FrontBack Scanner · Built-In Tool, Honest Limits
Yes: click Show Details and choose Detect Separate Items. The catch is what happens next, and it’s why shoebox projects stall here. The steps, the documented limits, and the free fix, below.
By Spencer Baker, founder of Timeline Scan · Last updated: August 3, 2026 · behavior claims cite Apple’s guide and public Apple Support Communities threadsThe documented failure, drawn
From a public Apple Support Communities thread: every item detected in the overview, only the top few actually scanned[2].
Detection draws a box around everything. So far, so good.
The documented case: top items scanned (some repeatedly), the rest skipped, crops offset from the preview[2]. Generic names, sideways prints stay sideways.
The built-in way
Apple documents this in its Image Capture guide[1]. It costs nothing and needs no install; it’s worth trying on a small batch first.
Select your scanner in the sidebar, then click Show Details to expose the scan options. If a “Use Document Feeder” box is checked, uncheck it.
In the Scan Size or scan-area setting, pick Detect Separate Items (not “Detect Enclosing Box”, which saves everything as one image). Space the photos apart on the glass.
The overview draws a dotted box around each detected item; Scan saves each to its own file. Expect one hardware pass per item and names like Scan.jpeg, Scan 1.jpeg.
The documented limits
These aren’t our observations; they’re Apple’s users’, in public support threads. See the sources.
| Photo-batch job | Image Capture | FrontBack Scanner |
|---|---|---|
| Finding every photo | A documented failure case: 9 postcards detected in the overview, only the top 2–3 scanned, some repeatedly, with crops offset from the preview boxes; behavior varies by scanner driver[2] | Reliable by designDetection tuned on photo prints (tilted, nearly touching, white-bordered); every box visible and adjustable before scanning, and a double-click adds any print it ever misses |
| Hardware passes | One pass per detected item: a bedful of six photos is six slow scans[3] | One passScans the area covering all prints once, then crops each photo out of the master in software |
| Orientation | ManualSideways and upside-down prints stay that way | AutomaticOn-device neural network turns each print upright, 99.8% accurate in our benchmarks |
| File names | Scan.jpeg, Scan 1.jpeg… renamed by hand afterwards |
Sequentialscan_0001, scan_0002… assigned before scanning, in order |
| Backs of photos | NoneBacks are separate scans you match to fronts by hand | AutomaticFlip the pile where it lies; every back saves beside its front as scan_0001_b.jpg |
| Photos bigger than the glass | No | Oversized modeStitches overlapping passes into one seamless file (how it works) |
| Price | FreeBuilt into every Mac | FreeSeparate download, no account, no limits |
Fair is fair: for two or three well-spaced photos with clean edges, Image Capture is serviceable and already on your Mac. The gap opens at shoebox scale, when re-detection roulette, per-item passes, hand rotation, and renaming multiply by four hundred.
The same plumbing, tuned for photos
FrontBack Scanner talks to scanners through the same macOS system Image Capture uses: Wi-Fi AirScan/eSCL models need no driver, USB flatbeds use the driver they already have. The difference is everything built on top: photo-tuned detection, one-pass scanning, orientation, naming, backs, and oversized stitching.
↓ Download Free for MacThen put the shoebox back in order
Timeline Scan, the service behind the free app, estimates when each photo was really taken and writes the date into the file, so the collection sorts chronologically in Google Photos, Apple Photos, or Immich. Try it free.
Put my scans in orderCommon questions
Yes, nominally. In Image Capture, select your scanner, click Show Details, turn off Use Document Feeder if present, and set the scan area to Detect Separate Items. Apple documents that flatbeds can scan multiple items and save each to its own file[1]. In practice users report the detection missing items, scanning the same few repeatedly, and cropping offset from the preview boxes[2], so treat it as a feature to try rather than rely on.
A long-standing Apple Support Communities thread documents the failure exactly: nine postcards on the glass, nine dotted detection boxes in the overview, but only the top two or three items actually scanned, some of them multiple times, with crops offset from the preview[2]. The behavior depends on the scanner’s driver module, and no reliable fix is posted; the accepted workaround in the thread is scanning a few items at a time and cropping by hand.
No. Items scan in whatever orientation they lay on the glass, and files come out with generic names like Scan.jpeg and Scan 1.jpeg. Turning a sideways print upright and renaming files into a sequence are both manual work afterwards, which is exactly the work that makes a 400-photo box take a week of evenings.
FrontBack Scanner, a free Mac app from Timeline Scan. It uses the same macOS scanner plumbing as Image Capture, but its detection is built for photo prints: tilted, nearly touching, and white-bordered photos each get their own box, visible before you scan; every print is straightened, turned right-side up, and named in sequence; and flipping the pile pairs every back with its front automatically.
If Image Capture can see your scanner, so can FrontBack Scanner: Wi-Fi and network scanners that support AirScan/eSCL work with no driver, and USB flatbeds work through the same Image Capture driver they already use.
Show your work
Image Capture and macOS are trademarks of Apple Inc. FrontBack Scanner and Timeline Scan are made by Timeline Scan LLC, which is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Apple. Behavior described here was checked against Apple’s public guide and support threads on August 3, 2026; if something has changed in a macOS update, tell us and we’ll correct it.
One preview, one scan, finished files. Free, private, and built for the shoebox.
↓ Download FrontBack ScannerRelated: the full multi-photo workflow · photo splitters on a Mac · Epson ScanSmart alternative
