Frequently Asked Questions
Answers to common questions about privacy, compatibility, indexing, and daily use of Pitara.
1. How does Pitara work?
Pitara is an intelligent photo cataloging, searching, and tagging tool. It efficiently indexes metadata from your photos, so you can instantly find them. Modern cell phones & cameras embed rich metadata into your photos, like location and timestamp. Pitara processes this information so you can search for your photos instantly.
2. What Pitara is NOT
- Pitara does not upload your photos to the cloud
- Pitara is not a photo editor
- It does not move or reorder your photos
- It's not a photo organizer - it removes the need to organize photos
3. Does Pitara touch or alter my photos?
Pitara reads metadata from your photos and indexes it in its database. The photos themselves are never modified.
Image Header Alteration (Tags Only) - When you add tags to photos, Pitara inserts those tags (keywords) into the photo headers following industry-standard protocols. There are no changes to the image itself in terms of authenticity or quality - only the header is enriched with keywords.
The advantage of using industry-standard protocols is that other tools can also read these tags.
4. Can Pitara search photos from an external drive?
Absolutely! Just plug in one or more drives to your PC, and they'll show up as ordinary drives. Select the drive in Pitara setting dialog box. Menu → Settings. Then click "Add" button
Performance Tip: Keep the index on your local internal hard drive for best performance. The index can be stored on an external drive, but indexing will be much slower.
5. Can Pitara search photos from a network drive?
Yes! You can browse and select a network drive from the Settings dialog. If you can't see the network drive in the folder dialog, follow these steps:
- Run
regedit - Navigate to
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System - Create a new DWORD entry named
EnableLinkedConnectionswith value1 - Restart your computer
- Network drives should now be visible
Performance Tip: Keep the index on your local internal hard drive for best performance.
6. Can I use Pitara on macOS or Linux?
Currently, Pitara is only available for Windows 10 or later. We're exploring options for expanding to other platforms in the future.
7. How do I report a bug or request a feature?
Please visit the Contact page to report bugs or suggest new features. We appreciate your feedback and continuously work to improve Pitara with each update.
8. My question isn't answered here
Most "how-to" questions are answered in the User Guide.
Still can't find what you're looking for? Feel free to contact us, and we'll get back to you soon.