Desktop client
Rawback Desktop is a native app for macOS and Windows. Point it at a folder — or at a memory card you have just mounted — and it transfers everything over SFTP in the background while you keep working.
Download the installer from the Rawback Desktop page.
Apple silicon only. Open the DMG and drag Rawback to your Applications folder. The Mac build is signed and notarized, so it opens without extra steps. Intel Macs are not supported.
64-bit Windows 10 and Windows 11. Run the installer — it installs for the current user and lets you pick the location. Windows on ARM and 32-bit Windows are not supported.
Windows shows a SmartScreen warning
The Windows installer is not code-signed yet, so Microsoft Defender SmartScreen may say Windows protected your PC. Once you have confirmed the file came from the official Rawback download page, choose More info and then Run anyway. Do not turn SmartScreen off system-wide.
Rawback Desktop and the rawback CLI share one session, stored in ~/.rawback/credentials.json. Signing in or out of either one moves the other with it.
The quickest way. Rawback opens your browser on an approval page, you confirm the request, and the app signs itself in as soon as you approve. Leave the app open while you approve — it is waiting for the answer.
Below the divider on the same screen, enter the email and password for your Rawback account.
Open Uploads in the sidebar. There are three ways to add a shoot, and folders are always scanned recursively, so nested date or card folders come along:
The tray menu carries Add Files… and Add Folder… too, so you can queue a batch without bringing the window forward.
Insert the card, and it mounts as an ordinary drive. Use Add folder and select the card's DCIM directory — Rawback walks it recursively and picks up every supported file inside.
The first time on macOS
macOS asks for permission the first time an app reads a removable volume. Allow it, or the card's folders come back empty.
If you shoot Canon and you are on a paid plan, you can skip the card reader entirely: connect the body over CCAPI on the Camera screen and browse the card in the camera, importing what you want without ever taking it out.
Before anything leaves your machine, Rawback reads each file's capture time and checks the batch against what your library already holds — matching on filename and EXIF capture time — and confirms the batch fits your remaining storage. You get a count of eligible and skipped files, and then Start secure upload begins the transfer: eight files at a time, straight over SFTP.
You do not need to set up an SFTP credential by hand. On your first upload Rawback creates one, names it after this computer, and saves it where the CLI can reuse it.
If an upload is interrupted, restarting picks the batch back up at the next whole file.
Closing the window hides Rawback to the system tray rather than quitting it. The tray icon carries the current progress, and its menu can pause after the active files, resume, or retry whatever failed. On macOS you also get a small progress readout in the notch area while a transfer runs.
Everything shared between Desktop and the CLI sits in ~/.rawback/:
| File | What it holds |
|---|---|
credentials.json | Your session tokens |
config.yml | Hosts, SFTP settings, metadata options |
upload-state.json | The upload queue, history and trusted hosts |
cameras.json | Saved Canon cameras |
On macOS and Linux the directory is created private to you, and Rawback refuses to upload if config.yml is readable by anyone else.
Settings → Configuration file shows config.yml read-only with the SFTP password replaced by [REDACTED]; use Open config file to edit it. The one knob worth knowing about is how many files Rawback parses metadata for at once:
metadata:
concurrency: 8Any whole number from 1 to 64 works. Leave the block out to let Rawback size the pool from your CPU and memory, which is the right choice on most machines. This setting does not change the eight simultaneous SFTP transfers, and Rawback needs a restart to pick it up.
Images: JPEG, PNG, WebP, GIF, TIFF, HEIC/HEIF, BMP and AVIF.
RAW: CR2, CR3, NEF, ARW, DNG, RAF, ORF, PEF, RW2, SRW and X3F.
rawback.