Rapid Photo Downloader
Rapid Photo Downloader is a Linux desktop application that imports photos and videos from cameras, phones, memory cards, and other devices at high speed. It is written by a photographer for professional and amateur photographers.
Personal Note From the Developer
This project has only ever had one software developer. I developed a hand injury from typing while working on the code in early 2022. As such code development is suspended until I recover, which will not be until 2024; the only exception is emergency patches.
Depreciation of the Install Script
I cannot maintain the install.py
script due to my hand injury (see above)
— testing the script in the variety of Linux distributions it supports
requires a lot of typing. The script is therefore depreciated and I do not
recommend its use, especially on recent Linux distributions.
User Survey
If you have any experience with Rapid Photo Downloader at all, including if you no longer use it, please join hundreds of others by taking this survey:
Survey of past, current, and potential users
The responses are already making a real difference to the program’s future development. The program collects no analytics whatsoever, so a survey like this is truly helpful. Thank you in advance.
Program Features
- Rename photos and videos with meaningful filenames you specify.
- Download vast numbers of photos and videos with minimum fuss.
- Back up photos and videos as they are downloaded.
- Downloads from and backs up to multiple devices simultaneously.
- Easy to configure and use.
- Configure program preferences without the need for complicated codes.
- Automate common tasks, such as unmounting a memory card when the download is complete.
Read more about its features at the program website.
Documentation
Full documentation is available at the program website.
Program Design
Rapid Photo Downloader is coded in Python. To get the best performance using Python on modern multi-core computers, the program uses multiple OS-level processes that communicate with each other using the messaging library 0MQ.
Learn more about the program's architecture.
Issue Reporting
Report new issues on the developer's GitHub repository.
Historic issues are at the previous code repository, Launchpad.
Releases
All project releases are hosted on the project's Launchpad repository.
Support
Get support at the Pixls.us discussion forum.
Installation
Rapid Photo Downloader is packaged by all major Linux distributions.
If you want the latest version, or prefer it run with all its features enabled
(like heif
support), you can run the install.py
script, which downloads and installs the
latest version.
To use the script to install Rapid Photo Downloader, run as your regular user (i.e. without sudo):
python3 install.py
This script will install packages from your Linux distribution and from the Python Package Index (PyPi). The program sudo may prompt for your administrator (root) password during the install process, if required.
For a list of optional commands you can give the installer, run:
python3 install.py --help
Finally, to uninstall:
python3 install.py --uninstall
Or to uninstall both the program and its Python package dependencies:
python3 install.py --uninstall-including-pip-dependencies
Supported Linux Versions
- Ubuntu 18.04 or newer
- LinuxMint 19 or newer
- Debian 9 or newer, unstable or testing
- Fedora 34 or newer
- openSUSE Leap 15.3 or newer
- CentOS 8
- CentOS Stream 8 (but not CentOS Stream 9)
- Any distribution meeting the software requirements below
Software Requirements
- Python 3.6 or newer, and its development headers
- PyQt 5
- Qt 5
- Qt5 plugin for reading TIFF images
- Qt5 plugin for rendering SVG
- setuptools
- python-gphoto2 1.4.0 or newer
- show-in-file-manager 1.1.2 or newer
- importlib_metadata on Python versions older than 3.8
- pyzmq
- tornado
- psutil 3.4.2 or newer
- pyxdg
- Arrow
- dateutil 2.2 or newer
- exiv2
- ExifTool
- EasyGUI
- Colour
- pymediainfo
- SortedContainers
- Requests
- Tenacity
- intltool
- Babel
- fuse
- imobiledevice-tools
- ifuse
- Python gobject introspection modules:
- GUdev 1.0
- UDisks 2.0
- GLib 2.0
- GExiv2 0.10
- Gst 1.0
- Notify 0.7
Highly recommended, optional dependencies:
- colorlog: generates coloured program output when running Rapid Photo Downloader from the terminal.
- pyprind: shows a progress bar on the command line while running the program analyze_pv_structure.
- pyheif: open HEIF / HEIC files
- pillow: work with HEIF / HEIC files
Installation into a Python Virtual Environment
Rapid Photo Downloader can be installed into a virtual environment, allowing you to isolate the Python packages it needs from other programs on your system.
Virtual environments created with the --system-site-packages
option are
not supported. An Intel or AMD 64 bit platform is required.
To install Rapid Photo Downloader into a Python virtual environment, create the virtual environment (naming it whatever you like):
python3 -m venv myenv
Activate the virtual environment:
source myenv/bin/activate
Then run the installer, passing the command line option telling the script to install Rapid Photo Downloader into the virtual environment:
python install.py --virtual-env
Once installed, you can then deactivate the virtual environment with the deactivate command:
deactivate
Rapid Photo Downloader can be started without activating the virtual environment by running
myenv/bin/rapid-photo-downloader
To uninstall from the virtual environment, simply delete the virtual environment's directory.