The motto of this release is work smart, not dumb.
Why so? How about previewing the download subfolders and storage space of your devices and download destinations before you download:
How about downloading from multiple devices in parallel, including from all cameras supported by gphoto2?
How about its Timeline, which groups photos and videos based on how much time elapsed between consecutive shots. Use it to identify photos and videos taken at different periods in a single day or
over consecutive days.
You can adjust the time elapsed between consecutive shots that is used to build the Timeline to match your shooting sessions.
How about a modern look?
Download instructions: http://damonlynch.net/rapid/download.html
For those who’ve used the older version, I’m copying and pasting from the ChangeLog, which covers most but not all changes:
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New features compared to the previous release, version 0.4.11:
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Every aspect of the user interface has been revised and modernized.
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Files can be downloaded from all cameras supported by gPhoto2,
including smartphones. Unfortunately the previous version could download
from only some cameras. -
Files that have already been downloaded are remembered. You can still select
previously downloaded files to download again, but they are unchecked by
default, and their thumbnails are dimmed so you can differentiate them
from files that are yet to be downloaded. -
The thumbnails for previously downloaded files can be hidden.
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Unique to Rapid Photo Downloader is its Timeline, which groups photos and
videos based on how much time elapsed between consecutive shots. Use it
to identify photos and videos taken at different periods in a single day
or over consecutive days. A slider adjusts the time elapsed between
consecutive shots that is used to build the Timeline. Time periods can be
selected to filter which thumbnails are displayed. -
Thumbnails are bigger, and different file types are easier to
distinguish. -
Thumbnails can be sorted using a variety of criteria, including by device
and file type. -
Destination folders are previewed before a download starts, showing which
subfolders photos and videos will be downloaded to. Newly created folders
have their names italicized. -
The storage space used by photos, videos, and other files on the devices
being downloaded from is displayed for each device. The projected storage
space on the computer to be used by photos and videos about to be
downloaded is also displayed. -
Downloading is disabled when the projected storage space required is more
than the capacity of the download destination. -
When downloading from more than one device, thumbnails for a particular
device are briefly highlighted when the mouse is moved over the device. -
The order in which thumbnails are generated prioritizes representative
samples, based on time, which is useful for those who download very large
numbers of files at a time. -
Thumbnails are generated asynchronously and in parallel, using a load
balancer to assign work to processes utilizing up to 4 CPU cores.
Thumbnail generation is faster than the 0.4 series of program
releases, especially when reading from fast memory cards or SSDs.
(Unfortunately generating thumbnails for a smartphone’s photos is painfully
slow. Unlike photos produced by cameras, smartphone photos do not contain
embedded preview images, which means the entire photo must be downloaded
and cached for its thumbnail to be generated. Although Rapid Photo Downloader
does this for you, nothing can be done to speed it up). -
Thumbnails generated when a device is scanned are cached, making thumbnail
generation quicker on subsequent scans. -
Libraw is used to render RAW images from which a preview cannot be extracted,
which is the case with Android DNG files, for instance. -
Freedesktop.org thumbnails for RAW and TIFF photos are generated once they
have been downloaded, which means they will have thumbnails in programs like
Gnome Files, Nemo, Caja, Thunar, PCManFM and Dolphin. If the path files are being
downloaded to contains symbolic links, a thumbnail will be created for the
path with and without the links. While generating these thumbnails does slow the
download process a little, it’s a worthwhile tradeoff because Linux desktops
typically do not generate thumbnails for RAW images, and thumbnails only for
small TIFFs. -
The program can now handle hundreds of thousands of files at a time.
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Tooltips display information about the file including name, modification
time, shot taken time, and file size. -
Right click on thumbnails to open the file in a file browser or copy the
path. -
When downloading from a camera with dual memory cards, an emblem beneath the
thumbnail indicates which memory cards the photo or video is on -
Audio files that accompany photos on professional cameras like the Canon
EOS-1D series of cameras are now also downloaded. XMP files associated with
a photo or video on any device are also downloaded. -
Comprehensive log files are generated that allow easier diagnosis of
program problems in bug reports. Messages optionally logged to a
terminal window are displayed in color. -
When running under Ubuntu’s Unity desktop, a progress bar and count of files
available for download is displayed on the program’s launcher. -
Status bar messages have been significantly revamped.
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Determining a video’s correct creation date and time has been improved, using a
combination of the tools MediaInfo and ExifTool. Getting the right date and time
is trickier than it might appear. Depending on the video file and the camera that
produced it, neither MediaInfo nor ExifTool always give the correct result.
Moreover some cameras always use the UTC time zone when recording the creation
date and time in the video’s metadata, whereas other cameras use the time zone
the video was created in, while others ignore time zones altogether. -
The time remaining until a download is complete (which is shown in the status
bar) is more stable and more accurate. The algorithm is modelled on that
used by Mozilla Firefox. -
The installer has been totally rewritten to take advantage of Python’s
tool pip, which installs Python packages. Rapid Photo Downloader can now
be easily installed and uninstalled. On Ubuntu, Debian and Fedora-like
Linux distributions, the installation of all dependencies is automated.
On other Linux distrubtions, dependency installation is partially
automated. -
When choosing a Job Code, whether to remember the choice or not can be
specified.
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Removed feature:
- Rotate Jpeg images - to apply lossless rotation, this feature requires the
program jpegtran. Some users reported jpegtran corrupted their jpegs’
metadata – which is bad under any circumstances, but terrible when applied
to the only copy of a file. To preserve file integrity under all circumstances,
unfortunately the rotate jpeg option must therefore be removed.
- Rotate Jpeg images - to apply lossless rotation, this feature requires the
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Under the hood, the code now uses:
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PyQt 5.4 +
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gPhoto2 to download from cameras
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Python 3.4 +
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ZeroMQ for interprocess communication
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GExiv2 for photo metadata
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Exiftool for video metadata
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Gstreamer for video thumbnail generation
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Please note if you use a system monitor that displays network activity,
don’t be alarmed if it shows increased local network activity while the
program is running. The program uses ZeroMQ over TCP/IP for its
interprocess messaging. Rapid Photo Downloader’s network traffic is
strictly between its own processes, all running solely on your computer. -
Missing features, which will be implemented in future releases:
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Components of the user interface that are used to configure file
renaming, download subfolder generation, backups, and miscellaneous
other program preferences. While they can be configured by manually
editing the program’s configuration file, that’s far from easy and is
error prone. Meanwhile, some options can be configured using the command
line. -
There are no full size photo and video previews.
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There is no error log window.
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Some main menu items do nothing.
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Files can only be copied, not moved.
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I can’t wait to try it out.