fotoARRAY 3 is not a new program. It is a thorough rework of a program that has been in use since 2020. The ideas stayed: a catalog that puts the pictures first, one click to change the selection, albums and keywords with colours and symbols on the tiles, the timeline, the exchange with other programs, a free edition without time limit. What changed is the foundation. The catalog is now served by a background process, the grid is drawn by the graphics card, the previews are kept in HD, and the developer became a real part of the program instead of an add-on. Catalogs from version 1 and 2 are imported with their stars, colours, keywords and albums.
9. October 2026 fotoARRAY V3.1 - this is a major upgrade.
It brings AI content detection to the PRO edition.
There is a new share dialog which makes it easy to access an album from your cellphone (local WIFI).
The watched folders allow it to copy images to a special folder, edit them there and copy the modified side car files (recipies) back to the original location.
There is the new web app "my.fotoarray" which lets you share selected images with everybody by just passing on a compressed archive.
You can integrate an external command line friedly RAW developer.
In our own photo editor you can change the areas the shadow/light controls work.
28. September 2026 fotoArray V3.0.20.1 - Added Assistent to create new catalog and import images
25. September 2026 fotoArray V3.0.20 - Release
9. September 2026 fotoArray V3.0.0 - Release Candidate
fotoARRAY 1 was released in July 2020. It started from a simple need: a way to look at a large collection of pictures quickly, to mark the good ones and to find them again, without importing everything into a program that wants to own the pictures. It brought the file browser that shows several folders in one view, the database with thumbnails, albums and hierarchical keywords, the timeline and the date filter that understands "every 24th of December". From the first version it could export the grid as it was shown, and it could hand pictures over to other programs.
fotoARRAY 2.0 followed in January 2022. It added the non destructive editor with recipes, the compare view, the PDF export with the original JPEG data embedded, the album directories that show developed versions in place of the originals, fotoARRAY Broadcast for sharing pictures with a phone in the local network, XMP sidecars and the filter toolbar. Version 2 was the program most of our users worked with for four years, and much of what we learned from them went into version 3.
Looking back, version 2 did what it promised. It was fast for its time, it never damaged a picture, and it stayed small. Its limits were the ones we address now: the display was drawn by the processor and got slow above a hundred thousand pictures, the editor was a separate module with its own look, the catalog could be used by one program at a time, and the previews were too small for a slideshow on a large screen. These four points were the reason to rebuild the foundation rather than to add another version on top.
In 2021 fotoARRAY was named in the runner up list of the Embarcadero contest for impressive programs made in Delphi. The article is still online: fotoARRAY is an amazing image manager for easier photo browsing and it is made in Delphi.
A macOS version of fotoARRAY existed as a prototype and was not pursued. The reason is the philosophy of the program: fotoARRAY wants to be a browser for your pictures that still works in many years, on the computer where your catalog lives. Our experience with macOS updates that retire interfaces and require regular rework of a program did not fit that promise. macOS also has capable RAW tools of its own, so the need is smaller there.
Linux was kept in view during the development. The server, the catalog and the image engine were written so that a migration is possible. The server architecture also allows a client that runs in a web browser, so the catalog could one day be used from other devices without a native program, that may be the way to bring fotoARRAY to OSX.