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Changelog

Every version, and what changed.

Stow is free and stays free. Most of what is below came from people telling us what was missing, which is the fastest way to get something changed. The current version is 0.7.4, for macOS and Windows.

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0.7.4

Current
  • See where the files will goEvery card shows the whole path, with the names you have typed, just above Add to queue, so you can check it before the copy starts.
  • Join folders into one nameDrop one folder onto the middle of another to make names like DIA_01_2026-09-28. A joined folder can be split again.
  • Footage straight into your own folderSwitch off Card folder and the footage lands in the last folder you built, with no folder named after the card. A second card sent there gets its own folder beside it.
  • Usual drivesSet the shoot's drives once, in Settings or from a card. Every new card starts on them, and Back to usual drives undoes a one-off in one click.
  • Clear a finished cardA finished card greys out, and Remove takes it off Setup. Its report stays in the queue and in History.
  • A clearer cardWhat to copy, Copy to and How to organise it each sit in their own numbered panel, and the answer you chose is outlined.
  • Smaller improvementsThe folder chips sit above the folders, the list is called Saved layouts, each card names the layout it is using, and the History list can be cleared from History or Settings.

0.7.2

  • Folder layouts in SettingsBuild a folder layout and save it with nothing in the reader, the night before a shoot if you like. With no card in, the start screen links straight to it. Saved layouts are offered under More layouts on every card.
  • Update a saved layoutPick a saved layout, change it and save it: keep its name to update it, or give it a new name to make a copy.
  • Rename and delete any layoutRight-click a layout under More layouts to rename or delete it, including the three that come with Stow. Those can be brought back from Settings.
  • Deep folders on WindowsStow verifies copies in folders nested as deep as you like, including long paths on a NAS.

0.7.0

  • One screen for setup and progressCards being set up sit on the left and the queue on the right, and starting a copy leaves everything where it is, so you can get the next card ready while the last one copies beside it. Click a finished card in the queue and its report opens beside it. The window opens at full height, with the attached disks docked along the bottom.
  • Set up every card, then startNothing copies until you add a card to the queue and press Start copying. Set up as many as you like first. A card you add while a run is going waits its turn.
  • Every card has its own setupEach card carries its own drives, its own folders, and the whole card or just the footage, so two cards in one run can go to different drives and be filed differently. A new card starts from the last card's choices.
  • One list of disksEverything plugged in is listed together, cards first, with a Card mark on the ones Stow recognises. Drag a disk onto Cards to copy from it, or onto a card's Copy to to copy onto it. A disk is a card or a drive, never both.
  • Build your own foldersStack Date, Client, Shoot name, Camera and your own names above the card's folder, drag them into order, and save the result as a layout. The card shows where the footage will land, and the card's own folder always sits last.
  • HistoryEvery card this computer has offloaded, by day, with its verdict and the folder the footage went to, an Open folder button on every row, and a search across card, camera and folder. Nothing leaves your machine.
  • Pause, resume, take a card outPause holds the queue until you resume. The × on any row takes that card out; what is already copied and verified stays on the drives, so adding it again copies only what is missing. Stop all sits in the queue header while a run is going.
  • One at a time for new installsNew installs copy one card at a time, which suits a NAS or hard drives. All at once is still in Settings.
  • Re-check a backupNow in the ··· menu: point it at a folder Stow copied and it checks every file against the proof files.
  • Safe to formatStow now says safe to format throughout, the words your camera uses.
  • Changed files are copied againStow now checks each file's time on the card as well as its size, so anything the camera has changed since the last copy is copied again, and Stow says so.
  • Every card has a folder of its ownA card's folder is chosen to suit every drive it goes to, and two cards that look alike are always kept apart.
  • Smaller improvementsIf a drive is unplugged or fills up at the end of a run, the other drives still get their verdict and that one is counted as not verified. A stopped card can finish on any drive with room for the rest. A folder name typed with / or : stays one folder, on Mac and Windows alike. Starting a new run keeps the last run's results. Just the footage leaves the camera's housekeeping files out of the count. The computer's own folders at the root of a card are never copied or counted. An unplugged card waiting in the queue steps out and says Not plugged in.

0.6.60

  • Cards at a timeA new switch in Settings, under Offload: All at once, or One at a time. All at once is how Stow has worked since cards began copying together, and it stays the default: with SSDs and a fast network you only wait for the slowest card. One at a time is for a NAS or hard drives, where several cards writing together can be slower in total than the same cards in turn. Load every card at the start and walk away: the first copies and verifies, then the next begins, in the order they were added. A card added mid-offload joins the queue, and Start now on its row still starts it by hand. Asked for by a user whose NAS took one card at 80 to 100 MB/s and two at 40 combined.
  • The date in folder namesThe shoot date can be written 2026-09-19, 20260919, 260919 or 19092026. The year-first forms sort in date order; day first reads the way many people write a date, and does not. Offloads already on a drive keep the folders they have, and a card that resumes lands where it was first filed, whatever the switch says now.
  • Hide the drives you never offload toSettings, under Offload, lists the connected drives with a Hide button each: a backup disk, a system partition, a drive that is always plugged in. A hidden drive only leaves the list; nothing on it changes, and the same page shows it again. A card is never hidden, nor a drive in use as a destination.
  • Rate Stow no longer asks twiceThe tick that had to be ticked before a rating could be quoted has gone. What you send may appear as a review on the Stow website, and the terms say so. Anyone who sent a rating under the old wording keeps the answer they gave.
  • FixedmacOS's own volumes (Recovery, Preboot, VM, Update) no longer appear under Drives. Stop no longer hands the run to the next queued card. Contact us, Rate Stow and joining the update list reach us again: Stow's requests carried no name, the site was entitled to refuse them, and it did, from the day each feature shipped. Stow now says who it is on every request. Both the contact fault and the system volumes were found by the same user, who wrote in by email when the form would not send.

0.6.58

  • Media onlyThe second setting under Card contents. Every video, photo and audio file lands flat under its card folder with the files that belong beside it, and the card's other files stay on the card, counted on the row and named in the proof files. Seven plain rules decide it, the same on every card: media by extension from one list, proxies included; a file beside a media file whose name starts with the media file's name comes along (Sony's XML, a GoPro's .LRV, Blackmagic's .sidecar); the only cards kept whole are P2, Canon XF, RED and AVCHD with recordings, and the row names the file that decided it; the chosen mode always wins for a new run, so an earlier copy in another shape is named and a fresh copy made beside it; and every decision is written on the row and in the log with its reason. The camera's thumbnails go in a thumbs folder beside the clips. Two people asked for this in the same fortnight from opposite ends. Clips & Photos is retired; a saved setting reads as Media only.
  • Every file, on the reportA second page per destination lists every file that drive holds for the session, per card: video, photos, audio, other files, then what was left on the card by choice, each with its size and that drive's own verdict. Save as PDF… at the top of the report opens the print dialog, whose PDF option is the PDF. The report keeps your machine's clock, with the zone named, rather than UTC.
  • A card is named by what its files sayA body in video mode used to carry no model and ask for a name on every card. The clips themselves now name it: Canon's embedded thumbnail, QuickTime's make and model, Nikon and GoPro tags, Sony's clip XML, and the maker strings inside MXF, BRAW, R3D and ARRI files. A Blackmagic card is named after the camera, not the LUT baked into the clip.
  • The tray reads the hardwareOn a Mac, a Thunderbolt SSD says Thunderbolt, a PCIe reader says PCIe, the Mac's own disk says Internal, and removable media lands under Cards even before it has anything on it. A card is called a card ("Card · 512 GB free"), and every ejectable disk under Drives carries Add as card for a card Stow could not vouch for. A card no longer stays filed under Drives for the whole session after a wrap or a re-plug, and a card in a USB reader is read the same way on Windows as on a Mac.
  • Wrap and unwrap have two homesA card wrapped after a verified copy unwraps from its tray chip, through an Unwrap… button that asks first. A Black box wrap, with no verified copy, unwraps in the Black box beside its warning. A click on a wrapped chip itself never does anything.
  • A card added mid-run says what will happen to it"Copying now", "Queued · after CARD01" or "Waiting for Start", with one Start now button beside it. New installs default to After this one, because a second card sharing the destination slows the one already copying. Start now on a card still being read says so, and a card can never be started twice.
  • A sleeping NAS never holds the windowLaunch and adding a card used to freeze for as long as a network drive took to wake. Every step that touches a destination now runs beside the window, and a destination that does not answer within ten seconds is named on the row as not checked while the run goes ahead. No more white window when Stow starts with a card in the reader, either.
  • Failures are said, not swallowedNaming a camera, clearing history, the test alerts, feedback, the report, stopping a run and the Black box scan all confirmed success after a refusal. Each now shows the engine's message, and anything else that goes wrong appears in a small notice under the header.
  • A destination drive is never filed as a cardA 4 TB SSD used as a destination appeared under Cards as a Nikon on the strength of a render one folder down. A fixed drive is opened only when its root carries a card's layout, and a card is judged by what it holds, not by the folders it carries: a Sony body's empty AVCHD skeleton no longer refuses the card.
  • The report is written where the cards landedA single-copy run wrote no report, because the folder was worked out from today's fields while a resumed card had landed under its own earlier date. The report now follows the cards, one per destination, and a folder that cannot be written is said.
  • The Black box tells the truthA refused wrap shows the engine's message, leaves no marker on the card, and is only reported once the card's first sector reads back as wrapped; every wrap and unwrap is logged. Its lists follow the reader, it waits up to three seconds for a card that antivirus or Search is holding, the second card you wrap appears in the tray on a Mac, and the marker is removed once a card is unwrapped.
  • Smaller thingsThe window opens in your theme, and the light theme is readable everywhere. A text part in a custom folder layout can be edited in place. A proxy keeps its clip's name. The window opens larger, the page is wider, and the card row lays itself out so a wide pill never covers the label chip.

0.6.47

  • The Black boxA quiet section at the bottom of Settings, under Maintenance, for tools that step outside the usual promise. The first one wraps a card without a backup, for footage you have decided not to keep, such as test or practice cards that need to read as "format me" on the next insert. Stow scans the card first so the confirmation names exactly what is at stake, the wrap button stays greyed until you tick the line that says the footage is not backed up, and a card wrapped this way is marked "not backed up" on the card itself, so it can never be mistaken for a wrap made after a verified offload. Reversible like every wrap. Asked for by a user whose studio hands cards to young filmmakers.
  • Copies keep their Created date on every driveOn a Mac, a copy's Created date showed the moment of the offload on exFAT and NTFS drives, while Mac-formatted drives corrected it by accident, which is why some destinations looked right and others wrong on the same run. Every verified copy now carries the original date on both stamps, on every filesystem. Found by a user's careful report of one drive behaving differently from the other two.
  • The label dialog says why it openedOn a source with no model code or serial, clicking the camera chip has always fallen through to the per-card label, but the only explanation lived in a hover tooltip, so it read like the input being hijacked. The dialog now explains itself. Reported, precisely, by a user.
  • Clips only is now Clips & Photos, and it means it on Sony cardsSony hybrid cards keep their photos in a separate DCIM tree beside the video structure, and until now those stills were filed away under _card/ while the clips landed flat. Photos are first-class bundles now, a raw and its JPEG travelling together, exactly like a clip and its sidecar.
  • The light theme is readable everywhereThe update banner's headline was hard-coded white, along with a handful of other hard-coded colours that are now proper theme tokens. Every screen passes a measured contrast check in both themes.
  • Check now answers where you askedWhen a newer version exists, the Updates row in Settings offers "Get the update" right there, instead of pointing you back at the banner.
  • A Roadmap link in SettingsStow's development board is public now, what is being built, what has been asked for, and what has shipped, and the app links straight to it.
  • The update-list entry no longer shows your addressOnce you have joined the product updates list, Settings simply says you have joined. Leaving stays where it was: one click in any email.

0.6.45

  • Offloading to a NAS works on a MacNetwork shares refuse the deep flush-to-disk request Stow makes after writing each file, and the fallback to the ordinary flush was accidentally making the same deep request a second time - so every file offloaded to an SMB share from a Mac was reported as cut short, even though the bytes themselves were fine. The fallback now genuinely falls back, and the read-back verification, which network storage supports properly, remains the proof of every copy. Found thanks to a user who tested against both a Synology and a Ubiquiti NAS and reported that local drives ran clean - exactly the detail that cracked it. Windows was never affected.
  • Custom text works in the layout editor on a MacThe Custom text option asked macOS for a small text dialog the system never shows, so the click silently did nothing on every Mac. The text is now typed straight into the menu itself: Enter or Add confirms, Escape steps back. Reported by a user testing on an M3 MacBook - the first person to catch it.
  • The Add part menu opens where you clickedIt used to appear detached near the top-left corner of the window on both platforms.

0.6.43

  • Custom folder layoutA fourth Folder layout preset, Custom, opens an editor where the filing path is a row of parts, Client, Project, Shoot date, Camera, Card, A/B label, or your own text such as RUSHES, that you drag into the order you want and can join inside one folder name. Save it as a named layout and pick it per job. The line that previews where a card will land is drawn by the same code that does the filing, so it cannot tell you one thing and do another.
  • Clips onlyA second switch on the Setup screen, off by default: clips land flat under each card folder instead of inside the camera's own folder maze, and the card's other files go in a _card folder. Nothing is discarded and every file is verified exactly as before. A clip and its sidecar always move together, and the proof files gain a paths.tsv mapping every original path to its new one. Cards whose clips depend on their structure, P2, Canon XF, RED and AVCHD, are copied in full whatever the switch says, and the card row says why.
  • Name every new sourceThe first time Stow meets a new card or drive it asks you to name it, whether or not the card carries a camera model code. A plain USB stick, a drone or a 360 camera is remembered by its own serial, so nothing files under Source_01 forever. A camera can also be renamed everywhere from the card row.
  • Alerts say which machine and which cardThe phone alert now opens with the computer's name and the job, then lists every card with its own outcome: verified, verified on a single copy, failed, or stopped. With more than one edit bay running Stow, "2 of 3 cards verified" left you guessing where it came from and which card to go back for.
  • Show clipsA link on the result screen opens the folder the footage actually sits in, so a verified card is one click from its rushes instead of a folder crawl. The offload report prints the same folder under each card.
  • Run failed cards againOn a red result the main button re-runs only the failed cards against the same destinations.
  • Settings is a pageSettings moved out of a dialog into a full page with a rail: Appearance, Offload, Wrap, Alerts, Maintenance, Rate Stow, and Help and Contact us on the same rail, with the relevant guides beside each section. Appearance is new: Theme (Dark, Light or System) and a Matte surface option.
  • Help shape StowAfter an offload finishes, Stow offers once to tell you when there is a version worth having: what changed and, where it came from someone's feedback, why. It is optional, it never appears beside the safe-to-format verdict, and Not now means it never asks again.
  • Rate StowA new Settings section: a rating out of five and a few lines about how it has been on real jobs. Any rating is useful and a low one most of all. Permission to quote you on the website is a separate tick, unticked by default.

0.6.35

  • Copy only what's newWhen a card comes back part-full, Stow now offers a choice before anything copies: copy everything again, or copy only the files that are new since the last offload. The offer names exactly what it would skip and when it was copied, and it asks every run, nothing is remembered. Anything the log cannot vouch for is copied, and a run that skipped files never marks the card safe to format: that verdict still needs a run that has checked the whole card.
  • An offload log on the card, if you want oneA new switch: after each verified offload, Stow writes one small readable text file to the card recording what was copied, when, and where to, so any machine can see the card's history at a glance. Off by default. This and Wrap are the only occasions Stow ever writes to a card, and the file is safe to delete at any time. It is also what powers the copy-only-what's-new offer above.
  • A formatted card can no longer pretend it was already transferredSome cameras give a card the same identity every time they format it, so a freshly formatted, reshot card could be shown as already offloaded and resume into the previous day's folder. Stow now checks the card's actual contents before trusting its identity: a genuine re-plug still resumes exactly as before, and a formatted card is treated as the new card it is. Reported from the field by a working crew, with a write-up precise enough to fix it the same week. Thank you.
  • A setup wizard on first launchA short walk through the choices worth making once: disk access on the Mac, how updates work, the card log, Wrap, and a pointer to phone alerts. Every step can be skipped, and the wizard never stands between a card in hand and an offload. Settings can bring it back any time.
  • Contact us, straight from the appThe last item in the menu: a bug report, a feature request, or just to say hello. Name optional; the reply goes to the email you give, and it is used for nothing else. Pressing Send is the only thing that transmits your message.
  • A small blue dot marks what's newWhen an update adds something to the menu or Settings, a blue dot sits on it until you have had a look, so new features stop hiding.
  • Settings reads as sections, and the words got friendlierSettings is now grouped into Offload, Wrap, Alerts, Updates and History, the wizard and Help lead with what each feature does for you, and phone alerts gained a proper step-by-step guide on the site. One change to know about: the daily update check can no longer be switched off. It stays exactly as anonymous as before, one small file fetched once a day with nothing about you in the request, but running a current version is part of the safety promise. Offline machines simply skip it silently.

0.6.29

  • Updates finish the job nowInstalling an update used to end in silence: the new version was on disk, but the app neither restarted nor said anything. The update now narrates every step, downloading with a percentage, installing, restarting, and in the rare case Stow cannot restart itself, it says plainly: quit and open it again to finish.
  • Check for updates when you want, and a dot when one is waitingCheck for updates now sits in the app menu, and in Settings, and both answer plainly either way. If a new version exists and you close the notice, a small dot stays on the menu until you are actually up to date. Closing the message does not close the fact.
  • Stow offers to clear the installer you no longer needAfter a fresh install, the file you downloaded is still sitting in your Downloads folder. Stow points this out once, names the exact file, and on your yes moves it to the Bin on a Mac or deletes it on Windows, saying so plainly. It only ever touches Stow's own installer files, only in Downloads, and if you decline it never mentions that file again.

0.6.26

  • Stow's own design system, and a light modeThe whole app moved onto Instrument, the design system built for it: a calmer gunmetal interface, IBM Plex throughout, and verdict colours checked for contrast so a result reads at a glance. There is a light theme now too, and Stow follows your system setting automatically.
  • A wrapped card always finds its way backOn a Mac, a wrapped card used to vanish from the tray, and macOS itself would offer to initialise it, which would erase the footage. Stow now remembers every card it wraps and shows it in the tray as Wrapped, click to unwrap, even after quitting and reopening the app. Before anything is written, Stow re-reads the card and refuses to touch anything that is not genuinely its own wrap.
  • Wrap with a single verified copy, if you chooseA second switch, off by default, offers Wrap when only one verified copy exists. The result stays amber, and the confirmation says plainly which part is reversible: wrapping is, formatting the card in your camera is not.
  • Settings save themselvesEvery switch writes to disk the moment you change it. The Save button is gone, and with it the way a change could quietly fail to stick.
  • Permissions that stay granted, and smaller fixesThe Mac build's signing identity is now stable, so disk-access approvals survive updates instead of being asked for again each time, and a first-launch guide walks the one-time setup through. Ejecting a card now removes it from the sources list, the window no longer jumps between Setup and Result, and the Wrap offer after an offload now appears on the Mac as it always did on Windows.

0.6.17

  • Every card at oncePut three cards in and all three copy and verify together, each with its own row and its own verdict. A multi-card session now takes about as long as its slowest card, instead of the sum of all of them.
  • Signed and notarised on both platformsNo security warning to click past on either Mac or Windows, and updates now install from inside the app.
  • Wrap a finished cardOnce a card is verified you can Wrap it, and the camera offers a fresh format next time it goes in. Finished and unfinished cards stop looking identical in the pouch. It is off by default, Unwrap puts it straight back, and it is the only time Stow writes to a card.
  • Folder layout presets, and a tidier disk trayChoose how deep the folder tree goes, from client and project down to just a date. The disk tray now keeps cards and drives apart, which matters when six drives are already plugged in.
  • A note on your phone when it finishesOptional, and off until you set it up. Useful when a long offload means walking away from the machine.

0.5.0

  • A new look, and smarter card namingA cleaner, flat dark interface built for long days, and reused cards now name themselves from the majority camera on the card, not the first photo found.

0.4.3

  • Per-card camera labelsTwo identical bodies on one shoot? Click a card's camera name and label it A-Cam or B-Cam, that card only. Asked for in the comments, shipped.
  • Update notice and the full Sony rangeA small banner when a new version exists (one tiny version check a day, nothing about you sent, off switch in Settings), and around 120 Sony bodies recognised out of the box.

Earlier

  • Check an archiveRe-verify any offloaded folder against its manifest, months later. Now called Re-check a backup.
  • Verified offload report and checksums.csvOne-page proof of every transfer, written to every destination, ready for a client.
  • Resume where it stoppedPull a card early or lose a drive mid-run, and the next go picks up only what is missing. Replug a card and Stow recognises it, and offers the same session back.

Next

Not shipped yet
  • Extra checksums and ASC MHLMD5, SHA-256 and C4 where a client or a delivery spec requires them. Being looked at, not promised.
  • Cloud destinationsVerified transfer to S3, Dropbox and shared review tools. Being looked at, not promised.

If something here is wrong, or Stow is missing the thing you actually need, tell us. Almost everything above started that way. You can also get an email when there is a new version.