{"id":52044,"date":"2026-09-14T14:21:14","date_gmt":"2026-09-14T14:21:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ubuntuhandbook.org\/?p=52044"},"modified":"2026-09-14T14:21:14","modified_gmt":"2026-09-14T14:21:14","slug":"shotwell-33-0-released-with-gtk4-port-how-to-install-in-ubuntu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ubuntuhandbook.org\/index.php\/2026\/09\/shotwell-33-0-released-with-gtk4-port-how-to-install-in-ubuntu\/","title":{"rendered":"Shotwell 33.0 Released with GTK4 Port, How to Install in Ubuntu"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-39382\" src=\"https:\/\/ubuntuhandbook.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/shotwell-logo-250x250.webp\" alt=\"\" width=\"250\" height=\"250\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ubuntuhandbook.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/shotwell-logo-250x250.webp 250w, https:\/\/ubuntuhandbook.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/shotwell-logo-300x300.webp 300w, https:\/\/ubuntuhandbook.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/shotwell-logo-600x600.webp 600w, https:\/\/ubuntuhandbook.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/shotwell-logo-768x768.webp 768w, https:\/\/ubuntuhandbook.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/shotwell-logo.webp 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 250px) 100vw, 250px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Shotwell, the digital photo organizer for GNOME, released new major 33.0 version a day ago.<\/p>\n<p>The new version of this Ubuntu default\/pre-installed app (when Ubuntu installed in Extended selection mode) is finally ported to <b>GTK4.<\/b><\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Shotwell 33.0 now is based on <b>GTK4 app but NOT Libadwaita<\/b>. Meaning it can now use GPU-accelerated rendering, it has improved Wayland and HiDPI support, and it features better GNOME integration.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/ubuntuhandbook.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/shotwell33.webp\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-52045\" src=\"https:\/\/ubuntuhandbook.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/shotwell33-700x455.webp\" alt=\"\" width=\"610\" height=\"397\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ubuntuhandbook.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/shotwell33-700x455.webp 700w, https:\/\/ubuntuhandbook.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/shotwell33-300x195.webp 300w, https:\/\/ubuntuhandbook.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/shotwell33-768x499.webp 768w, https:\/\/ubuntuhandbook.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/shotwell33.webp 1218w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 610px) 100vw, 610px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>But, the UI looks quite similar to the old releases that used GTK3. The only big visual differences include <b>native file chooser and print dialogs<\/b>. And, the file menus and context menu (the DEB version) look better than before. <\/p>\n<p>The drag and drop behavior has been improved. Instead of popping up a dialog asking for your choice, it now directly imports (copy &#038; import) the images you dropping into the app window. And, the imported images are automatically grouped according to their date and time metadata.<\/p>\n<p>For online services, such as Flickr and Google Photos, the authentication runs a small local web server to receive the login callback from the web browser instead of launching a separate authentication program.<\/p>\n<p>Other changes in Shotwell 33.0 include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Add support for opening URIs (e.g., <code>trash:\/\/\/<\/code>, <code>file:\/\/\/<\/code>) with the viewer.<\/li>\n<li>Introduce Toasts (small temporary notification) to replace simple dialogs.<\/li>\n<li>Allow pop-up of context menu with keyboard (shift + F10).<\/li>\n<li>Disable face detection in viewer.<\/li>\n<li>Add a help overview of the keyboard shortcuts.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>For more about the release, see the <a href=\"https:\/\/gitlab.gnome.org\/GNOME\/shotwell\/-\/blob\/master\/NEWS\" target=\"_blank\">NEWs file<\/a> in Gitlab project page.<\/p>\n<h3>How to Install Shotwell 33.0<\/h3>\n<p>Shotwell provides official package for Linux through <a href=\"https:\/\/flathub.org\/en\/apps\/org.gnome.Shotwell\" target=\"_blank\">Flatpak package<\/a>, which works in most Linux though runs in sandbox.<\/p>\n<p>Fedora Workstation and Linux Mint 22.x can simply search and install the Flatpak package from either GNOME Software or Software Manager.<\/p>\n<p>While Debian\/Ubuntu users may run the 2 commands below one by one to install the Shotwell flatpak from terminal:<\/p>\n<pre>sudo apt install flatpak<\/pre>\n<pre>flatpak install https:\/\/dl.flathub.org\/repo\/appstream\/org.gnome.Shotwell.flatpakref<\/pre>\n<p>Log out and back in if the app icon is not visible, or run <code>flatpak run org.gnome.Shotwell<\/code> command to start the package from terminal.<\/p>\n<p>For user who prefer the native <code>.deb<\/code> package, I&#8217;ve built the release into this <a href=\"https:\/\/launchpad.net\/~ubuntuhandbook1\/+archive\/ubuntu\/shotwell\" target=\"_blank\">unofficial PPA<\/a>, for <b>Ubuntu 26.04 LTS only<\/b> because old Ubuntu releases do not match the minimum GTK4 version requirement.<\/p>\n<p>To add the PPA and install Shotwell 33.0, launch terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) and run the commands below one by one:<\/p>\n<pre>sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntuhandbook1\/shotwell<\/pre>\n<pre>sudo apt update<\/pre>\n<pre>sudo apt install shotwell<\/pre>\n<p><b>NOTE<\/b>: the PPA also contains <code>libgexiv2-0.16-4<\/code> required for installing Shotwell 33.0. It won&#8217;t break system default <code>gexiv2 0.14<\/code>. But DON&#8217;T manually install the <code>gir1.2-gexiv2-0.16<\/code>, <code>libgexiv2-dev<\/code>, <code>libgexiv2-doc<\/code>, <code>python3-gexiv2<\/code> packages that may break dependencies.<\/p>\n<p>So, it&#8217;s better to remove PPA afterward by running the commands below one by one:<\/p>\n<pre>sudo add-apt-repository --remove ppa:ubuntuhandbook1\/shotwell<\/pre>\n<p>Also run <code>sudo apt update<\/code> to refresh cache.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Shotwell, the digital photo organizer for GNOME, released new major 33.0 version a day ago. The new version of this Ubuntu default\/pre-installed app (when Ubuntu installed in Extended selection mode) is finally ported to GTK4.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":39382,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[1210,668],"class_list":["post-52044","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-howtos","tag-photo-manager","tag-shotwell"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ubuntuhandbook.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52044","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ubuntuhandbook.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ubuntuhandbook.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ubuntuhandbook.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ubuntuhandbook.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52044"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ubuntuhandbook.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52044\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ubuntuhandbook.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39382"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ubuntuhandbook.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52044"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ubuntuhandbook.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52044"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ubuntuhandbook.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52044"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}