Name the places in your photos

1. Run Organize first

Locations appear automatically as you organize: SnapAtlas™ reads the GPS in each photo, groups photos taken close together, looks the place up, and saves it in your location library. The Locations tab stays empty until then — and photos without GPS simply don't create locations (most phone photos have it; some cameras don't).

2. Review the Locations tab

Each place shows its name, coordinates, and how many folders and photos are linked to it. Every place is learned once and kept forever — it's never looked up again.

3. Rename places to what you call them

Click a location's name to edit it. "Vacation rental #34" becomes "The Beach House" — and every folder linked to that place updates at once.

4. Merge duplicate places

The same spot sometimes gets learned twice — "Yellowstone" and "Yellowstone National Park". Click Merge Duplicates and SnapAtlas™ combines places that sit at the same spot.

5. Add your own places

Click Add a Place on the Locations tab to define your own spot — "Grandma's house", "The cabin", "Home". You can also right-click a folder in the Files tab and choose Name this place… (or Edit location… when it already has coordinates). Custom places live in your library and never use lookup credits.

Have folders that should carry a place name but don't? Select them and click Apply Name to Selected.

6. Go deeper or bigger

• Find Named Places Inside — discover the smaller spots inside a region (trailheads and visitor centers inside "Yellowstone") so they can name their own folders.
• Group into Trips — gather photos from one outing under a named trip folder, like 2025-07 Yellowstone trip.

7. Fill the gaps with lookups

Places your library doesn't know are resolved with lookups — always trying the fewest credits first. In Settings → Organizing, Prefer landmarks favors names like "Old Faithful" over "Teton County" when both exist. In Settings → Location, Small groups names 1–2-photo groups by street address only, saving the deeper lookup.

How lookups & credits work has the full picture. Top-ups are at the credits page.

8. Back up or move your library

Export saves your location names to a file — for safekeeping or to share between computers. Import loads them back, so a second machine doesn't have to learn your places twice.