DKPhotoSorter vs PhotoMove – Sort by Location, Not Just Date

Quick verdict

Choose PhotoMove if you want fast, dead-simple date sorting and you would rather not pay anything to start. PhotoMove reads each file's EXIF "date taken" and drops it into a Year / Month / Date folder tree — nothing to configure, no API keys, no per-photo cost. Its free version handles the core job well, and the paid Pro version (around $9, Windows only) adds extra folder formats and filtering options.

Choose DKPhotoSorter if a wall of date folders doesn't actually help you find anything, and what you really want is "show me the photos from Rome" or "everything from the Grand Canyon." DKPhotoSorter physically moves (or copies) each image into a State or Country / City / Venue / Subject / Date tree, reading GPS from EXIF and falling back to AI vision when a photo has no coordinates. It's a one-time $19.99 for Windows.

Side-by-side comparison

Both tools reorganize real files on disk on Windows — they are not just taggers or viewers. Here is how they differ where it counts:

Feature	PhotoMove	DKPhotoSorter
Primary sorting dimension	EXIF date (Year / Month / Date, optional Camera Model)	Location — State or Country / City / Venue / Subject / Date
Reads GPS from EXIF	No	Yes — reverse-geocoded offline against a bundled 400,000+ place database
No-GPS photos	Filed by date only	AI vision recognizes landmarks, signs and venues in the image
Native HEIC / HEIF	Not listed	Yes, no conversion (13 formats total)
Camera-RAW (CR2, NEF, ARW)	Yes	No
Reorganizes files on disk	Yes (move or copy)	Yes (move or copy)
Folder depth	Date-based, a few levels	Up to 5 levels (place → venue → subject → date)
Duplicate detection	Yes (duplicate handling options in Pro)	Yes — exact duplicates via SHA-256
Undo	Not a documented feature	Yes — one-click Undo, plus Dry Run preview
Platform	Windows only	Windows
Price	Free version; Pro around $9 (one-time)	$19.99 one-time
AI / API key	None needed	Bring your own Gemini or OpenAI key; est. ~$0.11 per 100 photos on Gemini Flash (varies), and Gemini has a free tier

Where PhotoMove genuinely wins

PhotoMove has earned its reputation, and there are real reasons to prefer it:

• It's free to start. The free version does the core date-sorting job with no time limit, which is hard to beat if that's all you need.
• It's simple and fast. Point it at a folder, pick a date pattern, and go. There's no key to configure, no model to choose, and no per-photo cost to think about.
• Date sorting is exact and offline. EXIF "date taken" is precise, deterministic, and requires no interpretation — there's no AI guessing involved, so results are perfectly repeatable.
• No API key, no usage cost, ever. Because it never calls a cloud service, PhotoMove has zero ongoing cost and nothing leaves your PC.
• It sorts videos by date too, right alongside your photos, using the same date logic.

If your mental model of your library is chronological — "the summer 2019 folder" — PhotoMove may be the more direct fit, and you can try it for nothing.

Where DKPhotoSorter wins

DKPhotoSorter is built for the question dates can't answer: where. That focus shows up in features PhotoMove doesn't offer:

• True location sorting. It reads GPS from EXIF and reverse-geocodes it offline against a bundled 400,000+ place GeoNames database, so photos land in real City and Venue folders — no internet round-trip needed for the place name. See how location sorting works.
• AI for photos with no GPS. Scans, screenshots and older-camera shots often have no coordinates. DKPhotoSorter uses AI vision to recognize landmarks, signage and venues in the image itself, so those photos still get placed. More on that in organizing photos with no GPS.
• Native HEIC / HEIF. iPhone photos are handled directly, no conversion — along with JPG, PNG, WebP, AVIF, TIFF and more, 13 formats in all. See organizing iPhone photos on Windows.
• Trip detection. Photos more than 80 km from your Home Address get a State/City (US) or Country/City (international) prefix, so vacations separate themselves automatically. Handy for travel and vacation photos.
• One tool for GPS and non-GPS. You don't switch strategies per photo — GPS is used when present, AI fills the gaps, and everything ends up in one consistent tree.
• Safety features. A Dry Run preview, exact-duplicate detection via SHA-256, and one-click Undo (Move mode returns files to their original spots; Copy mode deletes only the copies it made) make it low-risk to try on a big library.

A note on privacy

PhotoMove runs entirely offline and calls no cloud service, which is a genuine privacy advantage. DKPhotoSorter also runs locally with no developer servers, accounts, analytics or telemetry — your original full-resolution photos never leave your PC. Because it uses AI, it does send a small resized JPEG thumbnail plus limited metadata (filename, EXIF date, GPS coordinates and the resolved place name) to the AI provider you choose, on your own key. GPS coordinates are also sent to OpenStreetMap Overpass for venue verification. If sending nothing at all to any third party is a hard requirement, PhotoMove's fully-offline model is the safer pick.

Who should pick which

• Pick PhotoMove if you want a free, simple, offline tool and you're happy with folders organized by date; or if you specifically want to avoid any AI, API keys or cloud calls.
• Pick DKPhotoSorter if you want to find photos by place — city, venue, landmark — if you shoot HEIC on an iPhone, if many of your photos lack GPS, or if you want one tool that handles GPS and non-GPS shots together with Undo and duplicate detection.

Plenty of people use both mindsets. If your library is a chaotic mix of trips, events and everyday photos and you've never been able to find anything by date alone, location sorting is worth the $19.99. Still deciding? The FAQ covers formats, cost and privacy in detail, and the guide to organizing thousands of photos walks through a full first sort.