No. There is no account, no sign-up, no iCloud and no subscription. Your Mac serves your photos and music over your home Wi-Fi, and your iPhone or iPad finds them automatically.
A Mac running macOS 26 or later, and an iPhone or iPad running iOS 26 or iPadOS 26 or later. Raza Photos and Raza Songs are built on APIs that Apple only made available in those versions, so they can't run on older ones. That's recent, and we know it rules out some devices; we'd rather tell you here than at the App Store. To check your version: on a Mac, choose Apple menu → About This Mac; on an iPhone or iPad, open Settings → General → About.
No. They index the metadata and leave every file exactly where it is. The apps never send your library to any server, ours or anyone else's, and they have no telemetry. In Raza Photos, the map view and place-name lookups go through Apple Maps. How to check this yourself →
Yes. Connections between your devices are always encrypted with TLS 1.3, so anyone watching the network can see that your devices are talking but not what they say. It is not a password, though: anyone on your main Wi-Fi who installs the app can still browse the library. The security model →
Yes. On a Mac, Raza Photos and Raza Songs can import a folder from a cloud storage app such as OneDrive or Dropbox, like any other folder. Your iPhone and iPad then stream that library from the Mac. The iPhone's own Music app can't play files from folders at all, so this is also a way to play music that lives in cloud storage. The OneDrive guide →
Your Mac is the server, so the library is available only while the app is running on the Mac. When the Mac is off there is nothing to connect to, and the library reappears as soon as it is back on your home network. Closing the app's window doesn't stop sharing: the app keeps running in the menu bar.
Optionally. Remote access is an extension of your home network built on Tailscale. It is off by default, encrypted end to end, invite-only, and only reachable by devices already on your Tailscale network. Tailscale is separate software with its own setup. How remote access works →
Yes. Every Mac running the app is discovered automatically, and their libraries appear on your iPhone or iPad as one merged, deduplicated library.
Yes. You can make the Mac server read-only, block remote edits while still allowing browsing, or set a single iPhone or iPad to read-only. There are no accounts or passwords, just a toggle. The security model →
Yes. Your files stay in your own folders. Raza Photos stores albums, places and people in open standards like EXIF, IPTC and XMP, which tools such as Lightroom read, and Raza Songs writes changes into each file's own tags, so any other player can read them.
No. Raza Photos and Raza Songs are closed-source apps for Mac, iPhone and iPad. They are free today, and if that ever changes it will be a one-time purchase, never a subscription. You don't have to take their privacy claims on trust: they have no servers of their own to send anything to, and you can confirm that with a network monitor such as Little Snitch. Your files stay in open formats, so you are never locked in.
No. Your Mac is the server, so they run on a Mac, and your iPhone and iPad browse them. They are built for households that don't want to run a Linux box, containers or a server of their own. If you would rather run your own stack, an open-source project built for that is a better fit.
Only the metadata. Dates, locations, titles, people and albums are written back to the original files as XMP and EXIF. Image pixels are never decoded or re-encoded. How saving works →
JPEG, HEIC, PNG, TIFF, PSD and AVIF, plus the video formats Apple's frameworks support, with HDR gain maps and Live Photos. Supported formats →
Yes. Select up to 50 photos and send them with the standard share sheet on iPhone, iPad, or Mac, to WhatsApp, Messages, Mail, or any app that appears there. It sends the original file, so any location stored in the photo goes with it. This is separate from library sharing, which makes your library available to your own devices at home.
MP3, MP4, M4A and M4B, including audiobooks with chapters. FLAC, WAV and OGG are not supported. Supported formats →
No. Raza Songs plays the library on your Mac, and on any other Mac running it. The iPhone and iPad apps have no way to browse or import files stored on the device, so music that lives only on the phone, or inside a cloud app's folder on the phone, won't appear. Put that music in a folder on your Mac and it will. More on getting your own music onto an iPhone →
Yes. You can change a title, artist, album or genre from your phone, in batches across a whole selection. Changes are written back to the original file's own tags, and the audio data is never touched.
Shuffle and repeat, gapless transitions, AirPlay, playback that survives a phone call, and full lock screen and CarPlay controls.
Yes. Rip them to a supported format, tag them, and point Raza Songs at the folder. Our guide covers the tools, the format to pick, and how to tag the results →
Not here?
Troubleshooting questions, such as a library that won't appear, are on the support page. For anything else, email the developer and you'll hear back from a person, not a queue.