Release notes

Clicking a name ends the search, and the clear button no longer disappears when you do.

• Clicking a name now clears the search on its own and puts the whole list back, scrolled to the name you picked. Searching is how you reach a name; once you are on it there is no reason for the rest of the list to stay hidden from your next shot.
• Fixed: the clear button vanished the moment you clicked a name, even though your search text was still in the box.

The tags under the cards change your folders and album, the search box has a clear button, and a multi-selection counts itself.

• The tags under the status cards are now the way to change where things go. Hover one and it says “Change”; click it to pick a new target folder, backup folder or second backup folder. The Album tag opens a list of your Cloutal Media albums with the current one ticked, so you can move a shoot to another album without leaving the main window.
• The search box has a clear button, and emptying the search jumps back to the name you had highlighted — whether you use the button, select-all-delete, or backspace the last character.
• Highlight two or more names and the line above the list counts them: how many are selected, and how many of those already have photos.

This version is no longer available for download.

Changing the target folder now says what will happen before it happens.

• Picking a new target folder asks first, and explains what you are about to see: the Count column counts photos in the CURRENT target folder, so it reads 0 after the change. Nothing is deleted or moved — your photos stay where they are, your names, notes, favourites and tags are untouched, and pointing the target back at the old folder brings every count back exactly.
• The same prompt tells you when the folder you picked already holds name folders, because those names get added to your list. It only appears when it has something to say, so choosing your first folder is still one click.

This version is no longer available for download.

Selecting several names tells you how many, and how many of them have photos.

• Highlight two or more names and the line above the list counts them — “5 selected | 3 with photos” — so you can see the size of a selection and how much of it has already been shot before renaming, deleting or changing where it goes. Hover for the full picture, including how many are still empty and the photo total. Deselecting brings back the usual list summary.

This version is no longer available for download.

Uploads no longer stall when the hourly sign-in token rolls over, and the Backup and Cloutal Media cards are on the row from the first launch.

• Cloutal Media uploads could stop mid-shoot and stay stopped until the app was restarted: the hourly access token expired in the middle of an upload pass and the app kept asking with the old one instead of swapping it. The swap now happens ten minutes early from the first launch, and if a token is ever refused the pass ends at once, the token is renewed, and uploads carry on six seconds later.
• The Backup and Cloutal Media cards appear on the top row at launch instead of after the window is resized.
• The upload watchdog line in the diagnostic log now names what the engine was doing when it found it busy.

This version is no longer available for download.

A free 14-day trial from the key screen, a Backup 2 card of its own, per-name Send To ticks, and Off now means off.

• No key yet? The key screen now has Start Free Trial: 14 days with every feature, no card needed, one trial per Mac. The status line counts the days down, and when the trial ends the app says when it ended and asks for a key.
• The second backup folder gets its own card in the top row — free space, progress, its own pause button and path chip — so both copies read side by side. Settings ▸ Tether shows a row for each, and the Backup menu lists each folder’s commands.
• Right-click a name ▸ Send To: tick or untick Cloutal Media, Backup and Backup 2 independently. The chip after the name says exactly what is left out (NO BACKUP 2, NO UPLOAD / BACKUP, DESKTOP ONLY). Local Only from earlier versions carries over.
• Turning Backup or Cloutal Media off now takes its card off the row and stops it queueing, probing the drive or waking a sleeping NAS; the folder is remembered and turning it back on resumes. Pausing is separate and keeps the card up with its ▶ button. Backup ▸ “Backup Copy” is the master switch, with Pause/Resume below it; Cloutal Media gains Sync: On/Off above Pause/Resume Uploads.
• Right-click menus — the name list, the star, and the Settings backup buttons — are drawn in the app’s own style instead of the standard macOS menu.
• Renaming a name now follows into both backup folders file by file, and long share names in menus shorten in the middle instead of being cut off.

This version is no longer available for download.

A second backup folder, faster renames to Cloutal Media, a star flash, and + adds below the selected name.

• Settings ▸ Tether and the Backup menu gain an optional second backup folder — an SSD next to a NAS, say. Every photo goes to both; each has its own queue, so a slow or sleeping drive never holds the other back. Renames, drags and splits follow on both, Keep Local applies to both, Back Up Missing Files Now reconciles both, and it is part of the shoot like the first. The Backup card shows “· 2nd N” when the second copy is behind and names it in the tooltip.
• Renames reach Cloutal Media about four times faster: the app now sends twenty renamed photos per pass instead of five.
• Starring a photo flashes “★ Saved” over it, and un-starring flashes “☆ Removed” — the same feedback as a ±25 jump.
• The + button adds the typed name directly below the selected name instead of at the bottom of the list.

This version is no longer available for download.

The Reconnect Experiment modes show their numbers.

• Help ▸ Reconnect Experiment now lists “0 — Off”, “2 — Leave macOS camera helpers alone”, and so on, so a mode can be found by the number it is referred to by.

This version is no longer available for download.

The arrow-key double tap for ±25 needs a real double tap.

• Stepping quickly through photos with an arrow key could count as a double tap and jump 25. The window is about half what it was, so only a deliberate double tap jumps; ⌥← / ⌥→ and the −25 / +25 buttons are unchanged.

This version is no longer available for download.

A modifier such as Right Shift can be the favourite key, and a momentary upload refusal no longer needs a manual Retry.

• Edit ▸ Set Favorite Key… now accepts a modifier key on its own — Right Shift, Left Option, Fn — as well as a letter or digit. A modifier stars the photo on a quick tap; held with another key or a click it does what it always did. Left and right keys are told apart.
• Cloutal Media: an upload the server refused with a momentary error was parked as “needs attention” on the first try, and always uploaded fine on Retry. Such refusals are now retried three times on their own before they need attention, and each photo that does end up needing attention is written to the diagnostic log with the server’s reason.

This version is no longer available for download.

Press the key to set it, an inline rename renames the folders after asking, and the backup follows every move file by file.

• Edit ▸ Set Favorite Key… now just asks you to press the key. Delete clears it, Return saves.
• Renaming a name in the list that already has photos asks “Rename “ann” to “bob”?” and, on Rename Folder & Photos, renames the folder and every photo inside — tagged folders included, tag kept — with the backup copy following and Cloutal Media told. Renaming into a name that already has a row merges the photos into it, never overwriting, and removes the emptied row. Cancel leaves everything as it was.
• Renames, drags and splits already mirrored the backup folder. Two gaps are closed: the backup now makes exactly the same file moves as the Target folder, so a merge can no longer be numbered differently in the backup, and a photo still waiting to back up when its folder was renamed is no longer dropped — it reaches the backup under its new name.

This version is no longer available for download.

A tag chip can no longer end up inside a name, ±25 reads ±25, and a key of your choice stars favourites.

• Editing a name in the list could commit the little chips drawn after it — a tag such as SS, DUPLICATE, or the Keep Local label — as part of the name, leaving a row like “Bob SS” that no folder matches. The editor now starts from the plain name, the chips are stripped from whatever is committed, and a row already affected is repaired on the next launch and finds its photos again.
• The −25 / +25 buttons under the preview showed “−2” and “+2”; they now use the same small type as the import bar.
• Edit ▸ Set Favorite Key… lets you pick one key — F, say — that stars the photo on screen. It works whenever you are not typing in a field, and Edit ▸ Star Favorite shows the key you chose.

This version is no longer available for download.

Escape on the launch prompt resumes the last shoot instead of starting a new one.

• On “Resume your last shoot?”, pressing Escape used to answer “Start New Shoot” and clear the list, folders and counter. Escape now answers Resume there, and in every prompt it answers Cancel or the harmless choice — never the red button. If this happened to you, Cloutal Media ▸ Resume a Previous Shoot… brings the shoot back, list and folders included, for any shoot that had uploaded.

This version is no longer available for download.

Space for the next name, ±25 in the preview, a truthful Sync tab, and Keep Local three ways.

• Space selects the next name in the list (not while you are typing).
• The preview strip has −25 and +25 beside the arrows. ⌥← and ⌥→ jump 25 too, and tapping the same arrow twice quickly jumps 25 from where you started. A “+25” flashes over the photo so you know it jumped.
• Sync tab: the Online column now measures uploads against the photos on disk that Cloutal Media could take, so a name the app has only partly uploaded reads “3/10”, not a green “3/3”. Hover the cell to see how many were never queued. A backup check that hangs on a sleeping drive no longer stops the tab from refreshing.
• Right-click a name ▸ Keep Local now offers three choices: Upload to Cloutal Media (normal), Desktop + Backup only (backs up, never uploads), and Desktop only (neither). The chip on the row says which. Edit Note… and Mark Segment Start left the menu; the note field and the flag column do both.

This version is no longer available for download.

Preview, jump-to-last-capture and the Sync tab now see a person’s tagged folders too.

• A check of every feature that maps a name to its folders found four more that still assumed one folder per person. The preview could show a different person’s newest photo when their name merely started the same way (“ann” showing “anna”). Jump to Last Capture picked the row the same way. The Sync tab’s Backup column showed “…” forever for anyone shot with a tag on, and its Online column counted only the plain folder. All four now use the person’s real folders — the plain one and the tagged ones — and nobody else’s.

This version is no longer available for download.

Rename Folder & Images works again for names with tagged folders.

• Rename Folder & Images… — and dragging one name onto another, which uses the same prompt — had stopped offering the person’s tagged folders, so a name whose photos were in “ann_SS” moved only its plain folder, or nothing at all, with no message. The prompt lists the tagged folders again, pre-checked when they hold photos, and each one moves with its tag: “ann_SS” becomes “bob_SS”, merged and never overwritten.

This version is no longer available for download.

The reconnect button asks before interrupting a card read.

• When macOS is reading the card’s photos before the camera can open, restarting the connection only starts that read over — and can make the camera drop off USB. ⟳ on the Camera card and Camera ▸ Force Reconnect now ask first while a read is under way: “Restart Anyway” is red and needs a click, Return does nothing, Escape keeps waiting, and the question closes itself if the camera connects meanwhile. A connection that is genuinely stuck is not questioned; the app restarts that one on its own.

This version is no longer available for download.

Split Folder works again for names shot with a tag on.

• Since tagged folders were folded into the person’s row, Split Folder… kept looking at the plain folder and said “Nothing to split” for anyone whose photos were in a tagged folder such as “ann_SS”. It now splits the folder the person actually has — the one the preview is showing, or the one with the newest photo — and the tag travels: frames split out of “ann_SS” land in “bob_SS”, which bob’s row credits straight away. The same person can never be the destination, however the name is spelled.

This version is no longer available for download.

Local only now keeps a name out of the Backup folder too, and the Next Image # card has a reset button.

• “Local only” meant local: a name marked Local only already stayed off Cloutal Media, but its photos still copied to the Backup folder. They no longer do — new shots, photos in that name’s tagged folders, and anything already waiting in the backup queue when you turn Local only on (the status line says how many were dropped). Backup ▸ Back Up Missing Files Now leaves them out as well. Turn Local only off and that same menu item sends what was skipped.
• The Next Image # card has a ↺ button, like the Camera card’s reconnect. With per-name numbering it re-reads the selected name’s folder and shows the next free number, forgetting anything you typed. With continuous numbering it goes back to 1. Numbering never overwrites: a number a folder already has is skipped.

This version is no longer available for download.

Battery swaps reconnect on their own again — the app was waiting on its own “Camera Disconnected” popup.

• The diagnostic log from the 9 September test showed the camera opening in half a second every time, under every experiment and none — and three reconnects of 12 to 44 seconds that only finished after ⟳. The delay was ours: while the “Camera Disconnected” popup was up, the app never launched the standby camera helper it prepares during a swap, and every reconnect timer waited for the popup to close. Both are fixed; the popup can stay up as long as you like.
• A camera that returns while the standby helper is still starting is handed straight to it instead of being torn down and started over.
• A helper that ignores the polite shutdown during a reconnect is now force-quit after 1.5 seconds, so a stuck one can no longer hold the camera hostage.
• Pressing ⟳ while a connection was already succeeding could interrupt it; a second connect to an already-connected camera made ten failed attempts against the live session. Both are guarded now.
• Reconnect Experiment modes 3 and 4 run one ImageCapture probe per attempt instead of restarting it on every event.
• The diagnostic log now records how long the Canon SDK took to initialise and how camera discovery went, so a reconnect that stalls before opening the camera explains itself.

This version is no longer available for download.

A camera connection that never answers now restarts itself — no more quitting and relaunching to get the camera back.

• Sometimes a reconnect neither succeeded nor failed: the camera sat on the computer icon, swapping the card made no difference, and only quitting and relaunching the app brought it back. The app now watches every connection attempt. If two minutes pass with no answer and macOS is not busy reading the card, it does exactly what a relaunch did — restarts its camera helper and reconnects — and the status card says so. A reconnect that is merely slow (macOS still cataloguing a full card) is left to finish.
• The Camera card’s ↻ button and Camera ▸ Force Reconnect now also clear a stuck attempt, so a manual restart works the first time.

This version is no longer available for download.

The reconnect experiments can be chosen from the Help menu — no Terminal needed.

• Help ▸ Reconnect Experiment lists the modes as checkable items: Off (normal), the two macOS tethering-session modes, and the two camera-helper modes. Pick one, it runs on the next camera reconnect, and Help ▸ Export Diagnostic Log… captures the result. Off is the default and changes nothing.

This version is no longer available for download.

Two more reconnect experiments for the shoot Mac, using macOS’s own tethering session option.

• macOS ships two camera-session options its documentation never mentions — one of them named for tethering. Two new switches (3 and 4, set from Terminal like the earlier ones) let the app open the camera with those options just before Canon’s software does, once keeping that session open and once closing it first, and record in the diagnostic log whether macOS then skipped its photo-by-photo read of the card. Nothing changes unless a switch is set.

This version is no longer available for download.

Dragging one name onto another now asks properly, a name can no longer be moved into itself, and a slow reconnect tells you why.

• Dropping one name onto another now shows exactly what will move and where — “Move 12 Photos” in red, with the count — and needs a click: pressing Return does nothing, so an accidental drag cannot move photos. Escape cancels.
• A name can no longer be moved into itself, including onto a row that carries one of its own tags (“ann” onto “ann_SS”). Nothing moves and the status line says why.
• When a reconnect takes twenty seconds or more, the status card explains it: macOS is reading every photo written to the card since it last saw the camera — one at a time — and the camera opens the moment that finishes. Settings ▸ Destination ▸ Disk, with the Backup folder as your second copy, keeps the card empty and the reconnect instant.

This version is no longer available for download.

Keep a name on this Mac: “Local only” stops one person’s photos from uploading to Cloutal Media.

• Right-click a name and choose “Local only — don’t upload”. That person’s photos — plain folder and every tagged round — stay on this Mac: no gallery is created and nothing is queued. The row wears a small LOCAL chip so everyone at the station can see it. Choose “Upload to Cloutal Media” to turn it back on; Cloutal Media ▸ Upload Photos Left Out sends anything that was skipped meanwhile.
• Marking a name Local only also drops whatever was already waiting to upload for it. Photos that had already reached Cloutal Media are left where they are.
• This build also carries everything from 0.9.8.12 for the shoot Mac: the tag chip back next to the name, and the reconnect diagnostics.

This version is no longer available for download.

The tag chip is back next to the name, and a diagnostics build for the slow reconnect.

• The first exported log showed the whole delay is a single minute-long wait inside the Canon software while opening the camera session — not repeated retries, and not leftover transfer requests. This build records, second by second during that wait, whether macOS’s own camera helpers are busy reading the card or simply waiting on the camera too.
• Two switches for testing on the shoot Mac, set from Terminal and reported in the log: try ending the wait early by stopping the macOS camera helpers five seconds in, or try leaving them alone entirely. Nothing changes unless a switch is set.
• The tag chip is back next to the name. Since tagged folders no longer appear as their own rows, the chip now shows on the person: “ann [SS]” the moment the first SS shot lands, “[FR][SS]” once both rounds exist.

This version is no longer available for download.

Tagged shots no longer create a second name; stuck uploads recover on their own; and a diagnostic log you can export when the camera will not connect.

• Shooting with a tag on no longer adds a second name to the list. 0.9.8.10 fixed the folder scan; the moment a tagged shot landed, a separate path still adopted “Name_SS” as a row and moved the selection onto it. Every shot now credits the person, the count adds all their tagged folders, and the selection stays where you put it.
• Uploads that stall no longer need a restart. A transfer that makes no progress for two and a half minutes is retried automatically, and Resume and Verify sync now clear a stuck upload queue in place. The app also records what it found, so a stall can be explained afterwards.
• Help ▸ Export Diagnostic Log… saves a text file with the app’s connection, licence and upload events — no photos and no names — that you can send when the camera stays on its computer screen and will not connect. It works while the problem is still happening.
• Every attempt to open the camera session is now recorded with its result and how long it took, so a connection that never completes leaves a trace.

This version is no longer available for download.

Tags no longer create a second name in the list — a tagged folder belongs to the person.

• Shooting with a tag on (SS, say) files into “Name_SS”, and that folder used to appear in the list as a second name right under the first. It no longer does: the list shows each person once, and that row owns every tagged folder. Duplicate rows created earlier fold into the person’s row the next time the list is scanned — a note on the duplicate moves across, marked with its tag.
• The Count column adds up the person’s plain folder and every tagged folder.
• Dragging one name onto another keeps the tag: photos shot with SS on move from “Name_SS” into the other person’s “_SS” folder, instead of being merged into their plain folder.
• On Cloutal Media nothing changes — a tagged folder is still its own gallery there.

This version is no longer available for download.

Reconnecting after a battery swap on the same card no longer stalls at the camera’s PC screen.

• After a battery swap with the same memory card, the camera offers the app every frame from the previous session again and waits at its computer icon until each one is acknowledged — which is why swapping to a different card connected instantly and the same card did not. The app now clears that list the moment the session opens, at full speed, and shows “Clearing N leftover transfer requests from the last session…” on the status card while it does.
• A camera still busy with that list no longer fails the connection outright. Before, one busy answer restarted the whole connection — and the whole list — from scratch; the app now waits a few seconds for the camera instead.
• Every connection now records how long it took and how many leftover requests it cleared, so a slow reconnect can be explained from Console.app on any Mac, without a special build.
• If reconnects on the same card are still slow after this build, Settings ▸ Destination ▸ Disk writes nothing to the card, so there is nothing for the camera to re-offer. The Backup folder still gives you a second copy.

This version is no longer available for download.

The app no longer disappears after the splash when your licence needs an online re-check, and a first launch starts clean.

• If your licence needed to be re-checked online when the app opened — for example after a lapse, or past the offline window — the app could quit silently about a second after the splash: no window, no message. It now waits for the answer and then shows the licence screen or the main window, as it should.
• The very first time the app opens on a Mac it shows the setup tour by itself. It used to show the tour and the “resume your last shoot?” question at the same time.
• A fresh install no longer picks up a shoot left behind by an earlier copy of the app on the same Mac — the target folder, the name list and the image counter. Your settings still carry over, and upgrading in place still resumes exactly where you left off.
• Start New Shoot clears the preview as well. The previous shoot’s last frame used to stay on screen over the empty new shoot.

This version is no longer available for download.

The camera status tells the truth: what is plugged in, what is connecting, and what “ready” means.

• With no camera plugged in, the Camera card now says “No camera detected” straight away, with the tip that fixes it. It used to sit on “Connecting…” — sometimes for half a minute, sometimes indefinitely — which reads as “wait a moment” when the real answer is that nothing is attached.
• Plug a camera in and the card moves to “Connecting…” immediately. It used to keep insisting there was no camera until the session finished opening, which can be half a minute after the cable goes in.
• The status card says “Ready” instead of “Capturing” when the camera is connected and the app is watching. Nothing is being captured until you press the shutter — the photo counter and the preview are what move when a frame actually lands.

This version is no longer available for download.

Split a folder when two performances landed under one name, and reach the website from inside the app.

• Two performances shot under one name can be split apart. Right-click the name (or Cloutal Media ▸ Split a Folder…), step through that folder’s photos with the arrows or the −25 / +25 jumps, mark the first and last frame of the second performance, and move them. RAW files move with their JPEG, and nothing is ever overwritten — moving into a name that already has photos continues that folder’s numbering.
• The split asks where the photos go by showing your whole list: type any part of a name to search it — “smith” finds Anna Smith — and click the person, or type a name nobody has yet to start a new one.
• Splitting happens on this Mac. It needs no internet and no Cloutal Media account; if some of those photos were already uploaded, their galleries follow on their own.
• New Shoot no longer loses the shoot you were on. Shoots can be closed and reopened, and resuming one brings back the whole setup — the list, the folders, the counter — not just the photos that had not finished sending.
• Open Web Interface signs you in to the website from inside the app, so a Photo Tether code no longer needs a separate website login.
• Choosing a target folder that already contains photos now asks what to do with them before anything is sent. Only New Photos From Now On leaves them exactly where they are — not deleted, not hidden, and not marked as sent — and Cloutal Media ▸ Upload Photos Left Out sends them later if you change your mind.
• The Cloutal Media panel can answer “is this shoot safe?” before you pack up, and Cloutal Media can tell the app when a version is too old to keep uploading, with the download one click away.
• Hovering a name no longer pops the name back at you. The note still appears when you hover its pencil.
• The licence agreement, terms, privacy policy and refund policy shipped with the app are final and approved — the drafts they replace carried a review notice. You will be asked to accept the licence once more the first time you open this build; that is the new version being presented, not a change to what you already own.

This version is no longer available for download.

A setup tour that shows instead of telling, and imports that navigate in batches.

• The setup tour was rebuilt end to end: it walks the way a real shoot starts (import your CSV first, then add the names it didn’t have), spotlights the actual controls it talks about, previews the Import Folders controls before you ever need them, and demonstrates tags with removable samples.
• The tour now closes with a look at Cloutal Media — the online side of Photo Tether, expected Q1 2027 — including where your studio storefront will live.
• Importing folders is faster to steer: new −25 / +25 buttons jump a batch of frames at a time, so a hundred-frame folder is a few clicks instead of a hundred.
• The import controls dropped their grey, disabled look, the folder banner became a quiet box instead of one more button-colored bar, and finishing an import clears the preview instead of leaving the card’s last frame on screen.
• The Customize Tags editor supports the Tab key to move between boxes.

This version is no longer available for download.

Reconnects in about a second after a battery swap, and a license key that types itself.

• Camera reconnection is now event-driven: the app knows the instant your camera returns to USB and connects immediately — a battery swap mid-event costs seconds, not a long stare at “connecting”.
• The app starts connecting to your camera the moment it launches, while the resume-your-shoot dialog is still on screen — by the time you’ve answered it, the camera is usually ready.
• The status line and Camera card keep updating behind any dialog, and the camera-disconnected popup dismisses itself when the camera comes back — reinserting the battery is the acknowledgement.
• The license key is entered as three four-character boxes with the dashes printed for you — type or paste it in any format, upper or lower case.
• Trial users see a day countdown, and a failed payment warns you in the app while your grace period runs, instead of stopping a shoot without notice.
• Refreshed app artwork.

This version is no longer available for download.