How to Automatically Organize Photos by Category with AI
A folder with 2,000 unsorted photos is the digital equivalent of a junk drawer. This guide shows how to let AI read what is in each image and sort the whole pile into categories like landscapes, portraits, food, and screenshots, then download it as a tidy, folder-structured ZIP, without dragging a single file by hand.
Table of Contents
Why category beats date and filename
Every photo app sorts by date, and that is fine for a timeline, but useless when you are hunting. Date tells you when a photo was taken, not what it shows. Filenames are worse, because a beach sunset and a screenshot of a receipt are both called something like IMG_4821.jpg. So when you want to grab every food photo for a recipe blog, or pull every screenshot out of your camera roll, you end up scrolling through thousands of thumbnails by hand.
Sorting by category fixes this. AI looks at the actual content of each image and groups them by subject, so you get a screenshots folder, a portraits folder, a landscapes folder, and so on. Finding what you need goes from minutes of scrolling to one click.
How to sort photos by category with AI
The SammaPix Smart Sort tool does it in three steps, with no app to install.
- Add your photos at sammapix.com/tools/smartsort, as many as you like.
- Let the AI categorize them by reading what each image contains.
- Download the ZIP, already split into one folder per category.
Turn 2,000 random photos into tidy folders
AI groups them by subject and hands you a folder-structured ZIP. Free, no signup to try.
Open Smart Sort, FreeWhat the AI sorts into
The categories cover the things most people actually photograph and screenshot:
- Landscapes and scenery, including travel and nature shots.
- Portraits and people, the photos with faces.
- Food, restaurant and home cooking shots.
- Screenshots and documents, the clutter you want separated from real photos.
- Animals, events, and more, depending on what is in the set.
Because it judges the image and not the name, a screenshot saved as photo_2026.jpg still lands in screenshots.
When this saves the most time
The payoff is biggest on big, mixed piles: a camera roll export, a shared trip album, a downloads folder full of saved images, or a work folder where screenshots, receipts, and real photos are all jumbled together. Pulling the screenshots out alone can save half an hour of scrolling. Photographers also use it as a first pass before a proper cull, to split a shoot into rough buckets before the detailed edit.
What to do after sorting
Once the photos are in tidy folders, the next steps are usually quick. To remove near-identical shots, run the keepers through the duplicate finder. To pick the best frames from a burst, use the photo culling tool. And to give the survivors clear, searchable names instead of IMG_4821, try the batch rename tool. For the full routine, see our guide on organizing travel photos.
FAQ
How do I organize a folder of photos automatically?
Use the SammaPix Smart Sort tool at sammapix.com/tools/smartsort. Add your photos, and AI looks at the content of each one and groups them into categories such as landscapes, portraits, food, and screenshots. You then download the whole set as a ZIP already split into folders, so you do not drag a single file by hand.
What categories can AI sort photos into?
Common ones are landscapes, portraits and people, food, screenshots, documents, animals, and events. The AI reads what is actually in the image rather than the filename, so a beach photo lands in landscapes even if it is called IMG_4821.jpg.
Is it better than sorting by date or filename?
For finding things, yes. Date sorting tells you when a photo was taken but not what it shows. Sorting by category lets you grab every screenshot, or every food photo, in one move, which is what you usually want when cleaning up a camera roll or a downloads folder.
Do I have to install anything?
No. Smart Sort runs in your browser at sammapix.com, with no app to install and no signup needed to try it. You add photos, let the AI categorize them, and download the organized ZIP.
Can it handle screenshots mixed in with real photos?
Yes, and that is one of its most useful jobs. Screenshots are a distinct category, so the tool pulls them out of a camera roll full of real photos automatically, which is tedious to do by hand.
