⌘O switches folder. In the grid, ⌘A selects everything and C compares the selection; in Compare, 1 to 4 keeps that photo and deletes the others.

Privacy

Nothing is sent to us. Your place, ✓ marks and recent folders sync between your devices through your own iCloud. See the privacy policy.

Does it sync between iPhone and iPad?

Yes, for folders in Dropbox, iCloud Drive and other cloud storage: your place, your ✓ Kept marks, what's new, and your recent folders follow you through iCloud. The first time, choose the folder once on the other device (iOS asks each device for permission); after that it picks up where you left off. Folders in On My iPhone live on one device, so they don't sync. History stays on the device where it happened.