How-to

Naming cameras, cards and operators

Your footage files under the names you choose. Name things after your kit, or after your people - Stow does not mind which.

Help3 min read

Every offload lands in a folder tree that ends <Camera>/<Card>, and both of those names are yours to set. The field is called Camera, but it is free text: "Sony FX6", "A-Cam", "Nina", or "FX6 · Nina" all work, and the folder simply follows. That one fact is most of this article - the rest is where to click.

A queued card in Stow's Cards list, showing the card name in bold and the camera label beneath it
A queued card. The bold name at the top is the card; the smaller label beneath is the camera. Both can be clicked and changed.

Name a camera once, everywhere

When you add a card from a camera Stow has not met, it asks you to name it. Whatever you type becomes that camera's folder name from then on - and the name is carried onto every destination drive during offloads, so every machine running Stow learns it. Name the body once at the start of a job and it is done for the season.

The Name this camera dialog, showing the detected model code and a free-text name field
Stow identifies the camera from the card and shows its model code. The name you give it is remembered by every machine.

The dialog appears on its own, and only for a camera's first meeting - once a body is named, Stow stops asking. Clicking the label on a queued card changes that card alone; the remembered name stays as it is. Camera detection is automatic and fully offline - no account, no internet needed.

One honest limit: the prompt needs the card to report a model code, which most cameras write and some devices do not. A source with no readable code files under Source_01 - give it a per-card label for now.

Relabel one card, just for today

Two identical bodies on the same shoot is the classic case: both cards say the same camera, and the edit wants to know which was which. Click the camera label on the queued card and give that card only a label - A-Cam, B-Cam, or anything else. The camera's remembered name is untouched, so future cards from the same body still recognise themselves.

The Camera label for this card dialog with a free-text folder label field
The per-card label. It applies to this card only - handy for A-Cam / B-Cam days.

Naming by operator, for bigger teams

On drama and commercial sets the convention is camera letters and roll numbers, and the operator's name lives in the camera report rather than the folder tree. But on events, documentaries and multi-shooter jobs, kits are personal - three devices carried by one person are more usefully filed under that person's name than under three model numbers.

Stow supports both without a setting: when Stow first meets a body and asks for a name, give it the operator's. "Nina" as a camera name means everything that body shoots files under Nina, on every machine. For a camera that already carries a name, use the per-card label - a few seconds per session. And if your team runs several devices per person, a combined label like "Nina · FX6" keeps both facts in the path.

The card name matters too. The bold name on the queued card row becomes the last folder in the tree. Stow suggests one from the card itself; click it to change it before you press Start.

Stow is free for macOS and Windows. If you have not tried it yet, the download is here.

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