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What counts as the card

Safe to format is a claim about the card, and a camera writes more on a card than the photographs. This page says what Vixlo means by the card for each way you can start an import, which files it ignores, and what it does when it cannot read part of the card. When a card is safe to format is the rule these feed into.

Where the scan starts​

The photographs are read from the folder the scan starts in and every folder inside it. A card button, Start from the detected card · NAME on the launch screen or Card · NAME in the new-library wizard, starts at the card's DCIM folder, where cameras keep photographs. A card without a DCIM folder has a button reading Start from NAME on the launch screen, and its scan starts at its top level. That scan leaves out hidden files, files whose names begin with ._, and any folder named FFDB, MISC, PRIVATE or CANONMSC, so FILES FOUND on the review often differs from what the Finder shows.

The claim does not rest on that count. Vixlo also walks the card itself, reading names and kinds only, and counts every file it finds there. What "the card" is depends on where you started:

  • From a card button, or from DCIM or a folder inside it on a card: the whole card. A Sony or Panasonic body's video under PRIVATE counts.
  • From the card itself, chosen in a folder picker with Choose a folder… in the wizard or Scan a card or folder… in an open library: the whole card.
  • From any other folder, such as a copy of a card on your disk or an export folder: that folder and everything inside it. The folder around it is your disk, not a card, and is never walked.

What is left out​

Only what macOS and Windows write on a disk for themselves: .Spotlight-V100, .fseventsd, .Trashes, System Volume Information, $RECYCLE.BIN, .DS_Store and files whose names begin with ._. Everything else counts, hidden files and a camera's own catalogue and settings files included. What Vixlo does not copy is named on the last panel as not copied, and while any of it is on the card the card is not safe to format.

A part of the card that could not be read​

If the Mac cannot list a folder on the card, or cannot read a file's kind or size, Vixlo has not seen what is there, so nothing says it has a copy, and the card is not safe to format.

The review says so before you start, in a row headed Part of the card could not be read. The last panel carries a sentence in this shape, naming how many folders and files: Part of the card could not be read (1 folder and 2 files) — nothing there has a copy, so the card is not safe to format. What the last panel says has the other sentences that can come with it.

Check the reader and the cable, and scan the card again. Until the sentence is gone, treat the card as the only copy of whatever is in the part Vixlo could not read.

Both copies stay off the card​

A copy on the card is erased when you format the card, so it can never be one of the two. A working library on the card would also put the frames at files that formatting removes. The review refuses a folder on the card, in red under the two folder rows, and Start import stays dimmed until you choose another:

  • The working library folder is on the card being imported — formatting the card would erase every copy in it. Choose a folder on another drive.
  • This backup folder is on the card being imported — formatting the card would erase it, so it can never be the second copy. Choose a folder on another drive.

On a camera card, a disk with a DCIM folder at its top, "on the card" means anywhere on it. For a folder that is not a camera card, it means anywhere inside the folder you scanned. Keeping the library off the card says what to do when it is the library that sits there.