CapturePort

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CapturePort copies photos and videos from a camera, memory card, or folder into a library you choose — and shows you exactly where every file will land before it copies anything.

It is a native Linux application inspired by the classic Windows Import Pictures and Videos wizard. There is no catalog to import into and no library to lock you in: the filesystem is the library, and CapturePort's only job is to add files to it safely. It does not edit, rate, or organize media after import.

What "safe" means here

• You review first. CapturePort plans the import and lists the final destination path of every file. Nothing is copied until you confirm.
• Originals stay in place. Importing never moves or deletes the source file; deleting from the source is a separate, deliberately confirmed action.
• A half-finished import never looks finished. Files are copied under temporary names, verified, then published atomically — and only then recorded in the import history.
• Nothing is silently overwritten. Name collisions are resolved while planning and shown in the preview.
• Nothing is silently skipped. Media that may already be in your library is flagged as a possible duplicate with the prior session it matched, so you decide, not the app.

Install

One-command user install (Linux x86_64)

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Alchemist-Aloha/CapturePort/main/scripts/install.sh | sh

Requires curl and standard Linux command-line utilities. No sudo, Rust, or source build is needed: the installer downloads the prebuilt binary from the latest GitHub release, verifies it against the release's SHA256SUMS, and installs it as ~/.local/bin/captureport. Rerun the same command to update. A failed download or checksum check leaves an existing installation untouched.

If ~/.local/bin is not on your PATH, add this to your shell profile and reload it (or run it in your current terminal):

export PATH="$HOME/.local/bin:$PATH"

Launch with captureport, or directly with ~/.local/bin/captureport. Uninstall with rm ~/.local/bin/captureport; your settings and import history are left intact. The installer does not install system libraries or a desktop launcher. The binary is built on Ubuntu 24.04 and needs compatible host libraries.

Distribution packages

GitHub releases also provide Debian/Ubuntu (.deb), Arch (pacman), Fedora (.rpm), and portable archive downloads. Every branch and tag push builds x86_64 artifacts in the Linux packages GitHub Actions workflow; development builds are available from each run's Artifacts section.

Runtime requirements:

• a Vulkan-capable graphics stack (GPUI's supported Linux drivers);
• libgphoto2 for PTP cameras;
• lsblk, udisksctl, and the system UDisks service to mount unmounted cards.

Import your photos

1. Choose a source. Connect a camera or insert a card and it appears under Sources; or click Open folder… for any directory on disk. An unmounted card is listed with a Mount button.
2. Review what was found. CapturePort scans the source and shows a thumbnail, capture time, file size, and import status for each item. Items already in your history are marked and left unselected, so new media is what remains selected. Use the All / Photos / Videos / New / Imported / Possible filters, and View options to sort by capture time or name and change the thumbnail size. The details icon beside a media item's filename shows its preview, metadata, and original file path. Click Original file to copy its URL; a URL copied indicator confirms the action.
3. Select what to copy. Toggle individual items, use Select all or Select new, and click a gallery heading to select everything in one shooting session.
4. Preview the plan. Preview import opens the Review screen with every destination path and a count of files to copy, skipped, and blocked.
5. Confirm. Existing files, collisions, and unreadable media are resolved before the copy starts; each file is verified, then published. The active import panel shows the current filename and destination, per-copy and overall progress, verified copy count, transfer rate, and Cancel import on every page.
6. Check the result. History lists the session and every destination it wrote.

Interface languages

Choose Settings → Language to switch instantly between English, 简体中文, 繁體中文, Español, Français, Deutsch, Português, 日本語, 한국어, and Italiano. The choice is saved automatically and works offline. System language follows LC_ALL, LC_MESSAGES, then LANG, with English as the fallback.

Only the interface is translated; filenames, paths, template syntax, and your custom names stay unchanged. For Chinese, Japanese, or Korean, install a system font with the required glyphs (for example Noto Sans CJK).

Sources

• Folders — any directory, scanned recursively and read-only.
• Removable cards — mounted volumes under /media and /run/media are discovered automatically. An unmounted card is listed with an explicit Mount button; mounting is never automatic, and your system's UDisks service handles authorization.
• Cameras — PTP cameras are detected through libgphoto2 and browsed directly, without mounting.

Refresh devices (or Scan for cameras in the empty view) runs an immediate scan. A detected card is labelled by its device model and mount directory.

Organize where files go

Open Settings to control how imports are organized:

• Presets — enter a name and Create preset to save all Settings values, including browsing, appearance, and the source-alias field. Click a saved name to restore it; use Rename, Overwrite, or Delete preset to manage it. Overwrite and delete require confirmation. Loading an alias does not rename a connected device until you click Save source alias.
• Destinations — separate root folders for photos and videos.
• Folder and filename templates — build paths from your media, for example {year}/{date:%Y-%m-%d}/{camera_model} for folders and {datetime:%Y-%m-%d_%H-%M-%S}_{sequence:04}.{extension} for filenames. Template fields have built-in syntax help with clickable segments and live examples; segments cover date and time, camera and lens, dimensions, orientation, duration, GPS, recorded timestamps, and file size.
• Grouping — split an import into shooting sessions by a time gap, and use {session} (number) or {session_name} (the gallery name) in a folder template if you want a folder per session.
• Clock correction — shift capture times, or state the camera's assumed UTC offset, so files land under the date they were actually taken.
• Verification, collisions, and bundles — how strictly copies are checked, what happens on a name collision, and how RAW+JPEG pairs are handled.
• Excluded folders — under Media discovery, enter folder names or path fragments such as Screenshots, DCIM/Private. Matching folders and their descendants are excluded from scans and import plans. Matches are case-sensitive; apply settings and rescan to update the browser.
• Backup destinations — optionally write a second copy of everything.

See Destination rules for the full segment list and how missing metadata is filled in. The import preview is always the authority on the paths you will actually get.

History and recovery

History shows each import session and the individual destination copies it made. If an import is interrupted, Recovery lists the unfinished sessions and the incomplete files CapturePort owns, and can build a new preview of the remaining files from the reconnected source. Cleaning up incomplete files and deleting originals from a source are separate actions, each requiring its own confirmation.

Mark as imported

If you already imported some files elsewhere, select them and use Mark as imported. This records the decision — it does not copy files or add verified history — and the marked manually status survives rescans and restarts.

Keyboard shortcuts

Key	Action
Ctrl+O	Open a folder
Ctrl+A	Select all visible items
Ctrl+Shift+A	Select all visible new items
Escape	Clear the selection on the browser
Ctrl+I	Open the import preview (pressing it again on the Review screen starts the copy)

Where your data lives

CapturePort follows the XDG base directory layout:

• Config — import settings, appearance, and gallery names.
• Data — the catalog and import history.
• Cache — disposable thumbnails, safe to delete at any time.

The catalog only accelerates imports and remembers history; deleting it never makes imported media unusable or hard to find.

Appearance

CapturePort ships four color schemes — Pine, Darkroom, Graphite, and Ink — each in light and dark mode. Toggle the mode from the header and pick the scheme in Settings.

Try it without a device

Deterministic demo sources are available for trying the interface or reporting a bug: --demo empty, --demo camera, --demo importing, --demo errors, and --demo 10000. A demo run uses an in-memory catalog, so it cannot write synthetic rows into your real history.

captureport --demo camera

For developers

rtk cargo test --workspace --offline
rtk cargo run -p captureport --offline

Builds require Rust 1.88 or newer, Cargo, a C compiler, GPUI's Linux graphics development libraries, and the system libgphoto2 and libgphoto2_port development files. Packaging and benchmark commands are documented in docs/build-and-benchmarks.md.

• docs/spec.md — the product and behavior contract.
• docs/plan.md — the staged build plan.
• DESIGN.md — the visual system.

The application is MIT licensed. The bundled Spectral and Outfit fonts and the Material Symbols Outlined icon set ship with their own licenses in the application packages.