You can share your categories with other people by exporting them from one catalog and importing them into another.

When you export photos, categories for the exported photos are automatically exported along with them. Then when you add the photos in the folder, the categories will be automatically imported.

Exporting categories

To export categories to an XML file that can be imported into another catalog, choose Categories ▶ Export ▶ to XML File. To share categories on your website, link to an XML file using a shoebox:// URL.

To export categories to an HTML file that you can display on your website, choose Categories ▶ Export ▶ to HTML. If you link to both an HTML file and an XML file, viewers can preview categories before installing them.

To export categories to a plain text file (which can also be imported into another catalog), choose Categories ▶ Export ▶ to Plain Text.

You can choose to export just the selected category (and its subcategories), or all categories. You can also choose to export just the categories that are visible (i.e. whose parents are expanded) in the outline. For HTML and text exports, you can choose whether to include the number of photos in each category.

To prevent a category from being included in exports, select it in the Categories outline, choose Categories ▶ Show Category Info (⎇⌘I), and uncheck Export.

When you export categories to plain text or HTML, aliases are shown with an arrow pointing to their originals. In HTML documents, you can click an original to jump to it.

Importing categories

You can create categories from your existing folder structure by choosing Categories ▶ Import ▶ from Folder and checking "Make categories for all subfolders". (This is the same as choosing File ▶ Add Photos in Folder.)

You can import albums and keywords from iPhoto by choosing Categories ▶ Import ▶ from iPhoto. (This is the same as choosing File ▶ Import from iPhoto.)

To import categories from an XML file, choose Categories ▶ Import ▶ from XML File.

To import categories from an XML file on the web, choose Categories ▶ Import ▶ from URL and then enter the URL. If you click a shoebox:// URL on the web, Shoebox will ask if you want to import the linked XML file.

A wide variety of categories are available on the KavaSoft website. You can go there by choosing Shoebox ▶ Get Categories. You can also submit your own categories to share wih other Shoebox users.

You can also import categories from a plain text file by choosing Categories ▶ Import ▶ from Plain Text. You can import a text file that was exported by Shoebox, or you can create one yourself. This is an easy way to create lots of categories in just one step.

The following examples illustrate the format of plain text category files. If the first line starts with a slash, the categories will be imported under that category path. Subcategories should be indented with tabs.

/Places/North America/United States Alabama Alaska Arizona Arkansas California Bay Area Cupertino Palo Alto San Francisco Los Angeles Colorado

Aliases are entered in the following format. If the original does not exist, it will be created automatically.

/Things/Sports/Basketball/NBA Eastern Atlantic Celtics -> /Places/North America/United States/Massachusetts/Boston/Celtics Nets -> /Places/North America/United States/New Jersey/East Rutherford/Nets Knicks -> /Places/North America/United States/New York/New York/Knicks 76ers -> /Places/North America/United States/Pennsylvania/Philadelphia/76ers Raptors -> /Places/North America/Canada/Ontario/Toronto/Raptors

Original paths can take several formats. To create an alias in the same category, just specify the name. You can also specify a relative path, using the notation ".." to go up in the hierarchy (just like UNIX paths).

Places Asia Middle East Turkey -> ../../Europe/Mediterranean/Turkey Europe Mediterranean Turkey Turkiye -> Turkey

Categories are normally sorted alphabetically. To manually sort categories, put a number in square brackets before the category name. Abstract categories can be marked with an asterisk (this is the same as checking "No photos" in the Category Info window).