Tropy

Explore your research photos

Download Tropy

Built for today’s archival research

Take control of your research photos with Tropy, a tool that shortens the path from finding archival sources to writing about them. Spend more time using your research photos, and less time hunting for them.

Turn photos into items

Tropy thinks the way you do: like a researcher. Say goodbye to IMG_5261.JPG and IMG_5262.JPG, and say hello to your sources.

Screenshot featuring the merging of two photos in one item.

Describe your sources

Tropy helps you contextualize artifacts and their photos by capturing your own subject expertise. A friendly editing interface allows customized templates that fit your research like a glove.

Screenshot featuring the editing of a custom template’s metadata field.

Organize your research

Tropy understands that every researcher is different and that every project has its own demands. Break free from the logic of the physical archive and use tags and lists to organize your research items according to your needs.

Screenshot featuring the drag and drop of selected items onto a list

Annotate your photos

Tropy’s beautiful annotation tools allow you to transcribe documents, select image details, and manipulate photographs to get the clearest view of your sources.

Screenshot of Tropy’s note editor side by side with the image editor.

Fully integrated

Whether it’s Linux, macOS or Windows: Tropy blends in with your preferred desktop.

Screenshot of Tropy’s dark theme on Linux Screenshot of Tropy’s dark theme on Windows. Screenshot of Tropy’s dark theme on macOS.

Tailor-made for researchers

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Export your research

Tropy exports your research projects as JSON‑LD, CSV, and even directly to Omeka S. Need a custom format? With Tropy it’s possible to create your own export plugin.

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Free & open source

Built to encourage sustainable development, Tropy saves your research data using SQLite, the storage format recommended by the Library of Congress for preservation.

About Tropy

Tropy is an independent, open-source project designed and produced by an international team of historians and software developers.

Originally created at the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media (RRCHNM), Tropy today is jointly developed by RRCHNM, the Luxembourg Centre for Contemporary and Digital History (C²DH), and Digital Scholar, the nonprofit corporation which operates allied projects Zotero, Omeka, and Sourcery. Tropy is generously funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Tropy benefits from the support of its enthusiastic users, who supply essential feedback, feature requests, issue reports, workshops, and interface translations. All Tropy code is open source and freely available on GitHub.