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For US photographers who register their photos in groups

Build the photo title list for a group copyright registration.

A group registration of photographs (GRPPH for published, GRUPH for unpublished) takes up to 750 photos per application, with a numbered list of their titles and file names. This free tool reads your files in your browser, splits them into groups that fit the limits, and writes each group's list for you. Nothing is uploaded.

Not affiliated with the U.S. Copyright Office. Not legal advice.

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Build your title list

Not affiliated with the U.S. Copyright Office. Not legal advice. Your photos stay on your computer: this page reads only the first part of each file, in your browser, and sends nothing anywhere.

1. Published or unpublished?

Type of group

One group holds at most 750 photos, all by the same author with the same claimant, and either all published or all unpublished.

2. Add your photos

Drop photos or a folder here

Titles come from each photo's XMP title or IPTC object name (JPEG, TIFF, and DNG, CR2, NEF and ARW raw files), otherwise from the file name. List the files you will upload: the Office takes JPEG, GIF or TIFF, and the file names on the list must match.

3. Month and year of publication

The date a photo was taken is not the date it was published. For copyright purposes a photo is published when copies are first distributed to the public, or offered to a group of people for further distribution or public display. Showing it publicly is not, by itself, publication (Circular 42).

Each date filled in this way stays marked until you check it and confirm it in its group.

Groups and title lists

Add photos to see the groups.

Filing in eCO: a checklist

  1. Log in to eCO and choose "Register a Group of Photographs", then "Published Photographs" or "Unpublished Photographs" as the type of group. If you choose the wrong one, you have to start over.
  2. Copy the case number from the top of the application screen into the group above, and enter the title of the group: the same name you give the group in the application.
  3. Download the title list. Its file name is the group title and the case number, as the Office asks.
  4. On the Titles screen, click "New", paste one entry into "Photograph Titles", choose the number of photographs entered on that screen, and save. Repeat for each entry. For published photos, choose the month of publication of that entry.
  5. For published photos, give the earliest and the latest publication date, and the nation of first publication.
  6. Upload the photos (JPEG, GIF or TIFF, with exactly the file names on the list) and the title list, preferably together in a .zip file. Each upload must be at most 500 MB.
  7. On the certification screen, enter the title list's file name.

Check the Office's own help before you file: help for published photographs (GRPPH), help for unpublished photographs (GRUPH) and Circular 42. Fees change: check the current fee there too.

What it does

  1. You drop in your photo files or a whole folder. It reads only the first part of each file, in your browser.
  2. It takes each title from the photo's XMP title or IPTC object name (JPEG, TIFF, and DNG, CR2, NEF and ARW raw files), otherwise from the file name, and the date the photo was taken. You can edit every title.
  3. For published photos, you enter the month and year each photo was first published. It can fill empty dates from the date taken, but those stay marked: a group can't be downloaded until you confirm them, because the date a photo was taken is not the date it was published.
  4. It splits the photos into groups the Office allows: at most 750 photos per group and, for published photos (GRPPH), one calendar year of publication per group. It warns about problems, such as raw files (the Office takes JPEG, GIF or TIFF for the upload) or commas in titles.
  5. For each group, you download the list as an Excel file (.xlsx) in the layout of the Office's own template, named with the group title and case number, and copy the text for eCO's Photograph Titles field: titles separated by commas, at most 1,995 characters per entry, and for published photos one entry per month of publication.

The Copyright Office has its own free template for this list, and its help pages explain how to fill it in. This tool does not replace those rules. It saves you the typing, the counting and the splitting into groups.

The rules come from the Office's help pages for GRPPH and GRUPH and its Circular 42, checked on 16 October 2026. Check them again before you file.

Free vs. Pro

Free tool (available now)

  • Drop in files or a folder; nothing is uploaded
  • Titles and dates read from your files, for you to check and edit
  • Groups of at most 750, split by year of publication for GRPPH
  • One .xlsx list per group, in the layout of the Office's template
  • The text for eCO's Photograph Titles field, in entries of at most 1,995 characters

Pro (planned, pre-order)

Pro ships with:

  • Title lists as PDF as well as Excel
  • All groups exported at once, as one ZIP file
  • Import of a CSV file exported by a Lightroom plugin or by ExifTool

"Shipped" in the refund terms below means the PDF lists, the one-ZIP export and the CSV import are available to buyers.

Pre-order

Pre-orders are not open yet.

Questions

What goes in the title list for a group registration of photographs?

For published photographs (GRPPH), the Copyright Office asks for a sequentially numbered list with a title, file name, and month and year of publication for each photo. For unpublished photographs (GRUPH), it asks for a sequentially numbered list with a title and file name for each photo. You save the list as an Excel or PDF file.

How many photos can one group registration include?

No more than 750 per application. For published photographs, all of them must also be published in the same calendar year, so photos from different years need separate applications. The Office has other rules too, such as one author and one claimant for the whole group.

What should the title list file be called?

The Office's help pages ask for a file name with the title of the group and the case number of the application, the thirteen-digit number at the top of each screen in eCO. Their example looks like Baxter Wedding Photos Case Number 1-8766033261.xls.

Doesn't the Copyright Office have its own template?

Yes. The Office has a free template and encourages you to use it. This tool does not replace the template's rules: it saves you the typing and the splitting into groups, and writes each list in the template's layout.

Is the fee for a group registration of photographs going up?

It is expected to. The Copyright Office sent a new fee schedule to Congress on 14 July 2026. It can take effect after a 120-day review, which ends at midnight on 11 November 2026, unless Congress passes a law against it. ASMP and PetaPixel report that the group photo fee would rise from $55 to $85 per application. No final notice has been published yet, so check copyright.gov for the fee when you file.

Are my photos uploaded anywhere?

No. The tool reads only the first part of each file, in your browser, on your device. Your photos and their details are not sent to sfix-it or anyone else, and this page sets no cookies and has no analytics.

Will the Copyright Office accept my registration if I use this tool?

Nobody can promise that: the Office examines every claim. The tool checks the count per group and, for published photos, the year, and warns about some problems such as raw files or commas in titles; it does not check authorship, the claimant, or whether and when a photo was published. It is not affiliated with the U.S. Copyright Office, and this page is not legal advice.

Get notified

An email when Pro ships, and one if the Copyright Office changes its rules for title lists.

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