FrontBack Scanner · The Guide
The picture is on the front; the story is on the back. Two ways to keep them together digitally: the naming conventions archivists type by hand, and the free Mac app that pairs every back automatically.
By Spencer Baker, founder of Timeline Scan · Last updated: August 3, 2026For most family photos the back is the only record of who and when: one large digitization project found notations on roughly 60% of its backs[1]. The hard part was never scanning them; it’s keeping each back attached to its front across hundreds of files.
Method 1 · works with any scanner, any OS
These are the conventions long-time digitizers actually use[1][2]. They work; budget the time.
The 1/1a convention works[1], at two typed names per photo. Skip one back and the pattern silently breaks for the rest of the batch.
The photo’s spot on the glass is the link: flip the pile, scan again, and every back files itself beside its front.
Method 2 · free Mac app
FrontBack Scanner is named for this exact job. It ties each back to its front by where the photo sits on the glass, so a bedful of photos takes two passes and zero renaming.
Four to six prints per pass. Every print is found, cropped, straightened, turned upright, and numbered in order: scan_0001, scan_0002…
No rearranging: the spot on the glass is the link. Blank white back on a white bed? The app detects the handwriting area itself, even faint pencil.
Each back saves beside its front as scan_0001_b.jpg. Any pairing can be rewired by hand, and the suffix is yours to change.
A 400-photo box: ~100 two-pass bedfuls, zero renaming. The pairing lives in the file names themselves, so it survives every app and every move.
The hardware option
| Approach | Epson FastFoto FF-680W | Flatbed + FrontBack Scanner |
|---|---|---|
| How backs are captured | Sheet-fed duplex: captures the back in the same pass when it detects writing, saved with a _b suffix[3] |
Second flatbed pass; backs paired to fronts by position, saved with a _b suffix |
| Cost | $629.99 list[3] | $0with the flatbed you already own |
| Contact with the print | Feed rollers touch every photo; user threads report fine vertical scratches on glossy prints and recommend frequent roller cleaning[4] | Nothing moves the photoIt lies on glass under a lid; safe for fragile and one-of-a-kind prints |
| Speed at scale | FastStacks of 36, about a photo per second at 300 dpi[3] | A bedful per pass: slower than a sheet feeder, far faster than one-at-a-time scanning |
| Resolution ceiling | 600 dpi optical[3] | Your flatbed’s optical maximum (6400 dpi on an Epson V600) |
Honest summary: FastFoto for enormous, sturdy collections where speed is everything. A flatbed plus a free app for heirlooms and normal shoeboxes, with zero risk to the originals.
The backs are the payoff
Timeline Scan, the service behind this free app, reads the handwriting and lab stamps on the backs you scanned (Easter ’57, JUL 1987), estimates when each photo was taken, and writes the date into the file, so the collection sorts chronologically in Google Photos, Apple Photos, or Immich. Every estimate is reviewable. Try it free.
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Our local service scans the front and back of every print, then dates and organizes the collection. Never mailed anywhere.
See the scanning serviceCommon questions
The reliable pattern is two passes per batch: scan the fronts, flip each photo over in place, and scan again, keeping a naming link between the two files. By hand, that means a convention like IMG_0012.jpg and IMG_0012_back.jpg typed for every photo[1]. FrontBack Scanner (free, Mac) automates the link: it matches each back to its front by the photo’s position on the flatbed glass and saves the pair as scan_0001.jpg and scan_0001_b.jpg with no renaming.
For family archives, usually yes: the back is where names, dates, places, and studio stamps live. One large digitization project reported notations on roughly 60% of the backs in its collection[1]. Scan only the fronts and that information stays in the shoebox; if the prints are ever lost or given away, it is gone. With automatic pairing the backs cost one extra pass per bedful, so the trade has gotten easy.
One consumer machine does: Epson’s FastFoto FF-680W ($629.99 list), a sheet-fed scanner that captures the back in the same pass when it detects writing and saves it with a _b suffix[3]. It is fast, but it feeds originals through rollers, and user threads report fine scratches on glossy prints[4]. On a flatbed nothing touches the photo’s surface; FrontBack Scanner gets the same paired-backs result with the scanner you already own, free.
Backs are text, so they need less than fronts: 300 dpi is comfortably legible for handwriting and stamps, and it keeps files small and scanning fast. Scan fronts at 600 dpi for archiving (the reasoning is in our best-settings checklist). If a back carries something you may want to enlarge, like a faint pencil date, scanning it at 600 dpi costs little.
For adding new labels to physical prints, archival guidance is consistent[2]: a soft graphite pencil near the edge of the back on fiber-based prints, or a photo-safe archival pen on resin-coated papers that pencil won’t mark. Avoid ballpoints and ordinary markers, which can dent the emulsion or bleed through. Then scan the back so the label survives digitally too.
Yes. Once backs are scanned and paired, Timeline Scan (the separate service behind the free app) reads dates and notes on the backs, like “Easter ’57” or a lab-stamped “JUL 1987”, and uses them to estimate when each photo was taken, writing the date into the file’s metadata so the collection sorts chronologically. Estimates are reviewable before anything is final.
Show your work
_b suffix per Epson’s FastFoto software documentation.Epson® and FastFoto® are trademarks of Seiko Epson Corporation. FrontBack Scanner and Timeline Scan are made by Timeline Scan LLC, which is not affiliated with Epson or the sites cited above. Details were checked on August 3, 2026; if something here has gone out of date, tell us and we’ll correct it.
Scan the fronts, flip the pile, scan again. The backs pair themselves.
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