A library, not an editor.

Negativo catalogs the photos already sitting on your disks. No import. No copies. No lock-in.

In development

Coming to macOS 15 or later · one-time purchase

The Negativo library window: a grid of catalogued photos filtered by the query rating>=4 AND keyword:morocco, with folders, collections, keywords and GPX tracks listed down the left and the selected shot's camera settings, location and sidecar file on the right.

Your originals are never touched

Ratings, keywords and notes go into a standard .xmp file next to each photo. Uninstall tomorrow and you lose nothing.

Fast enough to actually use

Native, no Electron. 100,000 photos filtered in under 50ms.

Edit wherever you like

Open any shot in Pixelmator Pro, Photoshop or Affinity. The result comes back stacked next to the original.

Built for the first pass.

Full-screen, keyboard-driven, no panels in the way. Arrow keys to move, numbers to rate, P and X for picks and rejects. The interface gets out of the way and comes back when you need it.

Negativo's loupe view: an aerial shot of a switchback mountain road filling the screen, with the star rating and pick flag centred below it, a filmstrip of the surrounding frames along the bottom, and the camera settings tucked into the top corner.

Your track knows where you were.

Drop in a GPX file and Negativo matches every photo to the route by timestamp. Rides, hikes, road trips — the whole archive on a map, without a single manual pin.

Nothing here is locked in.

The catalog is an index, not a vault. Delete it and Negativo rebuilds itself by reading the sidecars off your disk. Your archive was never ours to hold.

Questions people ask.

Does Negativo edit my photos?

No. It's a catalog, not an editor. There are no sliders, no presets, no develop module. When you want to edit, Negativo opens the file in Pixelmator Pro, Photoshop, Affinity or whatever else you have installed.

What happens to my original files?

Nothing. Negativo never writes a single byte into your RAW files. Ratings, keywords, notes and locations go into a standard .xmp sidecar next to each photo — the same format Lightroom and Bridge read.

Which RAW formats are supported?

[PENDING — se completará tras las pruebas con archivos reales]

Do I need to import my photos?

No. You point Negativo at folders on your disks and it indexes them where they are. Nothing is moved, copied or renamed.

What if my photos are on an external drive that isn't connected?

They stay in your catalog. You can still browse thumbnails, search and filter. Reconnect the drive and the full-size files are available again.

Is there a subscription?

No. One payment, and the app is yours. Updates are free for a year after purchase.

Does Negativo send anything over the internet?

No. There is no account, no sync, no telemetry. The app doesn't talk to any server at all.

Can I use it alongside Lightroom?

Yes. Because Negativo writes standard XMP sidecars, ratings and keywords you add are visible in Lightroom, Bridge and other tools that read the format.

Does it work on Intel Macs?

Yes. Negativo runs natively on both Apple silicon and Intel, macOS 15 or later.

What happens when I delete the catalog?

Negativo rebuilds it by reading the sidecars off your disk. The only things that don't survive are collections and stacks, since those are relationships between files rather than properties of one.

One price. No subscription.

Price:69US dollars, one-time

One-time purchase. Free updates for a year.