MediaFlowSwift

This manual is generated from the Help inside MediaFlowSwift (Help → MediaFlowSwift Help), so the two always say the same thing. It describes the current release.

Getting Started

What Is MediaFlow?

What MediaFlow does for a video creator, the basic workflow from card to archive, and where to find help.

MediaFlow keeps track of the footage from a shoot. You import clips from cards, phones and folders, sort them into categories, review them, and copy them into a tidy folder structure at the project’s destination folder, ready for editing and archiving.

System Requirements

Requires macOS 14 Sonoma or later on a Mac with Apple silicon (M1 or newer). MediaFlowSwift does not run on Intel-based Macs. About MediaFlowSwift, in the MediaFlowSwift menu, says the same.

Key Capabilities

Basic Workflow

  1. Create or open a project
  2. Import media from your cards, phones and folders
  3. Categorize and review your clips
  4. Organize the clips to the project’s destination folder
  5. Generate a report for your editor, then archive the project

The pipeline strip under the toolbar follows these steps and always offers the next one.

First-Run Setup

The first time you open MediaFlow, a short tour explains the app. A Setup Wizard follows it. It first asks where your footage goes: this Mac, an external drive, or a network share. Then it asks where organized media goes. Only for a network share does it ask more: which share, and whether to use a database every Mac shares. You can skip any question. To answer them later, choose Settings › General › Run Setup Again…

Where to Get Help

See also: Setting Up MediaFlow, Creating a New Project, Opening an Existing Project, Understanding the Pipeline Strip, Keyboard Shortcuts Reference, About MediaFlowSwift

Creating a New Project

Create a new empty project, or build one from a folder of media you already have without copying anything.

A project is a .vpm file that records your clips and everything you know about them. Start an empty project for a new shoot, or build one from a folder that already holds media.

New Empty Project

  1. Choose File → New Project (Cmd+N)
  2. Enter a descriptive project name
  3. Check Project location — the folder the new project folder is created in. It starts at the last location you used, or your Documents folder; click Choose… to pick another
  4. Check “Organized media goes to” — the destination Organize Media copies clips to. It starts as the new project folder; click Change… to pick another folder, or Use project folder to go back
  5. Click Create

MediaFlow creates a folder named after the project and saves the .vpm project file inside it.

When the destination is on this Mac’s own drive, a plain note under it says so; keeping everything on your Mac is a fine way to work. The note turns into an orange warning only when your setup points somewhere else: when your default destination in Settings › Storage is on another drive or a share, or, with no default destination set, when you use a network share. Then a folder on this Mac usually means that drive or share was not connected when the project was made. When the default destination in Settings › Storage is on this Mac, this Mac is your choice and there is no warning, even if a network share is also set up, for a shared database say. If this Mac is where you want the organized media, you can ignore the warning.

With a shared database set up (a database server, or a database file on a network share), other Macs share your projects, and they can only organize into a folder they reach. When the destination is on this Mac, or on a drive connected to it, New Project warns that other Macs sharing the project won’t be able to organize into it, and offers Choose a Folder on a Network Share…. It is a warning: Create still works. The Mac that creates a project owns its destination, and another Mac never quietly organizes the project somewhere else; see When This Mac Can’t Reach the Destination in Organizing Media to Storage.

Create from Existing Folder

  1. Choose File → Create Project From Folder (Cmd+Shift+N)
  2. Select a folder that already contains media files
  3. Choose where to save the project file. The suggested name is the folder’s name
  4. MediaFlow scans the folder, including its subfolders, and adds every supported media file to the project

The files stay where they are — nothing is copied or moved. The project takes the folder’s name, and its destination is set to the folder you saved the project file in. You can change the destination later from the sidebar.

Tip: Use Create Project From Folder when your media is already laid out the way you want and you only need MediaFlow to catalog it.

See also: Opening an Existing Project, Saving Projects, Change destination folder

Opening an Existing Project

Open a saved project from its file, from the Open Recent menu, or from the Project Browser.

Open from File

  1. Choose File → Open (Cmd+O)
  2. Navigate to the .vpm project file
  3. Click Open

Open Recent

The File → Open Recent submenu lists your recently opened projects for quick access. Choose Clear Menu at the bottom of the submenu to empty the list.

Project Browser

The Project Browser shows all known projects, including those registered in the shared database. It is in the main window: there whenever no project is open, and shown in place of the open project by Projects → Browse Projects… (Cmd+Shift+P). Back to, followed by the project’s name, returns to that project just as you left it. Opening another project from the list asks about unsaved changes first, as opening always does.

See also: Creating a New Project, Deleting a Project

Understanding the Interface

A tour of the main window: pipeline strip, sidebar, media list, preview panel and metadata panel.

The main window is divided into five areas:

Pipeline Strip (Top)

Media List (Center)

Preview Panel

Metadata Panel

Rearranging Panels

See also: What Is MediaFlow?, Understanding the Pipeline Strip, Table and Grid Views, Filtering and Searching

Understanding the Pipeline Strip

The row under the toolbar that shows how far the project has come and offers the one next action.

The pipeline strip shows the seven steps of a shoot and how much work each one still has. It runs across the top of the window whenever a project is open. Every segment is a button.

The Seven Segments

Clicking a Segment

Clicking a segment filters the media list to that step’s remaining work and reveals its one primary button on the right. Import shows all media, Categorize shows the uncategorized clips, Review shows the unrated ones and Organize shows the Not at destination smart group. Free up space, Archive and Eject leave the current filter alone because their work is not a subset of the list.

Until you click one, the strip follows the first step that still has work to do. A finished step shows a green check instead of its icon.

The Organize count turns orange once 10 or more clips are still waiting and the project has a destination.

See also: Understanding the Interface, Organizing Media to Storage, Freeing Up Space, Smart Notifications

What Things Are Called Now

One word per concept: the names that changed this release, and the old names they answer to.

The same thing used to have several names and the same name used to mean several things. This release settles on one word per concept. Nothing stored in your projects changed — a .vpm file written before this release loads unchanged, and one written after it still opens in an older build. Only the words on screen moved.

The Table

Where the Workflow Menu Went

Tip: Searching this help for an old name still works. Type Organize Media, Sync Folder Layout, Reconnect Destination, Refresh Storage Locations, Batch Queue, Rapid Review, Kill or Circle Take and you will land on the topic that replaced it.

See also: The Analyze Hub, Organizing Media to Storage, Star Ratings & Selects

The Analyze Hub

Workflow → Analyze… lists every optional analysis pass with why you would run it, what it needs and when it last ran.

The Analyze hub is one sheet that holds every optional analysis pass, so you can see what each one is for and whether this project has what it needs. Open it with Workflow → Analyze… The passes were separate Workflow menu items in earlier versions.

Each row gives the tool, one line on what running it buys you, a prerequisite counted from the project you have open — for example “needs GPS — 38 of 212 clips have it” — and the date it last ran. Click Run on a row to start that pass; its results open in the pass’s own review sheet.

The Passes

Tip: The last-run date is per project and per pass, and is recorded when you press Run. It is a preference, not project data — it never touches the .vpm file or the database.

See also: What Things Are Called Now, GPS Scene Detection, Auto-Suggest Categories

Progress and Messages

The panel in the bottom-right corner where every long operation and every outcome appears.

Anything that takes more than a moment — an import, an organize, a relink, a project move, and every analysis pass — opens a row in the progress panel at the bottom-right of the window. The row names the operation, shows a progress bar when the work can be counted, and disappears when the work is done.

Outcomes Stay Put

The result of an operation waits for you instead of fading away. “Ejected CARD_A”, “Relinked 12 of 14 files” and “Audio analysis complete” stay in the progress panel until you click the × on them, and some carry the obvious next step as a button — Import Next Card after an eject, Review Ratings after Smart Selects.

What Each Kind Looks Like

Long Messages

A long message shows its first four lines with Show More under them. Click Show More to read the rest in place, and Show Less to fold it again; the panel remembers which messages you opened. A very long message scrolls inside its row once opened, and when several messages are open the panel never grows taller than the window: its messages scroll inside it, the newest at the bottom. So the × and any button that comes with a message, such as Show in Finder or Save As…, are always inside the window, where you can reach them. A passing notice stays longer the longer it is, about a second for every line past the second, up to about ten seconds. It never clears itself while the pointer is over it, and when you move the pointer away it waits at least two more seconds. A passing notice you open with Show More stays until you dismiss it. Hold the pointer over a message to see all of it at once, and VoiceOver reads every word. The reason under a failed operation, and a smart notification at the top of the window, open the same way.

Failed Operations

An operation that fails keeps its row, tinted red, with the reason in place of the progress bar. It stays until you dismiss it, so a failure that happened while you were away is still there when you come back.

While a Sheet Is Open

Messages raised inside a sheet — the Import sheet’s “No card selected”, a folder scan that failed — appear inside that sheet, next to the button that caused them, instead of behind the sheet, where you could not read them.

Tip: When no project is open the same status appears in the centre of the window instead, where there is nothing else to look at.

See also: Understanding the Interface, Understanding the Pipeline Strip, Smart Notifications

Terms of Use

MediaFlowSwift is sold by Long Road Software LLC under terms of use you agree to once, before you first use the app, and again only when they change.

The first time MediaFlowSwift opens, it shows the terms of use before anything else: four points in plain words, and the full terms below them. Click Agree to start using the app. Quit closes it without changing anything, and it asks again the next time it opens.

Until you agree, the window shows only the terms and nothing else starts: MediaFlowSwift opens no project, connects to no database or share, and does not check for updates. Every menu is unavailable except Help, where you can still read Help, the user guide and the terms. On a new copy, the free trial’s 14 days start when you agree, not when you first open the app.

What agreeing records

MediaFlowSwift keeps the version of the terms you agreed to and the date, on this Mac only: in your Keychain, and in a small file in MediaFlow’s folder under Library › Application Support. Two places, because some Macs do not keep an app’s preferences. Nothing is sent anywhere. If neither can be saved, the app opens anyway and asks again next time.

When the terms change

An update that changes the terms shows them again, with a short list of what changed, and the app goes on once you agree to the new version. An update that does not change them asks nothing.

Reading them again

Choose Help → Terms of Use to read the terms at any time. The window also says when you agreed to them on this Mac. The same terms are on the website at mediaflowswift.com/terms.html, with the refund policy beside them.

See also: Setting Up MediaFlow, Privacy: What Leaves This Mac, What Is MediaFlow?, About MediaFlowSwift

About MediaFlowSwift

The version you are running, who makes MediaFlowSwift, what it needs to run, links to the website, and the open-source acknowledgements.

Choose MediaFlowSwift → About MediaFlowSwift. The window shows the version and build you are running and © 2026 Long Road Software LLC, the maker and seller of MediaFlowSwift. Its links open the website, the support page, the terms of use and the privacy page in your web browser; nothing is opened until you click. Settings › General › About shows the same.

System Requirements

Requires macOS 14 Sonoma or later on a Mac with Apple silicon (M1 or newer). MediaFlowSwift does not run on Intel-based Macs. The app is built for Apple silicon only, so on an Intel-based Mac macOS will not open it. Check the Apple menu → About This Mac: a Mac with Apple silicon names its chip there, such as Apple M1 or Apple M3.

Acknowledgements

MediaFlowSwift is built with open-source packages, among them PostgresNIO and Apple’s SwiftNIO, Swift Log and Swift Crypto, and the BoringSSL code SwiftNIO SSL carries. Acknowledgements…, in About and in Settings › General, lists each package with its version and licence, then the full text of each licence and the notices the packages ask to be passed on, including BoringSSL’s OpenSSL, SSLeay and ISC licences. Copy All copies all of it as plain text.

See also: What Is MediaFlow?, Terms of Use, Contacting Support, The Settings Window