How many photos can Excire Foto manage?

How many photos can Excire Foto manage?

One of the most frequent questions we receive from our users concerns the maximum number of photos that Excire Photo can effectively manage. In this article, we explain the technical background and give practical recommendations for optimal use.

Theoretical vs. practical limits

Theoretically, there is no hard-coded upper limit for the number of photos in Excire Photo. However, the practical limits are determined by the hardware performance of your system - similar to other professional photo management programs such as Adobe Lightroom Classic.
Based on extensive testing, we recommend managing a maximum of 1 million photos in a single Excire Photo database. Up to this size you can still work comfortably with the application, and what we mean by this is:
  1. Fast search results: The AI-based search delivers speedy results
  2. Smooth navigation: Browsing through "All photos" remains acceptably fast
  3. Responsive user interface: All functions still respond promptly

Important hardware requirements

SSD storage
The most important requirement for managing large photo collections is local storage of the database on a fast medium:
SSD hard disk (recommended) or flash memory/NVMe SSD (optimal)
Avoid conventional hard disks (HDD) or network storage or NAS systems for the database (the photos can of course be stored on external hard disks or a NAS).
Other hardware factors
  1. Memory (RAM): At least 16 GB, preferably 32 GB for very large collections
  2. Processor: Modern CPU with multiple cores for AI analysis
  3. Graphics card: For image display - Excire Foto does not have high requirements here, as the photos are only displayed but not edited.

The "one large vs. several small catalogs" debate

Adobe Lightroom users have been familiar with this debate for years. The decision depends on your workflow:
One large catalog - advantages:
  1. Central management of all photos
  2. Comprehensive search across the entire collection
  3. Uniform keywording and organization
One large catalog - disadvantages:
  1. Slower performance with very large collections
  2. Longer backup and synchronization times
  3. Higher hardware requirements
Several small catalogs - Advantages:
  1. Better performance per catalog
  2. Faster backups
  3. Thematic separation (e.g. by years, projects)
Several small catalogs - Disadvantages:
  1. More complex administration of multiple databases
  2. No comprehensive search
  3. Possible duplicates

Practical recommendations

For hobby photographers:
  1. Up to 100,000 photos: One catalog is completely sufficient
  2. 100,000 - 500,000 photos: A catalog with good hardware is recommended
For professional photographers:
  1. Up to 1 million photos: A catalog with SSD and sufficient RAM
  2. Over 1 million photos: A breakdown by project or year would be recommended
For companies (Office Edition):
  1. Large image archives: Strategic division into thematic or time-based catalogs
  2. Team workflows: Separate catalogs for different departments or projects

Warning signs of overload

These are signs that your catalog is getting too big:
  1. search results take longer than 10-15 seconds to display (duplicate searches may take longer)
  2. Navigation in "All photos" becomes sluggish
  3. there are frequent delays when loading thumbnails
  4. the program no longer responds smoothly to inputs
The optimal catalog size therefore depends heavily on your hardware and your requirements. With an SSD-based database and sufficient RAM, you can easily manage collections of 1 million photos. For even larger archives, we recommend a strategic division into several catalogs.
Info
Important note: For good performance, make sure that your Excire photo database is stored on a local, fast storage medium - not on network drives or external hard disks.

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