When a card is safe to format
Vixlo never formats a card. It tells you when the card is safe to format, and it says so only when every file on the card has two independent, verified copies and nothing is left on it that the import did not copy or could not read. This page is that rule and how to earn the claim for a card you imported earlier; What counts as the card says which files the card means.
The rule
Safe to format is a statement about the card, not about the frames you will cull. Vixlo makes it only when all three of these are true:
- Every photograph on the card has a copy in the working library and a copy in the backup, and each was checked. A new file is copied to both, then read back and compared with the original by checksum. A file the library already holds is not copied into the library again: Vixlo checks that its copy in
Originalsis still there with the same size and the same first and last megabyte, and copies it to the backup. - The two copies are on different volumes, and neither is on the card. A volume is what the Mac mounts as a drive of its own: a whole disk, a partition of one, or one of several volumes that share a disk. Two folders on the same volume never count, and the review sheet says so if you choose them: These two folders are on the same drive — they can never count as independent copies. Choose a backup location on a different disk.
- No video, XMP file or other file the import does not copy is left on the card, no part of the card went unread, and no copy failed.
Vixlo tells volumes apart, not the hardware under them, so two volumes on one physical disk count as independent although a failing disk would take both. Put the backup on a separate drive. Importing from a card or a folder covers adding the second destination.
One verified copy is a good import, not a safe card. What the last panel says lists the sentences the app uses in each case.
Importing a card again to earn the claim
A card imported once without a backup, or whose backup failed, can be imported again with one. Scan it into the same library, choose a backup on a different drive in the review, and press Start import. The files the library already holds are part of that run: Vixlo checks each one's copy in Originals and copies it to the backup, and Start import counts them. A card of ten files you imported before reads Start import (10), and the button works even when nothing on the card is new. When every file has its two copies, the last panel reads Import complete — safe to format.
Without a backup, those files are not counted, so a card whose files are all in the library reads Start import (0) and cannot be pressed. Scanning a card again says how Vixlo decides that the library already holds a file, and A card imported twice what else a second import does.
A library copy that has been deleted or replaced since does not count. If it is gone when you scan, the review offers the file as new and the import copies it in again. If it goes missing or changes between the review and the end of the run, the last panel says so, and the card is not safe to format until the file is copied in again.
Which files count
The claim is about every file on the card, not only the photographs.
- Both files of a RAW+JPEG pair. The pair is one frame in the cull, but it is two files, and each is copied and checked on its own. Start import counts files, so a card of 100 pairs reads Start import (200).
- Files the library already holds. Each needs its second copy like any other.
- Files Vixlo does not copy. Video clips, XMP files that sit beside photographs on the card (the sheet calls them sidecar files), the files a camera keeps for itself, and files Vixlo does not recognise stay on the card untouched. A Sony card's catalogue under
PRIVATE, a Canon card'sCANONMSCfolder and a print order inMISCare examples. They still count: while one of them is on the card, the card is not safe to format, however well the photographs were copied. Copying one yourself does not bring the claim back. - A file with exactly the same content as another on the card is held back under DUPLICATES HELD and does not withhold the claim, because the copy of its twin covers it.
What an import copies has the rest.
Which folders the card covers
The photographs are read from the folder the scan starts in, but the claim is about the card, so Vixlo also walks the whole card and counts every file on it except what macOS and Windows write for themselves. A card button, the card itself chosen in a folder picker, or a folder inside the card's DCIM stands for the whole card, including a Sony or Panasonic body's video under PRIVATE; any other folder stands for itself. What counts as the card has the rules, what happens when part of the card cannot be read, and why a folder on the card is refused as a destination.
Where the claim stops
- A file the library already holds is checked, not read whole again. Vixlo compares its size and its first and last megabyte with the card's file. That finds a copy deleted, cut short or replaced since it was verified, not a single changed bit in the middle of the file.
- The claim is worked out once, from each file's state at the end of the copy. If a file that has already verified is damaged while other files in the same import are still copying, the claim does not check it again.
A card with clips, XMP files, a camera's own files or unrecognised files never reads safe to format. Vixlo copies none of them and never records them as imported, so every later scan lists them again as not copied. Copying them yourself does not bring the claim back, and a camera's catalogue files count as much as a video does. A camera usually rebuilds its catalogue on formatting, but Vixlo cannot know that.
The last panel names what is left. Look at what it names, copy what you want to keep, open the copies to check them, and decide on your own judgement whether to format; the app will not say it for you.