cardgrab

The fastest way to get photos and video off your camera card on a Mac.

cardgrab is what Image Capture should have been in 2026. It pulls everything off your SD card — including the video files Image Capture quietly skips — at full reader speed, organizes them into folders you'll actually find later, and stays out of your way.

Why this exists

macOS ships Image Capture, but on a Sony card it skips the PRIVATE/M4ROOT/CLIP/ video folder, ignores .XML and .THM sidecars, and doesn't handle XAVC variants well. Most pro photographers end up doing two manual passes — Image Capture for stills, Finder drag for video — and losing folder organization in the process.

cardgrab does one thing: it ingests everything on your card, fast, with sensible folders.

Highlights

• Handles every file your camera writes. DCIM, PRIVATE/M4ROOT (XAVC HD/HS/S), MP_ROOT, AVCHD, sidecar XML/THM. Photos, RAW, MP4, MXF, MTS, audio — all of it.
• Fast. Kernel-level copy via macOS fcopyfile, 4 concurrent workers by default. Saturates UHS-II readers.
• Real thumbnails for everything. Photos, RAW, video poster frames — all rendered via macOS Quick Look so the previews actually match what you shot.
• Browse before you import. Searchable grid grouped by shoot date, click to select/deselect, shift-click for range, ⌘A toggles select-all.
• Dead-simple folder layout. One folder per shoot date by default. Custom templates ({camera}, {lens}, {date}, {ext}) if you want them.
• Doesn't touch your card. The transfer engine refuses to write to the same volume as the source. Format the card yourself, in-camera, when you're done.
• Direct camera mode. Plug a Sony/Canon/Fuji body in via USB and ingest over PTP (needs gphoto2 — brew install gphoto2).
• Local import journal. Every file copy logged in SQLite with a full audit trail. Re-import or re-upload anytime.

Install

macOS

Grab the latest .dmg from the Releases page.

Releases are signed with an Apple Developer ID and notarized — drag-into-Applications, double-click, no Gatekeeper warnings. (Setup details for maintainers: docs/NOTARIZATION.md.)

Build from source

Requires:

• Rust (stable)
• Node 20+
• The Tauri prerequisites for your platform

git clone https://github.com/YOUR_USERNAME/cardgrab
cd cardgrab
npm install
npm run tauri dev      # development
npm run tauri build    # produces a .dmg in src-tauri/target/release/bundle/

Optional for direct-camera (PTP) ingest:

brew install gphoto2

Folder templates

The default template is {date} — one folder per shoot date, everything in it. Available variables:

Edit the template per-import or save your own in Settings.

Stack

• Tauri 2 — Rust core, native macOS window
• Svelte 5 + Vite — frontend
• SQLite (rusqlite) — settings + import journal
• macOS qlmanage — thumbnails for any file format the OS understands
• macOS fcopyfile (via std::fs::copy in a blocking task) — fast file copy
• gphoto2 (optional) — direct camera ingest via USB-PTP

Roadmap

• Windows build (the Rust core is portable; needs a different volume-watcher and PTP path)
• More camera support (Canon CR3, Fuji RAF EXIF quirks)
• Cloud destinations (point at a Google Drive / iCloud-synced folder; rclone integration later)
• Watch-folder mode (auto-ingest when a known card mounts)

Contributing

Issues and PRs welcome. This project values:

• Native-feel macOS UI (Settings.app fidelity, no Material Design)
• Zero clicks for the happy path
• Never destructive — the card is read-only as far as cardgrab is concerned

License

MIT — see LICENSE.