English | 日本語

Riffle

A culling app for going through the RAW files you shot, fast, and deciding what to keep and what to throw away.

• It reads only the JPEG previews embedded in the RAW files, so paging through a folder of thousands of shots never keeps you waiting.
• Stars, picks / rejects and color labels are written to sidecar files that tools that read XMP sidecars, such as Lightroom, and DxO PhotoLab can read. The RAW files themselves are never written.
• There is no developing and no editing. It does one thing: choosing.

For the supported formats, see Compatibility; for the verified cameras, see docs/humans/cameras.md.

Getting started

Install

Download the file for your OS from the latest release on the Releases page:

OS	File
macOS, Apple Silicon	Riffle_<version>_aarch64.dmg
macOS, Intel	Riffle_<version>_x64.dmg
Windows	Riffle_<version>_x64-setup.exe
Linux	Riffle_<version>_amd64.AppImage

The app is not signed by the OS vendors, so the first launch needs your permission once:

• macOS: right-click Riffle.app → Open.
• Windows: in the SmartScreen warning, More info → Run anyway.

After that, updates are downloaded automatically on launch and take effect the next time Riffle starts. For the other packages and the details, see docs/humans/usage.md.

First steps

1. Choose your developing software (Lightroom, DxO PhotoLab, or both) in the dialog Riffle shows on its first launch, and for Lightroom also the language its menus are in, so the color labels match its names; both can be changed later in Settings.
2. Drop a folder onto the window (or open one with Cmd+O / Ctrl+O).
3. Page through the shots with ← →, give stars with 1-5 and reject with x.
4. When the focus is in doubt, press z for the 1:1 view and check the focus point.

Judgments are saved to the sidecars as you go, so there is nothing to save. When you are done, they are picked up by tools that read XMP sidecars and by DxO PhotoLab.

Example workflow

1. Open the camera's RAW folder and cull it: stars for the keepers, x for the rest (Key features).
2. Open the folder in Lightroom or DxO PhotoLab, which read the judgments from the sidecars (Working with other software); develop the keepers and export them as JPEGs.
3. Right-click the export folder in the folder tree and choose Sequence JPEG Timestamps… to make <folder>-sequenced/ (Key features).
4. Open <folder>-sequenced/ in Riffle; it opens view-only, so you can check the order (Key features).
5. Upload <folder>-sequenced/ to Google Photos.

Key features

• Folder tree: the left pane browses home and the mounted volumes; click a folder to open it. The click also gives the tree the keyboard: the arrows, Home / End, Enter and typing a name move through and open folders, with the culling keys off until Escape. Right-click a folder to reveal it in Finder / File Explorer / the file manager, copy its path or name, rename it with Rename…, or move its rejects to the Trash, with or without its subfolders; Cmd+click / Ctrl+click and Shift+click select several folders whose rejects the right-click then moves together; a slow second click on the open folder's name renames it too. The name is edited in place: Enter or a click away renames, Escape cancels, and the index, the ratings and the remembered position follow the folder, which reopens under its new name when it was the open one.
• Filmstrip: thumbnails run along the bottom; click one to show it. Cmd+click / Ctrl+click adds or removes one, Shift+click and Shift+← / Shift+→ select a range, Cmd+A / Ctrl+A selects every file the filter shows, and every judgment applies to the whole selection. Right-click a file and choose Rename…, or click the shown file's name again after a moment, to rename it in place: Enter or a click away renames, Escape cancels, and its XMP and .dop sidecars and its ratings move with it. Ctrl+Alt+ArrowDown (Alt+Cmd+ArrowDown on macOS) hides the filmstrip, …ArrowLeft the folder tree, …ArrowRight the meta pane and Tab both side panes, to give the viewer more room (the first three are also check items in the View menu). The meta pane's Maker note group shows the Sony AF, drive, stabilization and picture settings.
• 1:1 focus check: z shows the image at 1:1, centered on the focus point. Paging keeps the zoom.
• Focus mark: f draws the AF frame the camera used around a crosshair on its focus point when the camera records the frame, the crosshair alone when it records only a point, and nothing without an AF point or on manual-focus shots (see What the camera records). The mark is green for a focus candidate, where the eyes of the face nearest the AF point are likely in focus (a probability combining their sharpness and edge width); orange when a face is near the AF point but its eyes are likely not; and white when Riffle does not know (no AF point, manual focus, no face near the point, or not computed yet). The camera's face tracking no longer colors the mark. The cue is computed in a second pass right after the thumbnails, so the marks turn from white as it runs, the files on screen first; the strip marks each candidate with a green face icon at the cell's bottom-left, the meta pane shows the probability as AF eye in focus (a percentage), and the filter menu's AF eye section (Sharp / Soft / Unknown) narrows the strip by the state. The mark also draws the faces Riffle detects near the AF point as a cyan box with a dot between the eyes, a moment after f, since the detection runs when the frame is shown.
• Sharpness cue: a bar beside each thumbnail shows which frame of a burst is sharpest, scored on the camera's eye-AF frame when the camera recorded face tracking, else around the AF point, else on the subject's eyes when the camera recorded no AF point and a face is found, else the sharpest region (see What the camera records). The score is computed in the same second pass as the focus mark's state, so the bars fill in after the thumbnails. Both passes run below normal priority, so the viewer comes first when they compete for the CPU.
• Offline face detection: faces and eyes are found by the bundled YuNet model (MIT license), run locally with no network access. The strip's candidate icon, also on the filter menu's Sharp item, is Lucide's scan-face (ISC license).
• HDR PQ (HEIF) CR3 previews: the HEVC previews of Canon CR3 files shot with HDR PQ on are decoded by the bundled hpvcd (BSD-3-Clause OR Apache-2.0).
• Bursts: frames shot within 1 s of each other share a band and a count badge on the strip; ArrowUp / ArrowDown jump between bursts, Alt+ArrowLeft / Alt+ArrowRight step through the frames of one and stop at its ends, and Shift+x rejects the rest of one. Cameras that record no sub-second capture time are grouped by whole seconds (see What the camera records).
• Compare: v shows 2–4 selected shots together, or the current shot beside the sharpest frame in its burst. Click a frame to rate, pick or reject only that one.
• Move Rejected to Trash: right-click a folder in the folder tree and choose Move Rejected to Trash… to move its rejected shots to the Trash, even a folder you have not opened, or Move Rejected to Trash, Including Subfolders… to do it for a whole year folder at once, or select several folders with Cmd+click / Ctrl+click / Shift+click and right-click to do it for all of them together. A dialog lists the rejects per folder and the total space freed before anything moves. Nothing is deleted, and one Edit > Undo brings the whole move back with the judgments; a file with the same name at the original location, an emptied Trash or a file already restored by hand is reported and left as it is. Edit > Redo then moves what came back to the Trash again.
• Sequence JPEG Timestamps: after culling in Riffle and exporting the keepers as JPEGs from your RAW developer, right-click the export folder in the folder tree and choose Sequence JPEG Timestamps… to space the capture times of a burst one second apart, so Google Photos, which ignores sub-second times, keeps the frames in shooting order. Files are ordered by capture time, then sub-second time, then file name, so a folder exported from two bodies interleaves correctly. A preview shows the new times first. The result is a complete copy in <folder>-sequenced/ next to the export folder, which is shown in your file manager when the run ends; the originals are never touched, and running it again rebuilds the copy from the original times.
• JPEG-only folders: a folder that holds only JPEGs, such as a <folder>-sequenced/ output, opens view-only, so its order and capture times can be checked in Riffle: thumbnails, the preview and the EXIF rows, in capture-time order. Stars, flags, color labels, sidecars and the focus cue do not apply there.
• MCP companion: an MCP client, such as an AI assistant, can follow along while you cull: read what Riffle shows, look at a preview, move the view and record stars, picks / rejects and labels the way the keys do. It is off by default, listens on this computer only and cannot move anything to the Trash (see MCP companion).

Every feature, and the full key reference, is described in docs/humans/usage.md (Keys).

Working with other software

Judgments are saved in a sidecar file next to the RAW. The format is chosen on the first launch and can be changed in the settings:

• Lightroom (XMP): FOO.ARW gets FOO.xmp, the format Lightroom and others read. Picks and rejects are written as xmpDM:good and color labels as both photoshop:LabelColor and xmp:Label, the way Lightroom writes them. The name written to xmp:Label can be set per color in the settings.
• PhotoLab (.dop): FOO.ARW gets FOO.ARW.dop, which holds picks and rejects too.
• Both: every judgment goes to FOO.xmp and FOO.ARW.dop alike, for developing in Lightroom and PhotoLab from one culling pass. When a folder opens, whichever of the two was modified last is read back, so a later edit in either tool is picked up. Switching to Both rewrites nothing: a file's two sidecars can disagree until it is judged again.

A sidecar created by other software is edited in place: everything except the stars, the flag and the label (develop settings, keywords, ...) is left untouched.

Two RAWs of the same stem with different extensions in one folder (FOO.ARW and FOO.DNG) share FOO.xmp and are not supported: renaming one of them or moving it to the Trash takes the shared FOO.xmp with it, and the other's judgment along. Use the PhotoLab (.dop) format alone from the start, which writes one FOO.ARW.dop per RAW, with no FOO.xmp in the folder (Both writes the shared FOO.xmp too, and Riffle moves an existing FOO.xmp along whichever format is chosen), or keep such RAWs in separate folders.

Lightroom

• Lightroom (not Classic) reads the XMP Riffle wrote when the photos are imported.
• A rating, flag or color label changed in Lightroom is written back to the .xmp next to the RAW by Lightroom itself; unlike Lightroom Classic, no Ctrl+S or auto-write setting is needed. Riffle picks the change up when the folder is opened.
• Verified with Lightroom 9.5.1 on Windows.

Lightroom Classic

• Lightroom Classic reads the XMP Riffle wrote when the photos are first imported.
• After import it does not re-read a sidecar Riffle changed, not even on restart. For the selected photos, right-click them in the Library grid and choose Metadata > Read Metadata from File. For a whole folder, right-click the folder, choose Synchronize Folder..., check Scan for metadata updates and click Synchronize.
• Lightroom Classic does not write XMP by default. Ctrl+S (Metadata > Save Metadata to File) writes it for the selected photos, or turn on Catalog Settings > Metadata > Automatically write changes into XMP.
• Color labels are matched by name against Lightroom Classic's color label set (Metadata > Color Label Set > Edit...). Either rename that set's labels to Red, Yellow, Green, Blue and Purple, or set Riffle's label names in the settings to the names in the set. Presets for Lightroom's localized default sets are provided (every UI language Lightroom Classic ships); adding a language is one JSON file.

DxO PhotoLab

• PhotoLab recognizes an image by the identifiers in its .dop. Once PhotoLab has seen an image (opening its folder is enough, even if no .dop was written), a new .dop with identifiers it does not know is imported as a virtual copy that carries Riffle's judgment, while the master keeps its own.
• So when Riffle creates a .dop, it reads the image's identifiers from PhotoLab's database (on Windows the newest %APPDATA%\DxO\DxO PhotoLab N\Database\PhotoLab.db, on macOS the newest ~/Library/DxO PhotoLab vN/DOPDatabaseVN.dopdata) and writes them into it, and PhotoLab applies the judgment to the master. On macOS, folders under /Volumes are not looked up yet and so still get random identifiers.
• When the database is not found (without PhotoLab installed) the new .dop still works: PhotoLab imports it as the master, unless it had already seen the image, in which case the judgment lands on a virtual copy.
• A .dop that already exists is edited in place as before.
• Verified with PhotoLab 10.0.1 on Windows.

MCP companion

Riffle can serve an MCP endpoint for an MCP client (an AI assistant, say) to sit beside you while you cull. Turn on Let MCP clients connect in the MCP tab of the settings (it is off by default); the server then listens on this computer only, at:

http://127.0.0.1:41917/mcp

That URL is all a client that speaks MCP over Streamable HTTP needs. Two examples:

• Claude Code: claude mcp add --transport http riffle http://127.0.0.1:41917/mcp

• Claude Desktop: add this to claude_desktop_config.json. It relays through npx -y mcp-remote, so it needs Node.js; a direct url entry has not been verified.

  {
    "mcpServers": {
      "riffle": {
        "command": "npx",
        "args": ["-y", "mcp-remote", "http://127.0.0.1:41917/mcp"]
      }
    }
  }

The MCP tab shows the URL and these examples with Copy buttons. What the tools do is described in docs/humans/usage.md.

Compatibility

Anything unchecked has not been verified yet. Reports of how it went for you are very welcome.

OS

• macOS (Apple Silicon)
  • 26
• Windows
  • 11
• Linux
  • Ubuntu

If it works, post in the OS works report thread in Discussions. If it does not, open an issue from the OS issue template.

RAW formats

• ARW
• CR3
• DNG
• NEF
• ORF
• RAF

A folder that holds only JPEGs (.jpg / .jpeg) and no RAW file opens view-only: thumbnails, the preview and the EXIF rows, in capture-time order, with no stars, flags, color labels, sidecars or focus cue.

The cameras verified on a real file, what each records, and which features that affects are listed in docs/humans/cameras.md. Why support is listed per camera rather than per format is explained in docs/humans/raw-formats.md.

If a camera not listed in docs/humans/cameras.md works, post in the camera works report thread in Discussions. If it does not, open an issue from the camera issue template. A sample file is needed to look into it, so please attach one (or link to it). One file is enough; a landscape and a portrait shot, if possible, also let the rotation and the focus mark be checked.

Sidecar formats and software

• XMP
  • Adobe Lightroom
  • Adobe Lightroom Classic
• DOP
  • DxO PhotoLab

If the stars, flags and color labels given in Riffle show up correctly in the software, post in the software works report thread in Discussions. If they do not, open an issue from the software issue template.

For developers

• Building from source: CONTRIBUTING.md
• Performance measurements: docs/humans/performance.md