Cull a shoot in minutes, not hours
PhotoCull groups a shoot into scenes, scores every frame for focus, exposure, eyes-open, and overall aesthetic, then exports your picks as XMP sidecars that Lightroom and Capture One read directly. Runs entirely on your own computer — no account, no upload, no subscription.
Download
Version 0.3.0 · release notes
Installing
🍎 macOS
- Open the downloaded
.dmgfile, then drag PhotoCull into your Applications folder. - The first time you open it, don't double-click. Instead, right-click (or Control-click) the app → Open → Open in the dialog that appears. After that first time, it opens normally.
If macOS still refuses with a "damaged" message, open Terminal and run:
xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine "/Applications/PhotoCull.app"
🪟 Windows
- Run the downloaded installer.
- If you see a blue "Windows protected your PC" screen, click More info, then Run anyway.
- If Windows Defender flags or removes the app, add an exclusion for the PhotoCull install folder, or restore it from quarantine in Windows Security.
Both platforms: the first launch needs an internet connection — PhotoCull downloads its face-detection and RAW-decoding model files the first time it runs. After that, everything works fully offline.
Why does my computer warn me about this?
PhotoCull isn't signed with a paid Apple Developer certificate or a Windows code-signing certificate. Those cost money every year, and this is a small, independently-built tool — so both macOS and Windows show you a warning because they can't vouch for who made it. That warning is expected. It doesn't mean the app is unsafe; it means nobody paid to remove the warning.
You don't have to take that on faith, though. Verify the file you downloaded matches exactly what was published by checking its SHA-256 hash — a unique fingerprint of the exact bytes in the file:
macOS (Apple Silicon (M1 and newer)): 0cbb216c9604d7e61f45842794fac7e9cf6a4feda02ccedc8793100796879648
On macOS: shasum -a 256 PhotoCull-0.3.0-macOS-arm64.dmg.
On Windows: certutil -hashfile PhotoCull-0.3.0-Windows-x64.exe SHA256.
If the hash you compute doesn't match the one above, don't install it
— download it again from this page.
What it does with your photos
- ✅ Everything runs on your computer — scoring, faces, RAW decoding, all local and offline.
- ✅ No account, no cloud upload, no telemetry.
- ✅ Your picks and ratings are saved next to your photos, in a small database in a
.photocullfolder inside the shoot itself. - ✅ Exports write standard
.xmpsidecar files next to your originals — nothing is moved or renamed unless you use the optional import tool.
Supported formats
System requirements
macOS
macOS 10.15 (Catalina) or newer. Apple Silicon (M1 and later) today; an Intel build is coming.
Windows
Windows 10 (version 1809) or newer, 64-bit.
A few hundred MB of disk space for the install. No Python or Node.js needed — everything PhotoCull requires is bundled in.
Getting started
Open a shoot folder, and PhotoCull groups it into scenes automatically based on when each photo was taken. Step through with the arrow keys, rate as you go, then export your picks.