Help with your photo workflow.

What you need

Ingest runs on macOS 15 or later, on Apple silicon only. There is no Intel build, so an Intel Mac cannot open it. To check your Mac, open the Apple menu and choose About This Mac: the Chip line reads Apple M1 or later.

Open the disk image and drag Ingest to your Applications folder. There is no account or license key. Ingest is free during the beta. The app is signed and notarized by Apple, so it opens with a double click the first time.

You do not need to install anything else. The tool Ingest uses to write metadata is built in.

Apple Intelligence caption and keyword suggestions require macOS 27 with Apple Intelligence enabled and the on-device model available. Manual metadata editing, RAW histograms, and preview comparison do not require Apple Intelligence. RAW sensor histograms support readable Bayer and X-Trans mosaics, including matching CFA DNGs; unsupported files use a labeled JPEG fallback.

Cameras and files it reads

Ingest prefers an embedded camera preview or a paired JPEG / HEIF image. When a file needs RAW rendering, that slower first preview is handled separately and cached. Camera model and recording mode affect preview availability.

Coverage is based on representative real camera files, not every recording mode. The sampled Nikon Z8 compression mode works through its embedded preview but fails in bundled LibRaw rendering. Native rendering succeeded on macOS 27; macOS 15 runtime remains unverified. Phase One, Sigma, scanner files, and specialized multishot reconstruction are outside this release.

XMP companions belong to their RAW photo and travel with it during file operations. Ambiguous companion groups remain separate.

Files that are never treated as photographs: sidecars such as .XMP and .THM, camera database and index files, and anything beginning with a dot.

Memory cards

Insert a card and it appears in the sources list with its name and free space. By default Ingest opens it for you. That is a setting in Settings → Transfers, if you would rather it just sat in the list.

Reviewing does not change your card originals. Ratings, keywords, renaming, and Finder tags are applied to copies, not to files on the card. Source files are deleted only when you explicitly request it after copies have been verified at every destination. That holds however you opened the card, including when you open a folder that happens to live on one. Metadata you add while culling is remembered and applied to the copies during ingest.

If a card does not appear, check that it is mounted in Finder. Ingest looks for a DCIM folder to recognize a volume as a card. A card formatted by something other than a camera may not have one, in which case open it with ⌘O as an ordinary folder.

To eject, press ⌘E. Ingest closes everything it has open on the card first, so eject does not fail with a file in use. If macOS still refuses, another app is holding the card. Pulling a card without ejecting does not crash Ingest. It notices and closes the source.

The first hour

The keys are the part worth learning, and there is a way to practice them that cannot hurt anything. Choose Help, then Open Practice Folder. Ingest builds about thirty throwaway images and opens them, and the status bar tells you which keys to try. Nothing in that folder matters, so tag, rate, label, and undo as roughly as you like.

Press ? at any time for the shortcut sheet, or ⌘K to search every command by name. Holding ⌘ for a moment shows the keys that work where you are. The complete list lives on the shortcuts page, and the Getting started guide walks one card from insert to finished folder.

Thumbnails are slow or missing

Preview speed depends on the camera format, available embedded image, storage, and connection. If browsing is slow, try a local copy to distinguish file-rendering work from a slow card reader, network volume, or file provider.

Thumbnails that are expensive to build are cached on disk, under 2 GB, and cleared from Settings, Advanced. Clearing the cache is safe and never touches a photograph.

A photograph with no thumbnail at all is usually a raw format Ingest cannot read yet. See cameras and files it reads.

A copy did not finish

Ingest copies to a temporary name, flushes it to disk, reads the copy back, compares it to the source, and only then gives it its real name. Nothing is ever overwritten. If something goes wrong part way, the files that were already copied and verified are kept and the rest are not, and the receipt records what happened.

The Import button is dim

The reason is printed beside it. The usual ones are no destination chosen, an empty All, Tagged, or Selected scope, a template that will not parse, or two photographs that would end up with the same name.

Names collide

Ingest refuses rather than quietly adding a suffix. Add {seqn} or {seq} to the template so every name is different. See collisions.

Not enough space

The import plan checks free space before it starts and tells you, rather than filling the disk and failing at photograph two hundred.

Deleting from the card

Keep Leave the card alone to preserve originals. If you choose Delete copied files, copies must verify at every destination. In a RAW-only import, cleanup also removes the intentionally excluded JPEG/HEIF twin after its RAW verifies. Changed, failed, or protected files are retained. Delete everything asks for confirmation and is not remembered for next time.

Backup strategy

Use a separate physical drive for Photo Backup. Ingest’s second verified copy is one part of a backup workflow: arrange off-site protection and editor/catalog backups separately.

A Lightroom catalog backup does not back up your original photographs. See 3-2-1 backup guidance for keeping originals safe across media and locations.

Project folders that separate source photographs from outputs are an approach also used by Capture One Sessions. They are not mandatory standards.

Lightroom or Photos does not show my keywords

Ingest writes metadata directly into supported rendered files and uses XMP sidecars for proprietary RAW files. Apple Photos may not read RAW sidecars. Export a JPEG with metadata and GPS included, then send that JPEG to Photos when those fields need to travel with the image. Native Photos edits are available separately in the Photos workspace, with caption, keyword, and rating writes requiring macOS 27.

Two things to check first. Metadata is never written to a card, so if you added keywords while culling, they are applied to the copies during ingest and you should look at the copies. And ratings and labels are written in the background a couple of seconds after you stop pressing keys, so a file read the instant you rated it may not have caught up.

The writing is done by ExifTool, which is included in the app. Ingest keeps ExifTool's backup of each file until it has read the file back and confirmed the write, then removes it. If the read back does not match, the original is put back.

If Settings, Advanced reports that the metadata tool is not ready, turn Use the built-in exiftool back on. The built-in copy runs with the Perl that ships with macOS. If a future macOS removes Perl, that switch and a copy installed with Homebrew are the way back.

Permission prompts

macOS asks before an app reads a removable volume. Allow it, or Ingest cannot see your cards. If you dismissed it, the switch is in System Settings, Privacy & Security, Files and Folders.

Connecting to Apple Photos or sending files to it requests Photos read/write permission. Ingest uses your System Photo Library, not an arbitrary library file. If Connect did nothing in an older beta, update to the current release and try again. If access was denied, choose Open Photos Privacy Settings, enable Ingest, and return to the app. Settings → General controls Apple Photos integration for the app, and each workspace has its own switch. Both must be on. Turning integration off hides Photos controls and stops observation; it preserves your saved state. An action that runs a Shortcut asks for permission to control Shortcuts when needed.

Apple Photos availability

Native caption, keyword, and rating edits require macOS 27. Earlier supported versions keep Photos ratings local and provide native favorites, dates, and locations. Cloud-only media needs a working connection to Apple Photos. Offline iCloud transfers, switching System Photo Libraries, and playback across all Live Photo and video formats remain beta validation areas. Use Import History to review interrupted or uncertain imports before retrying.

Coming from Photo Mechanic

The habits carry over. T tags, the arrow keys move, ⌘G is ingest, and {seqn} is the saved sequence counter. Brace tokens in name templates use the same spelling, so a pattern you have typed a thousand times still works.

Three differences worth knowing. Marking keys do not advance by default, and you can turn advancing on in Settings, Culling. Tags are a simple on/off flag, independent of ratings and colors. The Filter panel offers All, Tagged, and Untagged, and the active filter can be cleared from the folder header. And stars and color labels use the Lightroom keys, 1 to 5 and 6 to 9, saved in supported files or XMP sidecars so compatible editing apps can read them.

Settings, Shortcuts lists every command. Click a shortcut or focus it with Tab and press Return to record a new one. Navigation keys and standard Mac editing shortcuts stay fixed; Settings explains any conflict.

Updates

Choose Ingest, then Check for Updates. Automatic checking is off until you turn it on in Settings, General. An update is only installed if it carries a signature made with my key.

What each version changed is in the release notes. Update checks omit hardware profiling; the host receives normal connection information. The privacy page says exactly what does and does not leave the machine.

Credits

Metadata is written by ExifTool by Phil Harvey, copyright 2003 to 2026, used under the same terms as Perl itself. The bundled distribution includes an IPTC language-alternative compatibility patch and runs with the Perl that comes with macOS.

The demonstration photographs are licensed Unsplash images and a CC0 camera RAW sample, credited in the site’s sources file. They are not client work.

Get in touch

Email [email protected] with your macOS version, the Ingest version from Settings, General, and your camera model. Tell me what you pressed and what happened. You never need to send me a photograph to report a problem.

Claude Second Opinion

This optional feature needs Claude Code installed and signed in to your Claude subscription. It uses your account’s connection and usage limits. It is separate from the built-in on-device checks, which do not require Claude. Review what Ask sends to Anthropic before using it.