Blog

Features, guides, and ideas from the LabelMe team.

FEATUREv6.3

AI-assisted annotation for crowd objects, without the duplicates

Two suppression passes in LabelMe v6.3 stop AI-Box, AI-Points, and AI-Text from stacking redundant predictions on the same object, whether they came from nested SAM granularities or from regions you've already labeled.

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FEATUREv6.2

AI annotation outputs circles and rectangles, not just polygons

Pick the output shape for AI-Points and AI-Box: polygon, mask, rectangle, oriented rectangle, or circle. Fitted to the SAM mask, no post-export conversion.

2 min read
FEATUREv6.2

Multi-select labels in LabelMe

Select many annotations at once and apply the same edit to all of them. Ctrl/Cmd+A grabs every shape on the image, range-select works in the label list, and hide/show propagates across the whole selection as one undoable step.

2 min read
FEATUREv6.2

Oriented rectangle, a rotated bounding box for off-angle objects

A new shape type in LabelMe v6.2. Three clicks to draw, corner drag to resize, edge midpoint to rotate, with an arrow on the canvas so the heading is never ambiguous.

2 min read
PODCAST

Geospatial annotation with LabelMe and Segment Anything

A podcast with Robin Cole on annotating satellite imagery in LabelMe, plus an end-to-end NAIP to QGIS demo.

2 min read
FEATUREv6.1

AI model downloads show progress, and you can cancel

The first AI click of a fresh install used to freeze the app for minutes while the model downloaded in silence. v6.1 shows a progress bar with bytes, ETA, and a cancel button.

2 min read
FEATUREv6.1

A unified AI toolbar, two tools instead of four

LabelMe v6.1 collapses four near-identical AI buttons into AI-Points and AI-Box, each with a polygon-or-mask output toggle. A separator between manual and AI tools makes the right button easier to find when you haven't opened the app in a week.

2 min read
FEATUREv6.1

SAM3 AI-Box mode, one prompt for a whole crowd

Drag a single bounding box around a cluster and SAM3 returns one shape per instance inside it. Built for parking lots, shelves, microscopy, and anything else where every visible object is the same kind of thing.

2 min read
FEATUREv6.0

Annotation JSON files store image paths, not pixels

LabelMe v6 stops base64-embedding the image inside every annotation JSON by default. Files get an order of magnitude smaller, diffs become readable, and version control stops choking on the binary blob.

2 min read
FEATUREv6.0

Auto-save is on by default

LabelMe v6 saves annotations as you work. The most common way to lose hours of labeling — forgetting to Ctrl+S before closing — is gone for new installs.

2 min read
FEATUREv6.0

Large image and TIFF support for satellite and aerial imagery

LabelMe v6 opens multi-gigapixel images and float32 GeoTIFFs that v5 refused to load. Pan, zoom, and annotate a 26,000 x 22,000 px aerial tile without the app locking up.

2 min read
GUIDE

Annotating images for YOLO training with LabelMe

Annotate a custom dataset with LabelMe, export to YOLO format with labelmetk, and train with Ultralytics. All offline.

1 min read
GUIDE

Reviewing AI-generated annotations with LabelMe

AI tools can propose annotations automatically. Here's how to review them fast with LabelMe: fix what's wrong, skip what's right.

1 min read
ESSAY

HIPAA and Medical Image Annotation: Why Offline Matters

Cloud annotation tools upload your images to their servers. For medical AI teams, that's a HIPAA problem. LabelMe runs entirely offline, so your images never leave your machine.

2 min read
ESSAY

Why Offline-First Annotation Matters for AI Teams in 2026

Cloud annotation tools send your training data to third-party servers. Here's why that's a growing problem, and how offline-first tools like LabelMe solve it.

2 min read