Porter
Sort
Any mess. Sorted by what's in it.
Drop a folder. Porter looks inside every file on your Mac and groups them by what they show. Nothing moves until you ask, and Tidy can make real folders, with undo.
For Mac
Meet Porter. A personal concierge for footage, images, and files.
Porter copies cards and iPhones to drives you own, checks every file, and tells you when the card is safe to format.
Porter is a Mac app. Send yourself the link for later.
Download for MacFree trial: 2 free backups and 1 free sort. Then $39 once, with a year of updates.
Cards and iPhones
Plug in a card. It files itself.
Porter copies every photo and video to your drives, files them by month, day, camera, or place, and checks each file. It tells you when the card is safe to format. iPhones work too: skip the export from the Photos app and copy what's on the phone straight to your drive, with Live Photos paired. After 3 clean runs, Autopilot can do it on its own.
Mirror
Two drives. The same files.
Pick any 2 drives. Porter copies only what each one is missing, so they match. If 2 files share a name but differ, you keep both.
AI editing
Your library, ready for AI.
Porter looks through your files on your Mac and writes notes beside them. An AI editor reads the notes and finds the shot without opening every file. Porter's models run locally, so none of it leaves your Mac, trains an LLM, or burns tokens.
Price
Pay once. No additional API keys or tokens needed.*
Save hours of sorting and start every AI edit prepared. It's $39 once for 1 Mac, yours to keep, with a year of updates. The model runs on your Mac, so there's nothing to pay per use.
Side by side
The old way, and with Porter.
| What you need | Image Capture and iCloud | With Porter |
|---|---|---|
| Check every file after it lands | No | Yes |
| Say when the card is safe to format | No | Yes |
| A second copy in one go | No | Yes |
| Resume after a stop | No | Yes |
| File into folders | No | Yes |
| Keep going when iCloud is full | Stops | Copies to your drive |
| Pay once | No. iCloud charges monthly | Yes. $39 once |
How it works
You see the plan before anything is copied.
- 01Plug in
Porter reads the card or phone and never writes to it.
- 02See the plan
You see the count, the drives, and the folders.
- 03Copy
Read once, written to each drive, then checked.
- 04Get the verdict
You see whether every file arrived, and you get a receipt to keep.
Limits
What Porter will not do.
- Format the card, or erase the phone.
- Delete a file, or overwrite one.
- Upload anything. Your files stay on your Mac and your drives.
- Edit your footage, or replace your photo library.
Questions
Before you download.
What do I get for free?
2 backups with new files, and 1 sort of up to 500 photos and clips. Failed or stopped backups don't count. Then it's $39 once for 1 Mac, yours to keep, with a year of updates. Renew for $19 a year if you want more; Porter keeps working if you don't. No password to remember, and it's not on the App Store.
Does anything leave my Mac?
Your files don't. Porter's models run locally, so your files aren't uploaded, they don't train an LLM, and you don't burn tokens. Backups run offline. When you're online, Porter looks for updates, and a bought copy checks its license about once a week, never during a backup: it sends your license ID, a scrambled ID for this Mac and the app version. Adding your key also sends the key and your Mac's name, so you can tell your Macs apart. If you point an AI editor at Porter's notes, that editor's own terms apply. When the optional API key arrives, stills and spoken words go to the provider you pick, and only when you press Sort.
Image Capture keeps hanging. What is different?
Image Capture can stop halfway and leave you guessing which files made it. Porter reads each file back after writing it, then counts the card again. Until that passes, it says not safe yet. A stopped backup can resume.
My iCloud is full. Does Porter free it?
No. Porter copies photos and videos to a drive you pick and checks every file. If iCloud Photos is on, deleting from the phone deletes them everywhere, so empty it yourself after Porter says backed up.
When you're done
You can tell when the card is safe.
Clear to format, 1 of 2 copies, or not safe yet. On an iPhone, a finished backup says backed up. Share the run as a clip, like this one, made from a demo card.
Porter is a Mac app. Send yourself the link for later.
Download for MacFree trial: 2 free backups and 1 free sort. Then $39 once, with a year of updates.