For photographers

Thousands of photos to sort?
Let AI do it.

Hand your photo folder to an AI and it will split the shots into one folder per race number, set aside the blurry ones, pick the best, and save it all on your Mac. The AI handles the tricky setup and commands. You just answer a few questions.

3,000 photosYour shotsNumbers and sessions all mixed up
→
AILooks at each one and sorts itReads the race number, checks focus, picks the good ones
→
By numberSaved in folders025_TeamName / best · others · to check

Originals stay untouched (nothing moved or deleted)
You answer just 3 questions
Runs on a Mac

Try it ↓No need to understand the details. Follow these steps and the AI will guide you from there.

Try it — 3 steps

Get an AI agent

Install “Claude Code” or “Codex” on your Mac (both come with a monthly plan). Unlike an ordinary AI chat, these can work with the files on your Mac.

Send this one sentence

Copy the text below, replace <photo folder> with your own folder, and send it to the AI.

Answer when asked

The AI asks only 3 things, such as “Do you have an entry list?”. Then you just wait.

Read https://etoile25.com/trackside/en/guide/agent/ and follow it to sort the photos in <photo folder>. Please talk to me in English.

The AI reads the playbook at that URL and guides you one step at a time, from setting up the tools to sorting. If anything is unclear, just ask the AI.

What you get

<photo folder>_sorted/
  01_Qualifying/
    025_TeamName/
      1_best/            3-6 shots that represent the bike
      2_others/
      3_check_blur-shake-cropped/
      video/
    number_unreadable/
  02_Race/ …
  README_sorted.txt      summary

Your original photos are only read, never moved or changed. The sorted folders hold copies (on the same disk they take almost no extra space). Session names such as “Qualifying” are the ones you choose.

Who does what

Step	Who
Reads the capture times and proposes sessions (practice, qualifying, race…)	Tools (on your Mac)
Decides the session names and how to split them	You
Looks at each downsized photo and reads the race number (up to 20 in parallel)	AI agent
Builds a livery reference from the readable shots and re-checks the unreadable ones	Tools + AI agent
Reviews the result and decides whether to go on	You
Checks focus, shake and cropping, picks the best and writes the folders	Tools (on your Mac)

How is this different from ChatGPT?

ChatGPT is someone to talk to: you ask, it answers. What we use here is an AI that does the work, hands-on, inside your Mac. This is called an AI agent.

ChatGPT and similar

An AI to talk to

Paste a photo and it tells you “this is number 25”
Only a handful of photos per message. 3,000 photos means pasting 100+ times
It can't open folders on your Mac. Sorting and saving is still your manual work
In long conversations it forgets what came earlier

AI agent (Claude Code · Codex)

An AI that does the work

Opens the photos in your Mac folder and looks at them one by one
Creates a folder per number and saves copies of the photos there
Sees an hour-long job through to the end, keeping notes as it goes
Splits the work into many helpers running at the same time

Think of ChatGPT as a knowledgeable friend you can phone. An AI agent is an assistant who comes over and actually does the tidying.

Why install software?
To touch the photos on your Mac, the AI needs software running on your Mac. That is Claude Code (by Anthropic) or Codex (by OpenAI, the makers of ChatGPT). Installing takes a few minutes following the official page. We recommend Claude Code, which this workflow has been tested with.

Already paying for ChatGPT?
Codex is included in paid ChatGPT plans, so there is no extra cost (this workflow has not been tested with Codex yet, so start with a small batch).

Cost and time

How much?

From about $20 a month

It runs within an AI monthly plan ($20). Unless you have set up extra usage billing, you will never pay more than the monthly fee.
If you want thousands of photos done on the same day, a $100 plan is more comfortable. You can upgrade just for race months and switch back afterwards.

How long?

About 20–30 min per 1,000 photos

Sorting by hand takes hours. You can do something else while it runs. The first time only, setting up the tools takes about 10 minutes.

On the $20 plan?

A break every few hundred to 1,000 photos

Each plan has a usage cap. When you hit it, work pauses for a few hours until it resets. It picks up where it left off.

On mobile data at the circuit?

Only downsized photos are sent

About 200–300 MB per 1,000 photos. Your full-size originals (tens of GB) are never uploaded.

Full price table (as of 2026-11-02; prices in US dollars, local prices and taxes may differ)

	Claude (Claude Code)	ChatGPT (Codex)
Starter	Pro $20/month ($17/month billed yearly)	Plus $20/month (Free and Go include Codex too, but likely not enough for thousands of photos)
Heavy use	Max $100/month (5× Pro) / Ultra $200/month (10× Pro per week; no 5-hour limit for verified accounts only)	Pro $100 / $200 / $500/month
Limits	Every 5 hours + weekly	Every 5 hours + weekly, depending on the plan
Official	https://claude.com/pricing	https://learn.chatgpt.com/docs/pricing

Prices and limits can change, so please check the official pages. Times and volumes are Team Étoile's estimates and vary with your photos and connection.

What you need

A Mac. The tools are Mac-only for now (they use macOS features to extract video frames and judge focus). Windows is not supported yet
Tested on an Apple silicon Mac (macOS 26). Sorting blurry/best shots needs macOS 15 or later. Intel Macs and older macOS are untested
Claude Code or Codex, with its monthly plan
Photos as JPEG (if you shot RAW only, export JPEGs first). Videos as MP4 / MOV
Blurry/best sorting needs an extra component (about 1.5 GB). Without it you get sorting by number only

Safety and privacy

Originals are only read. If the output folder already contains your own files, the tool stops instead of overwriting them
Only downsized photos and table text are sent to the AI service. Originals are never sent
Photos show other riders and spectators. Whether to share or publish the sorted photos is the photographer's call
The tools come with no warranty. Please keep a backup of important photos

For the AI: playbook and tools

Playbook for the AI agent	The agent reads this and works from it (plain-text version)
Toolkit photo-rail-kit.zip	65 KB · SHA-256 `956a2b95249afa8c…` (full). The agent does the setup

Last updated 2026-11-02. Made by Team Étoile. A tool for building sorted folders on your own Mac, separate from the Trackside photo sharing site.

Thousands of photos to sort?Let AI do it.