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📚 Stacks & File Variants

LibrePhotos can automatically detect and group related photos together. There are two distinct concepts: file variants (same capture in different formats) and stacks (different captures grouped together).

File Variants​

File variants represent the same moment captured in different file formats. Instead of showing duplicate entries in your timeline, LibrePhotos treats them as a single photo with multiple files attached.

RAW+JPEG Pairs​

When you shoot in RAW+JPEG mode, your camera creates two files for each shot (e.g. IMG_001.CR2 and IMG_001.jpg). LibrePhotos groups these automatically during scanning — you'll see one photo in your timeline with a RAW badge overlay indicating that a RAW variant is available.

Live Photos​

Live Photos (common on iPhones) consist of a still image and a short video clip. LibrePhotos detects these and groups the image and video as file variants of a single photo.

How Scanning Groups Variants​

LibrePhotos uses a two-phase scan to group file variants:

  1. Phase 1 — Grouping: Before processing, all image and video files are grouped by their directory and base filename. For example, IMG_001.jpg and IMG_001.CR2 in the same folder become one group. XMP sidecars are set aside at this stage.

  2. Phase 2 — Processing: Each group is processed together, creating one Photo entity with all files attached as variants. The main display file is chosen automatically by priority: JPEG → Video → RAW. Once all image groups have finished, any XMP sidecars are processed and attached to the photo they belong to.

After each scan, a Repair File Variants job runs automatically. It looks for RAW files that ended up as their own photo and merges them into the matching image photo (same folder, same base name — JPEG, HEIC, PNG or TIFF), and corrects the main display file when a RAW file is still marked as the main one. Live Photo videos that were already scanned as separate photos are not merged by this job.

Viewing File Variants​

When viewing a photo that has file variants:

  • A RAW badge appears on the thumbnail in the photo grid
  • In the lightbox sidebar, next to the filename (beside the dimensions and file size), a photo with extra formats shows a +N format(s) link. Expanding it lists the non-primary variants, each with a format badge (JPG, RAW, VIDEO, META, or FILE).
  • When you download photos as a zip, all file variants of each photo are included automatically.

Settings​

In Settings, you can configure:

  • Stack RAW+JPEG — a legacy switch, left over from when RAW+JPEG pairs were modelled as stacks. RAW+JPEG pairs are now always grouped as file variants during scanning, so turning this off currently has no effect.

Stacks​

Stacks group different but related captures together. Unlike file variants (same shot, different format), stacks contain separate photos that belong together logically.

note

Once photos are stacked, only the stack's cover photo appears in your timeline — the other photos stay in your library but are collapsed behind the stack. Open the stack to reach them, use Set Cover to change which one is shown, or Unstack to bring them all back.

Stack Types​

TypeDescriptionDetection
BurstA rapid sequence of photos taken in burst modeAutomatic (rule-based: EXIF burst/sequence tags and filename patterns by default)
BracketExposure brackets for HDRReserved — not currently created; there is no bracket detection, and Create Stack always makes a Manual stack
ManualAny photos you want to group togetherManual

Automatic Stack Detection​

Burst detection runs a list of rules stored per user. Enabled by default (hard criteria):

  • EXIF Burst Mode Tag — camera burst / continuous-drive flags
  • EXIF Sequence Number — sequence metadata written by the camera
  • Filename Burst Pattern — naming conventions such as IMG_001_BURST001 or photo (1)

Available but disabled by default (soft criteria — these estimate, and can group unrelated photos):

  • Timestamp Proximity — photos taken within a configurable interval of each other (2 seconds by default) on the same camera
  • Visual Similarity — perceptual-hash comparison of consecutive photos

Open Settings and use the Burst Detection Rules panel to enable, disable, reorder, add or remove these rules (including extra presets such as a looser 5-second timestamp rule or a custom filename pattern). Changes apply the next time you run Detect Stacks.

You can trigger stack detection from the Organizing → Stacks page by clicking "Detect Stacks" and choosing which types to detect.

The Organizing Page​

The Organizing page (accessible from the navigation) is your central hub for managing stacks and duplicates. It has two tabs:

Stacks Tab​

  • Browse all detected stacks
  • Filter by stack type — the dropdown offers All Types plus each type you actually have stacks of
  • Click a stack to open the Stack Modal showing all photos in the group with details (resolution, file size, camera, date)
  • Set Cover — Choose which photo represents the stack in the timeline
  • Unstack — Remove the grouping
  • View in Lightbox — Browse stack photos in the full lightbox viewer

Creating Manual Stacks​

  1. Select multiple photos from any view
  2. Open the selection actions menu (three-dot menu)
  3. Click "Create Stack"
  4. The selected photos are grouped into a manual stack, and only the cover photo remains visible in your timeline

Managing Stacks​

From the selection actions menu, you can also:

  • Merge Stacks — Combine multiple stacks into one
  • Break Apart Stacks — Remove the selected photos from every manual stack they belong to (a stack is deleted automatically if fewer than 2 photos remain)

Stacks in the Lightbox​

When viewing a photo that belongs to a stack:

  • The Stacks section in the sidebar shows thumbnail previews of other photos in the stack
  • Click any thumbnail to switch to that photo
  • Click "View full stack" to open the Stack Modal
  • If a photo is in multiple stacks, they are shown in an accordion grouped by type