Shoebox for Mac

User Reviews

• Allot of promise in the front end - poor back end

  ktjmitchellJune 26, 2010

  Pros

  Integrates well with Mac; allows to set-up photos in a distinct database

  Cons

  no support after repeated requests; error messages at times that were not in help

  Summary

  Purchased the Pro version for approx 15000 photo library; Loaded most, but ran into errors that could not be rectified; Better option MyPhoto - simpler, cheaper, and great support

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• Pre-release software... your data is not safe with...

  mortimer.paMarch 7, 2008

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  Summary

  ...it<br />This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.<br />apart from stability problem (the app would crash randomly and loose the data you had entered during the session), the missing -- but advertised -- backup feature and the UI bug... this application just breaks down when you try recovering from a backup. I just updated to leopard, after backing up all the system, my photos and taking care of saving Shoebox database and preferences. After a reinstall, shoebox is unable to reuse the saved database... it just lost the tag data and backup info of 30'701 photos I had catalogued in it. I already emailed their support 3 times in 4 months with no replies. This is not worth 30$, not 70$, I won't even recommend it as a free software... even if I was quite positive about it when I first tried it...

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• Clunky

  iGregMarch 8, 2007

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  Summary

  This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.<br />iPhotos is much easier to use. Yes, this is somewhat faster than iPhoto, but that is it. iPhoto has more user-friendly features and fairly intuitive.

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• Shoebox - No Thanks

  mtoswaltJanuary 2, 2007

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  Summary

  This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.<br />I have about 33,000 photos and I had problems with iPhoto importing all the photos on my new Mac Mini Duo Core. Shoebox has many postitive reviews and I purchased a copy of Shoebox Express ($29.99) to see if it might help organize the photos. The first problem I had was getting a license number. I think I initially installed a trial version. When I went to upgrade the trial version, I paid for the program and then received an email stating that I needed to send my computer number to get a license number. I send the computer number right away and waited for a reply. This was on either a Sunday when I have time to work with the photos. I waited for a reply. I sent another email requesting a reply because I wanted to work on it that day. I waited about 2 hours and did not receive a license number. I decided I might not received a reply until Monday so, I tried buying a copy a different way. I figured it would be a simple matter to get a refund for the unused license. This time the purchase prompted me for the computer number when I purchased the Shoebox Express. I paid another $29.99 and received a license number. The Shoebox Express software is only used for up to 10,000 photos. When I started using the program it kept bombing out, sometimes I would get the dialogue box to send the error to Apple and sometimes it would just quit and I would have to relaunch it. I contacted Kavasoft for support but, I did not receive any reply. After working with it for about 4 hours, I decided the problem was I had too many photos. support I might have been wrong about that being the problem but, I was anxious to find a solution for organizing my photos on the Mac Mini. I went ahead and purchase the Shoebox Pro program. I shelled out another $40 and received a license number for Shoebox Pro. I started working with it and continued to get the error messages. The next Tuesday I requested a refund of the version that I did not receive a license number for. I never did hear from Kavasoft about the original note I sent on Sunday. The following Saturday, I still hadn't heard from Kavasoft and I was continuing to have problems. Without hearing anything from customer support in almost a week, spent $99.98, and not getting any kind of email reply, I filed a dispute with PayPal for the version that I did not get a license number for and for the other versions I did get a license for as I was dissatisfied with program not working right and not hearing from customer support for a week. Once I posted the disputes I got a reply from Kavasoft. They refunded the license for the version that I never received a key for and suggested that "If Shoebox crashes, please click the "Report" button to generate a crash report. Then email us the information that is displayed, along with any information on what you were doing when the program crashed." I agreed to continue to try to use it and send the error messages to Kavasoft for a week. I sent a few error messages to Kavasoft but, on the following Saturday I was downloading 30 new pictures I had taken and the download was very, very slow. Eventually, I needed to force quite and reboot the Mac Mini. I posted another request to refund the license fee as I was not happy with the software. I was informed "we are unable to offer a satisfaction guarantee for our software." I have not received any messages back from the error messages I have submitted suggesting any changes that could be made to prevent the errors. While there do seem to be customers that are satisfied with the product and software I have found a site that has a number of less favorable reviews. At Mac Update there are 14 reviews (including mine). Here is a sample of some of the user comments: " Interesting start, but needs lots of work. It's very slow. The interface is a mess, and drawers should never be used." " I have to agree with the last anonymous poster, the interface is a mess. Coming as it has after iPhoto 5, I wonder how many people will use this app, as most of my daily use keywords are already in iPhoto which is much faster and has editing capabilities not to mention is free." " When you get real and drop your price to $29.99 for Pro version, I promise to buy it - for $79 this is ridiculous" "Software is supposed to make _my_ life easier." "Caveat Emptor! Do not expect to get much of a response from Andrew Zamler-carhart, the developer, if you encounter the usual crashes with this product. The trial is limited enough that you won't be able to use the demo on a large enough number of photos to experience the bugs. This application has a nice user interface and is very promising. Unfortunately, until it reaches a maturity level with commercial level support and return policies for defective software, the Kavasoft products will be hard to judge before plunking down hard cash. I would give the Kavasoft products a higher rating for stability, except for the crashes" "As the number of my pics grew, iphoto was slower and more complicated to handle. When I found shoebox, I loved the idea, and quickly bouth the express version. Eager to start, I imported my current iphoto, created 2 atalogs (so I imported twice - that's important!), as I wanted to separate the pics "work" from "family". So I deleted some "work" pics in "family" catalog - to organize them better. Guess what? Those pics were PERMANENTLY ERASED from BOTH catalogs AND FROM IPHOTO! In case I'm missing something... Emailed the developer - no response. Anyone w/ advice? some pics were backed up, but the recent good once - not yet... I never would've thought that importing would mean not copying. Sorry for "creaming" but I'm devastated... " For what this software does, a premium price is being paid. There is no reason to have unresponsive customer support, a program that shuts down with no explaination, and to not be happy with the value it provides. Josh or others reading this may become Shoebox evangelists but, this clearly didn't work for me. I have learned that PayPal will only deal with claims dealing with physical goods. Next time I will use a Visa card rather than PayPal for paying for software to leave an opportunity to better resolve issues with the purchase not being satisfactory. Kavasoft only offers payment by PayPal and Kagi. I was not familar with Kagi.

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• Greatly Disappointed in Performance, Features,...

  philiplockwood2November 28, 2006

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  Summary

  ...Support<br />This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.<br />I stupidly paid the $29.99 for the Express Version and was left with a program that does very little, and none of that well. Thumbnails are too small and can't be resized, navigation isn't intuitive, scrolling is choppy and slow. It does something I never thought would happen, it makes me MISS iPhoto. Biggest probs (I see now in hindsight) are the limitations. The demo is too restricted to allow you to give it a full test drive, which should have warned me off of Kavasoft in the first place. But then the Express version, which costs nearly $30, STILL has a couple of ridiculously stringent restrictions, like for instance never being able to see more than 1000 photos. In other words, the Express version rather than helping you with organization actually FORCES you to subdivide your photos arbitrarily into more and more categories just to keep every category view under 1000 images. I paid for this privilege? When I imported my 5,000 image iPhoto library, it froze on me the first time and didn't save the import. I imported a second time and left it running for over 7 hours and it still didn't create thumbnails for over half the images, leaving me with the task of creating new thumbnails every time I try to look through my collection. Very thin, shallow online support, and a full day passed after I paid for the software and I STILL never received my activation code, and my email queries went unanswered. I was finally able to find an activation code look-up form on their website.

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• Lacking Support

  virtual3_macOctober 10, 2006

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  Summary

  This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.<br /><p>I recently purchased this app. However, due to the limit on images in the demo, some problems weren't apparent until I forked over my money.</p> <p>This app is OK, but the developers don't reply to email and there is no forum.</p> <p>I am asking for a refund.</p> <b>Resize images in Icon view</b> <p>As a designer I need to be able to compare images and the default size isn't ideal for this purpose. Making small images bigger, opening in a new window and full screen mode fails to meet this need.</p> <b>Erratic selection problems</b> <p>I have a list of 150 images in the view pane. Many of them have jaggy icons. I, therefore, tried to pick out the ones that needed Thumbnails rebuilding bye Apple-clicking on those in need. However, despite being very careful, the window jumps to the top or bottom. Making it impossible to work with this feature.</p> <b>Docking panes?</b> <p>There's no way to 'dock' the Info and Categories panes to the main Window.</p> <b>Missing Image Dimensions</b> <p>I am unable to view image dimensions in the Info window. According to the help this should be possible.</p>

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• Nice concept, I'm going to give it a try

  andiiAugust 17, 2006

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  Summary

  This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.<br />I've read the earlier comments, wrote the author two days ago (without response by now) and am not shure about the quality. But i'm too facinated about the concept. I'm hopefully looking forward to get the most out of this app. 2bc...

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• Save your money

  martines341July 18, 2006

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  Summary

  This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.<br />Concept is great. Does it work?.......No!! Cannot handle the number of photo's it promises to. Requested help from author and received no response. I'm sure he had no problem cashing my check. Save your money.

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• Nice idea, but totally broken

  colinhMay 31, 2006

  Pros

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  Summary

  This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.<br />I know that you, like me, probably are thinking "how can a $50-$70 product actually be broken". If you would like to explore this concept, then download this app. The app has a brilliant interface, a great idea, and I love the concept that my pics stay organized my way on disk. However, within a few clicks in the dates and category browser the photos have jumped from one category to another and the display no longer refreshes. I contacted the author at the feedback address provided, dead silence after a week or so. Consider this an interface prototype that doesn't do anything and you'd be about right.

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• hold off

  November 11, 2005

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  Summary

  This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.<br />very disapointing. i believe i wasted my money.

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