04-sidebar
The sidebar
The sidebar is the heart of Iris. It's how you slice your library by date, person, place, chapter, or source — and every selection updates the content area on the right.
The sidebar is organized into collapsible sections, top to bottom. You can collapse a section by clicking its header.
Library
The top section is your entire collection, sliced by media type and favorite status:
| Node | Contents |
|---|---|
| All Items | Every photo and video in your library |
| All Images | Photos only |
| All Videos | Videos only |
| All Screenshots | Auto‑detected screenshots |
| Favorites | Items you've marked with a heart (⌘.) |
Screenshots are detected by Iris from filename and EXIF cues; they include screen captures from any Apple device or a screen‑capture tool that writes recognizable metadata.
Dates
A drill‑down by decade → year → month → day. Use it when you know exactly when something happened, or when you want to scrub through a long time range.
Decade grouping can be turned off in Settings → General if you'd rather skip straight to years.
Two special nodes
| Node | Contents |
|---|---|
| No Date | Items whose files contain no capture date metadata at all |
| Approximate Dates | Items where you've manually entered an estimated date (useful for scanned photos) |
See Item actions for how to set an approximate date on a photo.
People
Each person you've named in Iris is a node here. Click a name to see every photo and video they appear in.
Expand a person's node to drill deeper:
| Sub‑node | Contents |
|---|---|
| By Age | Items grouped by the person's approximate age at the time of capture (requires a birthdate on the person) |
| Birthday | A special collection of photos taken on this person's birthday across all years |
There's also a No People node that collects items where Iris detected zero faces.
Right‑click a person to Edit or Delete. See People and face recognition for the full story.
Places
Every named location in your library appears here. Click a place to see all items captured within its radius.
At the top of the section is a Locations Map node that opens a full‑map view of every named location at once — useful for sanity‑checking that your locations are placed where you think they are.
Right‑click a location to Edit Location… or Delete. See Places and the map for how to create and manage locations.
Chapters
Chapters are "time albums" you build by hand — collections of arbitrary items, grouped by a start and end date.
Choose File → New Chapter… to create one. Right‑click an existing chapter to Rename, Edit, or Delete. See Chapters for how to use them effectively.
Insights
A single Insights node opens a scrollable analytics dashboard about your entire library. See Insights.
Sources
Every source you've added — folder or Apple Photos library — appears here. Folder sources are expandable; click the disclosure triangle to drill into their subfolders. See Adding sources.
Bookmarks (saved searches)
If you save a search or a frequently‑visited sidebar node, it appears in a Bookmarks section. Bookmarks behave like any other sidebar item — click to navigate, right‑click to manage.
Navigating the sidebar
- Click any node to show its contents in the content area.
- Right‑click any node for a context menu (rename, edit, delete, pin, show in Finder, etc.).
- Press
⌘Kto open the Jump dialog and type the name of any sidebar node to navigate directly. See Navigation and Jump.