cullzy
early access

Everything it does, today.

One photo at a time, into real folders, with nothing ever deleted. Around that: the piles it finds for you, photos back in the order they happened, and proof that every file is where it should be.

One photo, one key, one folder

The whole app is this: a photo is on screen, you press a key, and the file is in that folder.

  • Press a key, it's filed

    Every pile is a real folder, sitting next to the originals. Open it in Finder halfway through if you want.

    any key

  • Keep, without moving

    Some photos are already where they belong. K decides them and moves nothing.

    k

  • A whole run, in one keypressnew

    Shift-click a run of thumbnails, or ⌘-click a few, then press a key. All of them are filed, and one undo puts all of them back.

    ⇧ click⌘ click

  • Make a folder mid-flow

    Search your folders by name, or type one that doesn't exist yet and it's made, without putting the photo down.

    ⌘ k

  • Drag, if you'd rather

    Drop a photo, or a whole selection, onto a folder in the sidebar.

  • Pairs move togethernew

    A RAW and its JPEG, a Live Photo and its video, and the sidecar files beside them are one item. File it and all of them move, or none do. Nothing is left orphaned.

  • Set up for your pilenew

    Tell it who you're sorting for (everyday, family history or photography) and it starts with piles that fit and the order that makes sense: scans in folder order, since a scan's date is the day it was scanned, and shoots in the order taken. Only a starting point. Every feature is in every mode.

  • Folders by date, if you want themnew

    Any pile can file into year, month or day folders inside it — travel/2019/2019-07 — made as you go.

The piles it finds for you

Some decisions are the same four hundred times. Cullzy finds those groups and hands them to you as one choice. It points; you decide.

  • Screenshotsnew

    Found by name, by what macOS already knows, and by being exactly the size of a phone screen with no camera behind it. A boarding pass and a meme look the same to a rule, so they are selected for you to look over, never filed.

  • Exact copiesnew

    The same file, byte for byte, in two places. Select the extra copies in one go. One copy of every photo is always left out of that selection, so you can't lose the last one.

  • Near-copiesnew

    The same photo saved twice — re-sent, resized, re-saved — found by what it looks like rather than its bytes. The best copy is kept out of the selection.

  • WhatsApp and Telegram forwardsnew

    Good-morning images, receipts, the same invite eleven times. Read from the names the apps give their files, so it's a fact, not a guess. Signal and Messenger too. Put them first and clear them in one run.

  • Look-alikes, blurry shots, and search by what's in itnew

    Optional, and off until you turn it on. Your Mac's own on-device vision finds look-alikes, blurry or accidental shots (macOS 15), receipts, pets and food, and ⌘k finds a photo by what's in it or the words on it. Nothing is uploaded.

    ⌘ k

  • What it couldn't open, said out loudnew

    A file it can't open isn't quietly skipped. "312 videos and photos not shown", with a button that shows you one in Finder.

In the order it happened

A real drive is four phones, a camera and ten years of chats. The same day should arrive together.

  • Sorted by when it was takennew

    Not by file name, which puts IMG_0001 from 2019 next to IMG_0001 from 2013. Switch back to folder by folder any time.

  • One event at a timenew

    More than four hours between photos starts a new event, labelled plainly: "Sat 14 Mar, 09:41 – 18:20 · 214 photos". Select the whole event and file it at once.

  • The date, honestlynew

    Shown from what the camera wrote. When a file carries no date at all, it says "file date" instead of pretending.

The space you're making

Nobody opens this because they have too many photos. They open it because the drive is full.

  • Sizes, not just countsnew

    Every pile shows how much it holds, and the finished screen says how much moved. 61 GB in delete is the number that matters.

  • The desktop, the old drive and downloads, in one gonew

    Add as many folders as you like to one sitting, even halfway through. One queue, one set of piles.

  • Names that sort, if you want themnew

    Keep file names as they are, put the date first (2019-07-04 — IMG_0431.jpg), or name them for their folder (Goa 014.jpg). Undo brings the original name back.

Nothing is ever lost

Sorting is a file move, and nothing is deleted. Here's how you can check.

  • Undo that survives a quit

    Close it on Friday with a photo in the wrong pile, and the first thing you press on Sunday can take it back.

    ⌘ z

  • Stops and starts where you left off

    Saved after every single photo. Ten minutes tonight, the rest on Sunday, same place in the queue.

  • Copies checked before the original goesnew

    Moving between drives means copying first. Cullzy reads the copy back and compares every byte before it removes the original. If they differ, the original stays put.

  • A list of every movenew

    Save a spreadsheet of every file: where it was, where it is now, and when. Your files, and the receipt for them.

  • Empty folders, tidied upnew

    Sorting leaves empty folders behind. Cullzy offers to send them to the bin, not delete them — even an empty folder isn't deleted without asking.

  • The delete pile, emptied when you saynew

    A pile called delete is just a folder. When you're done, cullzy offers to send what you filed there to the bin, and asks first, with cancel as the default. It never happens on its own.

  • Nothing leaves your Mac

    No account and no cloud. Your photos never leave your Mac, and it only touches the folders you point it at. The one thing it asks the internet is whether there's a new version, and you can turn that off.

  • Updates that tell you they existnew

    A new build is noticed and mentioned, and installs when you quit — never in the middle of a pile.

It opens what your camera writes

Phones, cameras, drones, the old family scanner. If it's a photo, it probably opens.

  • 75 photo file types, 37 of them RAW

    JPEG, PNG, HEIC, WebP, AVIF, PSD, TIFF and the awkward tail, plus RAW from Canon, Nikon, Sony, Fujifilm, Olympus, Panasonic, Leica, Pentax, Hasselblad and the phones that shoot DNG. Previews come from the JPEG your camera already embedded, which is why paging through a shoot is quick.

  • Video plays, not a thumbnail of video

    MP4, MOV, M4V and WebM play in place. Seek, step a frame, mute, loop, change the speed.

    space← →mls

A closer look, when it's a close call

Most photos take a second. The few that don't get every tool you'd want, without leaving the pile.

  • Side by sidenew

    Two to four photos next to each other, zoomed and panned together. It marks the sharpest; enter keeps one and selects the rest.

    c

  • What the camera knewnew

    Camera, lens, exposure, when it was taken, where it was taken, and which files move with it.

    i

  • Tags that travel with the filenew

    Written into JPEG and HEIC files, and into a sidecar beside a RAW, as ordinary keywords any photo app can read.

    g

  • Rotate without re-savingnew

    A sideways JPEG is turned by its orientation tag, so the picture itself is never re-compressed. Undo turns it back.

    []

  • Zoom, thumbnails, favourites, Finder

    Zoom in, fit to screen, flick to thumbnails, favourite it, or reveal it in Finder.

    frt

Still to come.

The first list is what the first paid build has to finish. The second is a wishlist: ideas, not promises, and you get a vote.

by launch · What the first paid build has to finish.

  • A Windows build

    Mac is first because it was written on one. Windows is being packaged right behind it, off the same code.

  • It just opens

    Signed and notarised, with everything that reads RAW and video already inside it. No Homebrew, no Terminal, no dialog asking whether you meant it.

  • Buy it once

    One licence key, no subscription, and a page that posts it back to you when you lose it.

  • Try it free for 7 days

    The whole app, on as many photos as you like. You'll know in an evening whether this is how you want to spend a Sunday.

  • A first minute that explains itself

    Pick a folder, name a few piles, and the first photo is on screen — with the keys visible until you stop needing them.

after that · Ideas, not promises. Asked-for twice gets built first.

Missing the one thing you'd need? Say what you'd press, and what you'd expect to happen.

request a feature