chronocatalog-desktop 0.2.0

Desktop app for ChronoCatalog photo and video archives

ChronoCatalog Desktop

The desktop app for photo and video archives that can prove their own integrity: import memory cards, check the archive's health, fix names, undo anything — every action a preview first.

ChronoCatalog names every photo and video after an identity derived purely from the file itself — the capture time plus a fingerprint of the content:

20260703_150727_9b677b64.nef
└──────┬──────┘ └──┬───┘
  capture time    hash

There is no database to maintain or lose: the files carry their own catalog. Names sort chronologically across every camera and phone, duplicates identify themselves, and the whole archive can be re-checked at any time — corruption told apart from ordinary edits — with any tool that can hash a file, decades from now.

The app covers the whole workflow:

• Import copies a card into the archive, names every file on arrival, and re-hashes every copy at its destination. It ends in a verdict, not a guess: safe to format appears only when every file on the card is accounted for.
• Organize triages a messy folder — what each file would become, what is already archived, what needs your eyes first — and never renames anything.
• Verify recomputes every name from metadata and content and explains disagreements in plain language, worst first.
• Rename brings names in line after edits, whole groups (RAW, sidecars, derivatives) at a time. Masters managed by Lightroom Classic are handed off through a rename token, never touched behind the catalog's back.
• History lists every applied change with Undo, and Resume for interrupted runs.
• Settings edits the archive configuration with validation before every save; the naming pattern editor previews an example name as you type.

The app adds no behavior of its own: every view renders the plans and reports of the chronocatalog library — the same engine behind the CLI — and every change goes through its validated, write-ahead-journaled apply. The exact terminal equivalent of any action is one click away, behind the quiet >_ toggle.

Install

macOS (Apple Silicon): download ChronoCatalog-<version>-arm64.dmg from Releases and drag the app to Applications. The build is not yet signed with an Apple Developer ID, so the first launch is blocked: open System Settings → Privacy & Security, scroll to Security and click Open Anyway. This is needed once.

Any platform (Python 3.11+):

$ uv tool install chronocatalog-desktop

or pipx install chronocatalog-desktop. Either way you also need ExifTool on PATH (macOS: brew install exiftool).

Run

$ chronocatalog-desktop [archive.toml]

Without an argument the app asks for an archive configuration and remembers it — or creates a new archive from scratch. Everything is a dry run until Apply, which confirms first; every applied change lands in History with Undo.

Run from this repository

With uv:

$ git clone https://github.com/chronocatalog/chronocatalog-desktop.git
$ cd chronocatalog-desktop
$ uv run chronocatalog-desktop

With plain pip:

$ python3 -m venv .venv
$ .venv/bin/pip install -e .
$ .venv/bin/chronocatalog-desktop

For a tour that touches none of your own files, generate the demo archive (macOS only — it leans on sips): a small throwaway archive imported through the real engine, then seeded with a date edit, an unnamed file and an orphan sidecar so every view has something to show:

$ uv run python demo/make_demo.py
$ uv run chronocatalog-desktop demo/demo.toml

Development setup, checks and expectations: CONTRIBUTING.md.

Requirements

• Python 3.11+ (the macOS app bundles its own)
• ExifTool on PATH

License

MIT