PhotoPick

A macOS app for managing RAW + JPG photo pairs and pushing picks into Lightroom or another folder.

---

What it does

1. Remove Orphans — find (and optionally trash) RAW or JPG files that are missing their counterpart.
2. Inbox Tray → Lightroom or another folder — drop the JPGs you like onto a tray, then drag the matched RAW(s) straight into Lightroom or another folder.
3. A global Clear cache action for thumbnail previews.

Works on RAW from Canon, Nikon, Sony, Fuji, Pentax, Panasonic, Sigma, Olympus, and Adobe (.cr2 .cr3 .nef .arw .dng .orf .rw2 .pef .srw .x3f), paired against .jpg / .jpeg.

---

Install

Download the latest PhotoPick-<version>.dmg from GitHub Releases, open it and drag PhotoPick.app into Applications. Then follow "First launch" below. Or build from source; it's one command.

Build from source

git clone https://github.com/derekdylu/PhotoPick.git
cd PhotoPick
make app        # or ./scripts/build-app.sh

This produces:

• dist/PhotoPick.app — the bundled macOS app (~120 MB)
• dist/PhotoPick-<version>.dmg — a draggable installer (~50 MB), plus its .sha256

First build takes ~3 min (most of it downloading PySide6 wheels); incremental rebuilds are ~30 s.

Requirements

• macOS (Apple Silicon or Intel)
• Python 3.10+ — the script auto-detects python3.10–python3.13; install with brew install [email protected] if you don't have one
• Xcode Command Line Tools (xcode-select --install)

Run from source (no build)

pip install -r requirements.txt
python -m photopick.ui.app
# or
python photopick.py --gui

---

First launch — "PhotoPick is damaged" / "is malware" warning

PhotoPick is ad-hoc signed and not notarised by Apple. The first time you open it, macOS (especially Sequoia 15.x) will likely show:

"PhotoPick" is damaged and can't be opened. You should move it to the Trash.

This is not because the app is actually malicious — it's Gatekeeper's default reaction to any app that lacks an Apple-issued signature and carries the quarantine flag set by Safari/Finder on download. Builds you produced yourself and downloads from this project's Releases both land in this state.

Pick either fix below — you only need to do it once.

Option A — Terminal (one command)

# App is in /Applications
sudo xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/PhotoPick.app

# App is still in ~/Downloads
xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine ~/Downloads/PhotoPick.app

Then double-click PhotoPick normally.

Option B — GUI (no Terminal)

1. Double-click PhotoPick so the "is damaged" / "is malware" dialog appears, then click Cancel (do not click "Move to Trash").
2. Open System Settings → Privacy & Security.
3. Scroll to the Security section. You'll see a line like "PhotoPick was blocked to protect your Mac."
4. Click Open Anyway next to it. Authenticate with Touch ID or your password.
5. Launch PhotoPick again — confirm Open in the follow-up dialog.

macOS Sequoia note: the old "right-click → Open" workaround no longer works. The damaged/malware dialog in Sequoia only shows a "Move to Trash" button, so you must use Option A or Option B above.

Developer ID signing (optional)

./scripts/build-app.sh --sign "Developer ID Application: Your Name (TEAMID)"
xcrun notarytool submit dist/PhotoPick-<version>.dmg --apple-id ... --wait

---

Features

Remove Orphans

• Mode: Single folder (RAW + JPG mixed) or Two folders (RAW and JPG separate).
• Comparison:
  • Anchor JPG — RAWs with no matching JPG
  • Anchor RAW — JPGs with no matching RAW
  • Both — anything missing its counterpart
• The orphan list shows filenames only. Previews are loaded lazily on click — scrolling thousands of files costs nothing.
• Reveal in Finder and Move to Trash (via send2trash — never a permanent delete).

Inbox Tray

• Pick a RAW source folder. Every dropped JPG is looked up by basename.
• Drag JPGs in from Finder, Preview, browsers, etc. Tiles are badged ✓ RAW or ⚠ no RAW.
• Multi-select + drag out onto Lightroom (import window or a watched folder).
• Configurable drag payload:
  • RAW only (default) — just the matched RAWs
  • JPG only
  • Both

Clear cache

Removes ~/Library/Caches/PhotoPick/thumbs/. Next preview re-decodes from source.

---

CLI

No third-party deps for the CLI alone — PySide6 / rawpy / etc. are only needed for the GUI.

# Single folder, anchor on JPG (default)
python photopick.py /path/to/photos

# Find orphans both directions
python photopick.py /path/to/photos --anchor both

# Two-folder mode
python photopick.py --jpg-dir /path/jpg --raw-dir /path/raw --anchor raw

# Actually delete (otherwise dry-run)
python photopick.py /path/to/photos --execute

# Launch the Mac app
python photopick.py --gui

---

Repo layout

photopick/               # Python package
├── core/                # Pure-Python scanner/matcher/thumbs (no GUI deps)
│   ├── matcher.py
│   ├── scanner.py
│   └── thumbs.py
└── ui/                  # PySide6 Mac app
    ├── app.py
    ├── main_window.py
    ├── inbox_view.py
    ├── orphans_view.py
    └── styles.py

scripts/
├── build-app.sh         # One-shot .app + .dmg build
└── _launcher.py         # PyInstaller entry point

assets/PhotoPick.icns    # App icon

---

License

MIT © Derek Lu