How to import camera images (raw/jpgs) to External HDD, then delete the originals?

macOS
1

Hey all,

I’ve been looking for a while but my Googling skills are failing me somewhat, so thought I come and ask the experts.

I want to create a task or use an app on the mac that whenever I plug in an sd card, automatically the images are taken off the sd card and put directly into a folder on my external HDD for later editing and organising. Once copied off and verified I won’t lose the image I would like it to be deleted off the card to free up space.

I’d like to not use any special photo management tool, as I often change my editing tools so wouldn’t like to be tied into Lightroom or Apple Photos.

Ideally something like how the Gnarbox archives but on a desktop, the more hands-free the better.

Is this something that could be done in hazel?

Thanks
A bunch in advance!

2

I would use rsync on the command line for a verified copy, then delete as normal. I’d probably use Keyboard Maestro to trigger the script for when a card inserted.

You may also want to consider filename collisions. I usually copy photos to a time stamped folder just in case

Hope that helps.

3

I never thought of using rsync! You could be onto a winner, I’ll download Keyboard Maestro now and report back!

4

A lot of photographers consider their camera’s SD card as their first line of backup and never delete photos from them. They buy a new, ever cheaper, SD card when the old one gets full.

Not sure if SD cards still corrupt easily when deleting individual files. That used to be a problem. Best practice is to wait until the card is full, and then if you’re sure you’ve got everything backed up elsewhere, format the entire SD card in the camera.

5

I appreciate this is not the norm for photographers, but it’s just the workflow works best with me (currently doing it manually).

This is not for professional work just personal stuff therefore I don’t really want the SD card being the first backup, and losing my camera, and being lulled into that the backup process has just gone okay, the file being removed from the SD card is there as a visual confirmation that it’s backed up.

At first I won’t be deleting the files until I feel confident in the backup process (I may just rename the files in the first instance).