The deal, in plain words.

Last updated October 18, 2026

These terms cover the Sorta app and the sorta.photos website. By downloading, installing or buying Sorta you agree to them. If anything here is unclear, email support@sorta.photos and we will explain it.

Who we are

Sorta is made and sold by Sorta Photos LLC, based in the Houston area, Texas, United States ("we", "us"). Postal address: 18124 Deer Glen West Dr., Conroe TX, 77302. Email: support@sorta.photos.

Buying Sorta

Our order process is conducted by our online reseller Paddle.com. Paddle.com is the Merchant of Record for all our orders. Paddle provides all customer service inquiries and handles returns.

In practice that means: when you buy Sorta, the sale is between you and Paddle. Paddle charges your card, works out and collects any sales tax or VAT, sends your receipt, and processes refunds. Paddle's Buyer Terms apply to the purchase alongside these terms. Where the two disagree about the payment itself, Paddle's terms win; where they disagree about using Sorta, these terms win.

Prices are shown in US dollars before tax unless your country requires tax-inclusive prices. The price you see at checkout is the price you pay.

What you are buying

Sorta is sold as a one-time purchase, not a subscription. There are two editions:

• Sorta Basic scans drives, folders and memory cards, imports from your iPhone, builds one library by year and event, brings exact copies in once, and lets you browse by folder and date.
• Sorta Plus includes everything in Basic and adds people (face recognition), search by objects and scenes with automatic tags, the map of where your photos were taken with street-level detail you can download, the optional sensitive-photo check, and folder-name suggestions.

You can move from Basic to Plus later for the difference, $19, at sorta.photos/upgrade. Your Basic key keeps working alongside the new Plus key.

Your license

• Your purchase gives you a personal, non-exclusive license to install and use the edition you bought on up to 3 Windows PCs in one household. The license is for one person and the people who live with them; a team or a business sharing one key is not covered.
• You may use Sorta for your own photos, including photos you take for a living. If several people in a business want to use it, each needs a license.
• Your license does not expire, and it includes every update to Sorta 1, for as long as we make them, at no extra cost. Your key records the version it covers (Sorta 1 means every 1.x release). If we one day release Sorta 2 and charge for it, that will be a separate, optional purchase; Sorta 1 and your key keep working exactly as they do today.
• You may not sell, rent, share or give away your license key, remove or work around the license check, or reverse engineer Sorta except where the law gives you that right regardless of these terms.

License keys

When your payment completes, your key appears on the thank-you page and is emailed to you. It is a signed text starting with SORTA- that records your edition, your email address, your Paddle transaction number, the date, and the Sorta version it covers. You enter it once in Sorta (Settings → About → License, by pasting it or opening the saved key file). The check happens on your PC and works offline: Sorta does not send your key, your email or anything about your library to us. Once a day, while a key is entered, Sorta checks with sorta.photos whether any licenses were refunded: it downloads the short list of refunded license numbers and compares your key with it on your PC, so it sends no license id and no personal details. A refunded or charged-back key puts Sorta back into the free trial; your library is left exactly as it is. If Sorta can't reach sorta.photos, nothing changes.

Keep your key somewhere safe; it carries your email address, so treat it like a receipt. If you lose it, the recovery page finds it again from your email and the transaction or invoice number on Paddle's receipt.

The free trial

Without a key, Sorta is the free trial: everything Plus does, for your first 1,000 photos. Only those photos are organized into your library and get faces and tags; scanning and counting are never capped, so the trial still shows your phone's full total, every drive's totals and all the duplicate groups. The trial has no time limit and needs no account, email or card. When the 1,000 are organized, Sorta asks for a key to organize the rest; nothing already in your library is removed or changed.

Your photos and your responsibility

• Sorta copies your photos into a library folder you choose. It never changes, moves or deletes the originals on the drives, cards and phones it reads. It never uploads them anywhere.
• Sorta is an organizer, not a backup service. Keep your own backups of both your originals and your library. A copy on one PC is still one copy.
• You are responsible for having the right to copy the photos you point Sorta at, and for what you do with them.
• Some iPhone photos and videos need Microsoft's free HEIF Image Extension and its $0.99 HEVC Video Extension to display on Windows. Those are Microsoft products, sold and supported by Microsoft, not by us.

Refunds

If Sorta is not right for you, you can get your money back within 14 days of buying, through Paddle, no reason needed. The details are in our Refund Policy.

Support and updates

Email support is included with every license and with the trial: support@sorta.photos. Sorta is built and supported by a very small team, so replies come from a person and may take a day or two. We release updates as fixes and improvements are ready; there is no promised schedule. Sorta can check for updates once a day when automatic updates are switched on (they stay off until the installer is code-signed); an update downloads only when you choose and installs only when you say so. Until then, new versions are downloaded from sorta.photos.

Open-source software in Sorta

Sorta is built with open-source components. Their licenses and notices are listed in the app under Settings → About → Open-source licenses, and in the file THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.txt installed next to Sorta.exe. Those licenses apply to those components.

No warranty, limited liability

We work hard to make Sorta reliable, and it is built to never touch your originals. Even so, software can have bugs and PCs can fail. To the extent the law allows, Sorta is provided "as is", and our total liability to you for anything arising from Sorta or these terms is limited to the amount you paid for your license. We are not liable for lost photos, lost data, lost profits or other indirect losses. Nothing in these terms takes away rights that consumer law gives you and that cannot be waived, including any right to a refund or repair under the law of the place you live.

Ending the agreement

You can stop using Sorta at any time by uninstalling it; your photos and your library folder stay where they are. We can end your license if you break these terms in a way that matters, for example by distributing your key. A refund or a chargeback ends the license; Sorta then goes back to the free trial and leaves your library as it is.

Changes to these terms

We may update these terms as Sorta changes. The date at the top shows the current version. Changes apply to purchases made after that date; we will not take away something you already paid for.

Law and disputes

These terms are governed by the laws of the State of Texas and the United States, without regard to conflict-of-law rules, except where the consumer law of your home country gives you protections that cannot be overridden. If we ever have a dispute, please email us first; most things can be sorted out with one message.

Contact

Email support@sorta.photos. Post: Sorta Photos LLC, 18124 Deer Glen West Dr., Conroe TX, 77302.