Answers for the way Shuttergrove works.

No. Photo analysis runs on your Mac using models bundled in the app. Photos and photo paths are not uploaded to a cloud service.

The app installs the native Shuttergrove menu-bar companion and its bundled Lightroom Classic plugin. The plugin is deployed to ~/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Lightroom/Modules/Shuttergrove.lrplugin and is version-checked against the app.

The plugin finds catalog photos and new imports. It sends photo references through a small versioned file queue under ~/Library/Application Support/Shuttergrove/. The app queues work, runs the local photo-type model and optional MobileCLIP content classifier, then returns labels and scores. The plugin writes the accepted keywords and manages Lightroom smart collections. There is no permanent local server or second photo database.

The photo-type model recognizes 39 canonical types, including Landscape, Seascape, Cityscape, Portrait, Street, Architecture, Wildlife, Product, and Macro. Optional content analysis can identify visible subjects and features such as mountains, rivers, bridges, buildings, cars, people, and oceans.

Only results at or above the configured confidence threshold are written. Content keywords also require the configured image-coverage threshold. You can set the content keyword limit to 0 to turn content analysis off.

No. Reanalysis removes and rewrites only Shuttergrove-generated Type: and Content: keywords. Manually created Lightroom keywords are preserved.

Shuttergrove creates a localized type smart collection only after at least one photo has an accepted keyword for that type. It removes the collection again when no managed photo has that keyword. Content keywords do not create smart collections in the current release.

If Lightroom Classic is already running when the plugin is updated, the installed files can be repaired but the currently loaded plugin remains active. Use Plug-in Manager's Reload Plug-in command. Shuttergrove waits for the reload and checks the installed version and live plugin status again.

The plugin records the item as unscannable, applies the localized Type: None marker, and advances progress instead of retrying the same path indefinitely. Virtual copies are excluded from totals and are not modified.

Yes. Settings provides one system-wide keyboard shortcut. Shuttergrove checks that Lightroom Classic and the current plugin are ready, then asks the plugin to open the localized Shuttergrove Content dialog.

English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish. The app resolves the macOS language and falls back to English when needed. There is no language switch in Settings to avoid conflicts with already stored Lightroom keywords.

Email support@jerome.photo.