If your digital photo collection is something of a mess then there are thousands of programs which promise they can restore order. And so, like us, you probably don’t see an urgent need for any more.

Snaps is a genuinely interesting photo manager and viewer, though, which offers a little more than some of the more identikit competition. And while the program has some problems, in part because it’s still very young (it’s currently at version 0.3.9), there’s already enough functionality to be useful and it shows plenty of promise for the future.

After a straightforward installation (no adware or other hassles), Snaps begins by importing your photos. It knows about the standard Windows pictures folders already, but if you store images elsewhere then you can add those folders, too.

Snaps has good geotagging support, displaying your images on a map

With that done, the program then launches a neat thumbnail browser, sorting your images by date. You can drill down to a particular year, month, even day if you like, and see only the matching images. Or you’re able to view images via their tags, source folders, or – if they’re geotagged – even on a world map.

And there are plenty of other tools on offer here. You can geotag images, for instance, or add and edit other metadata. A search tool helps you find what you need. And you’re able to upload images directly to Facebook or Flickr (Picasa support is apparently “coming soon”).

Snaps also has some annoyances and irritations, unfortunately. There isn’t always a clear way to switch between the various image views; the search tool needs work; the interface can be inconsistent; and odd bugs meant we had to close and restart the program occasionally to restore order.

The program is still in its very early days, though, so problems are to be expected. Many of these issues are probably going to be easy to fix. And even now, Snaps has enough functionality to be useful: if your digital photo collection is a little disorganised, give the program a try, it just might be able to help.