The main window

Once you know the three parts of this window, everything else in the app is a click away.

The sidebar (left)

• Utilities — one button per enabled utility. Click one to open its panel. Utilities you turn off in Settings disappear from this list. If you turn all of them off you will see "No utilities enabled. Turn some on in Settings."
• System — three fixed entries:
  • Watch Folders — automatic rules that process photos as they arrive.
  • Job Queue — every conversion in progress or recently finished.
  • Settings — all preferences and per-utility defaults.
• Help — opens this manual at https://www.phototray.io/docs in your browser.
• Footer — the installed version and platform, a subtle update indicator while an update is downloading or ready, and the exchange status pill showing whether bandwidth sharing is currently on.

The header (top)

An icon and the name of whatever screen you are currently viewing. Some panels add their own buttons to the right-hand end of this bar.

The main area (centre)

The active utility's controls, Watch Folders, the Job Queue, or Settings.

When sharing is off

If bandwidth sharing is not running, opening a utility shows "Bandwidth sharing is off" in place of its panel, with a Turn sharing on in Settings button. The utilities are funded by sharing, so they stay disabled until it is back on. Settings and the Job Queue stay reachable — Settings is where the switch lives, and the queue still needs to show jobs that were already running. See The bandwidth exchange.

Very rarely the exchange cannot start on your machine at all. PhotoTray then shows a full-window screen with a Retry button rather than a panel.

Window sizing

The window opens at 900 × 640 and can be resized down to 880 × 560. Your size and position are remembered for next time.

If something goes wrong here

• The sidebar has no utilities in it. They are all switched off. Open Settings ▸ Utilities and turn the ones you want back on.
• Every utility shows "Bandwidth sharing is off". That is expected, not a fault — turn sharing back on in Settings ▸ Bandwidth exchange.