Folio

About

Folio is a fast, private, offline-first photo and video gallery and metadata explorer, on Android and now iPhone and iPad. Your media stays on your device: no ads, no accounts, no analytics, no telemetry, and no crash reporting.

Browse albums, tags, ratings, favorites, and reverse-geocoded places; dig into deep EXIF / IPTC / XMP metadata; see your geotagged photos on an OpenStreetMap map; open the nested, hidden, and non-indexed files a stock gallery hides in a real filesystem Explorer; and view RAW, motion photos, 360° panoramas, multi-page TIFF / HEIC, and Ultra HDR, all free. A capable libmpv-based player handles video with speed control, subtitles, track selection, and frame capture.

Folio is free; a single one-time $3.99 Pro unlock (no subscription) adds advanced folder access, camera RAW develop, a full photo editor, bulk operations, and encrypted on-device vaults. It builds on the BSD-3-licensed Aves Gallery codebase. Folio is on Google Play now and is coming to the App Store for iPhone and iPad (iOS and iPadOS 15 or later). The Pro unlock is a one-time purchase on whichever store you buy it from; because each store handles its own purchases, an unlock bought on Google Play does not carry over to the App Store, or the reverse.

What it does

• Photo and video gallery: albums, tags, ratings, favorites, and reverse-geocoded places
• Deep EXIF / IPTC / XMP metadata viewer with histogram and text export
• OpenStreetMap map of geotagged photos, plus GeoTIFF overlays (no Google Maps key)
• A real filesystem Explorer opens nested, hidden, and non-indexed files
• RAW viewing, motion photos, 360° panoramas, multi-page TIFF / HEIC, and Ultra HDR, all free
• Capable libmpv video player: speed, subtitles, track selection, frame capture, A-B loop
• Tags survive a reinstall: written into the file (embedded XMP or sidecar) on Android, kept in an on-device overlay on iPhone and iPad
• Localized in 20 languages; no ads, no accounts, no analytics or telemetry

What you get free, and what the $3.99 unlock adds

Accuracy and limitations

Ultra HDR shows true HDR only on Android 14 and newer with an HDR-capable screen; on other devices it falls back to standard range. DLNA casting streams the file to your TV without transcoding, so a clip in a codec your TV does not support may not play there. Place names for geotagged photos come from your device's built-in geocoder (Google-backed on most Android phones; Apple's geocoder on iPhone and iPad), not from Folio. AVIF images decode only where the OS provides an AVIF codec (roughly Android 12 and newer; iOS does not currently provide one, so AVIF is Android-only for now). Tag and rating storage differs by platform: on Android, Folio writes them into the file itself (embedded XMP, or a sidecar file for formats that do not support embedding), so they travel with the file and survive a reinstall. On iPhone and iPad, Apple's Photos framework does not let any app rewrite an original in place, so Folio instead keeps tags, ratings, and edits in its own on-device overlay (mirrored into the app's Documents folder so it is included in your device backup) and applies them whenever you convert, export, or share a copy; the original asset in your Photos library is never modified. The optional "installed app access" toggle in Settings → Privacy (off by default) only lets Folio check whether a small number of specific companion apps, such as its sibling app Scrub, are installed, to improve album icons and hand-offs; it is not a general inventory of everything on your device, and it is Android only. iOS provides no equivalent API, so the toggle has no effect there.

Privacy at a glance

• No personal data is collected by Folio.
• All app data is stored on your device.
• No analytics, no telemetry, no crash reporting.
• No account is required to use the app.

Read the full Folio privacy policy or learn about account and data deletion.

Permissions Folio requests

Photos and videos (user-selected) · Android only

To display the photos and videos you grant access to.

Photo library · Apple only

Folio shows and organizes the photos and videos in your library, and writes edits, converted copies, and restored items back to it. Nothing is uploaded.

Media location · Android only

To read the geolocation tag stored inside a photo file (for the map view). Location is read from the file only and never collected by Folio. On iPhone and iPad, this is covered by the Photo Library permission above; no separate permission is requested.

Set wallpaper · Android only

To set a photo as your device wallpaper from within Folio.

Post notifications · Android only

To show progress of long-running operations such as batch export.

Wake lock · Android only

To keep the screen on during the slideshow and screen-saver modes.

Internet · Android only

Used on demand for three things: downloading OpenStreetMap map tiles when you open the map, resolving place names for geotagged photos through the platform geocoder, and verifying or restoring your Pro purchase (Google Play Billing and RevenueCat). On iPhone and iPad, network access needs no permission but is used the same way. Your photos and videos never leave the device through Folio.