How you can use Eagle to organize images on your computer

This article is republished with permission from Wonder Tools, a newsletter that helps you discover the most useful sites and apps. Subscribe here.

Until recently, I relied on a series of Dropbox folders and subfolders. Locating images for docs or presentations meant hunting through folders. As I accumulated collections of icons, graphics, illustrations, screenshots, cartoons, and various other images, the folder structure was swamped.

I stumbled upon Eagle recently and it’s been helpful for organizing my images and other files. I still use Apple Photos and Google Photos to store and back up my family photos. But for all other images—screenshots, illustrations, icons—I use Eagle.

Here’s Why You’ll Find Eagle Useful

Grab and save images from the web. Use Eagle to collect images online to spice up your documents and presentations. The browser plug-ins work with Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Edge. Once installed, you just right-click on any image on the web to add it to your library. Better yet: Click on multiple images to save a bunch at a time. Or save an entire site automatically. Eagle will scroll and capture the full site as an image.

Take screenshots. Rather than using a separate tool, you can use Eagle to grab a whole page or any part of a page you select and add it directly to your library. I’ve used CloudApp for screenshots in the past, but it’s clunky for finding and organizing past screenshots. Planning a new project? Use Eagle to create an inspiration collection of other cool projects online, or a mood board with images/designs/graphics that inspire you.

Find images quickly. I often find myself searching my computer for particular kinds of images. For certain slides, I may need a vertical image. Or a certain GIF. Or I’m looking for something I know I downloaded last week. Now I filter images within Eagle for those and other search parameters. You can even sort for images of a certain color. Get an instant view of the results and drag them to other apps or export in whatever format or size you need. That saves time when you’re drafting new documents or slides.

Avoid wasting time manually filing images. Eagle maintains automatic Smart Albums. You don’t have to manually move images in or out. Images that fit whatever description you set are auto-pulled into the appropriate Smart Album. I have ones for GIFs, screenshots, vertical images, and new images. Eagle also has an auto-import function. That means it can watch certain folders on your computer, and when you add something to that folder, it gets added to Eagle. The advantage of Smart Albums and auto-imports? You save the time you would have spent moving files around.

Organize other files too, like PDFs, docs, and anything else. Eagle works with 90 file types. I’ve started using it to organize nonimage files too, particularly PDFs. I’m also planning to use it for presentations and audio files.

Because it has great tagging, filtering, annotations, and previews, it’s a handy way to keep all sorts of files organized.

• You can even add and organize fonts within Eagle.
• You can use it for video files, including for time-specific notes and annotations, so you remember which part of the video to use later on.
• Save YouTube or Vimeo videos.
• Save bookmarks to organize sites with.

Price, $30. You can try it for a month before deciding to pay to keep it. Pay once. No subscription. Now that I have dozens of subscriptions, I appreciate being able to pay a modest fee for a lifetime license; there’s a 30% discount for educators or students.

Works for Windows and Mac. Requires macOS 10.13+ or Windows 7+ 64bit.

It took me 10 minutes to get started. It’s easy to set up. You can import whichever folders you want, or drag and drop things in. Eagle preserves your folder structure and makes it easy to batch-tag a bunch of things. Try it for a while before moving over lots of images. Version 2.0 just came out. See new and future features on this road map.

Limitations

• The screenshot tool doesn’t make screen recordings or GIFs. It can store videos and GIFs, but it can’t capture them the way CloudApp does.
• No link to your images or files to share with others. Because files in Eagle are stored locally on your computer, not in the cloud, you can’t share a link to a file from Eagle the way you can with CloudApp or Dropbox. If you store your Eagle library within Dropbox you can share links, but that requires a few extra steps.
• No mobile or browser version. This is software for your computer, not for Chromebooks or mobile devices.
• Limited help. FAQs help to get started, but there’s not much advanced help. Fortunately, it’s easy to use, and there’s a good series of seven short help videos.

5 more things to help you with images

• Squoosh: Compress images to tiny file sizes for email, docs, sites, or newsletters.
• Remove.bg: Remove the background of any image automatically for free.
• Unscreen: Works like Remove.bg for removing video backgrounds free.
• ezGIF: Turn images or videos into GIFs. Despite its terrible site design, it works well. Helpful feature: Compress GIFs into smaller file sizes. Giphy is a good alternative.
• Deep Nostalgia: Animate an old photo. Odd, fascinating results like this.

This article is republished with permission from Wonder Tools, a newsletter that helps you discover the most useful sites and apps. Subscribe here.

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