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.

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.

License

GPL3 or later.