The legacy version of Rapid Photo Downloader is 0.4.11. The features here refer to that legacy version. To learn about the most recent version, go here.

The file names created by cameras are largely meaningless. Based on options you specify, Rapid Photo Downloader can:

• 1rename camera generated file names
• 2automatically create download folders that make your workflow more efficient

Generate file and subfolder names using:

• 1photo and video date and time
• 2photo and video metadata like aperture, shutter speed and codec
• 3sequence numbers and letters — you can even synchronize RAW + JPEG sequence numbers
• 4elements from the original filename
• 5free text
• 6job codes, which are entered before a new download begins

Whether you regularly take thousands of photos a session, or your needs are more modest, Rapid Photo Downloader can download huge numbers of photos and videos with minimum fuss.

Rapid Photo Downloader has been carefully optimized to download your files at the highest speed possible using the least system resources. It downloads photos and videos between 2 and 9 times faster than Shotwell, depending on your system.* It can download photos and videos from multiple devices in parallel. Simply plug in as many as you need, and they will be automatically detected.

It will also back up to multiple devices in parallel.

Please note: support for downloading directly from a camera is experimental. It works better with some cameras than others. You may find that if you can set your camera to PTP mode, it will work better—it will be recognized as an external drive by Linux.

* Test conducted on January 8, 2012 using 143 CR2 photos totaling 3.7GB from a Canon 5D Mk II. The files were downloaded using a Transcend 400x 64GB CompactFlash card in a Lexar Professional ExpressCard reader on a Lenovo W520. With 1 CPU core only, Rapid Photo Downloader 0.4.3 took 1 minute and 12 seconds, and Shotwell 0.11.6 took 9 minutes 56 seconds. With 4 CPU cores with Hyper Threading enabled, Rapid Photo Downloader took 1 minute and 7 seconds, and Shotwell took 2 minutes 15 seconds.

As it downloads your photos and videos, Rapid Photo Downloader can back up to devices like external hard drives. It can:

• 1use as many backup devices as you can plug in
• 2automatically recognize backup devices as soon as they are inserted
• 3back up to a location that never changes, such a network directory
• 4back up photos to one device and videos to another, or use the same devices for both

The folder structure and filenames used for the backups will be identical to those used for downloading onto your computer's primary drive.

Rapid Photo Downloader enhances your productivity:

• 1common tasks can be automated—start downloading on program startup and device insertion, unmount devices when completed, delete dowloaded images from devices, and exit automatically when finished downloading
• 2preferences are configured using an easy to use dialog window, without the need for complicated codes

Rapid Photo Downloader runs under Gnome, KDE and other Linux desktop environments like Xfce.

Rapid Photo Downloader has been translated into Chinese, Spanish, French, German, Polish, Russian, Finnish, Italian, Swedish, Czech, Dutch, Hungarian, Danish, Serbian, Ukrainian and Norwegian Nynorsk. It has been partially translated into Bulgarian, Croatian, Estonian, Indonesian, Japanese, Norwegian Bokmal, Occitan (post 1500), Persian, Portuguese (Brazilian), Romanian, and Turkish. Additional languages are most welcome. Read this to learn more about how you can translate Rapid Photo Downloader into your own language.