Why I Built PickRAW — A Fuji Photographer's Frustration With File Sorting

I'm an avid Fujifilm shooter. I shoot RAW+JPG on every outing — RAW for serious editing later, and JPG with Fuji's beautiful film recipes so I can post to social media right from my phone. It's a great workflow. The camera does the work of creating two versions of every shot: one for keeping, one for sharing.

But here's the thing nobody talks about: what happens when you get home and plug in that SD card.

The problem every RAW+JPG shooter knows

You pop the card into your reader. You open the folder. And you're staring at hundreds of files — RAF files mixed in with JPGs, all with similar names, all jumbled together. If you also shot video, throw in some MOV or MP4 files for good measure.

Now what? You need the RAWs in one folder for Lightroom. The JPGs somewhere else for social media or client delivery. The videos in their own place. And you're doing this by hand — scrolling through the folder, selecting files by extension, dragging them one batch at a time.

For a casual 100-photo outing, that's already tedious. For a full day of shooting — 300, 400, 500 files — it's genuinely painful. And I was doing this after every single shoot.

I tried Lightroom's import. It wasn't the answer.

Lightroom can import and sort files, sure. But it's a heavy tool for a simple problem. I didn't need to catalog, tag, and organize everything into a DAM system. I just needed my RAWs in one folder and my JPGs in another. That's it.

Lightroom's import process also has its own quirks. It's slow to launch. The import dialog has a dozen options. And if you just want to quickly grab your JPGs for social media without importing the whole shoot into a catalog, it's the wrong tool for the job.

The GoPro problem made it worse

I also shoot with a GoPro. And if you've ever looked at a GoPro SD card, you know the mess. For every video file, GoPro creates two extra files: an LRV file (a low-resolution proxy) and a THM file (a tiny thumbnail). These junk files take up space and clutter your folder.

So now I'm not just sorting RAW from JPG — I'm also trying to separate actual GoPro footage from the proxy garbage. It's the same problem, just with different file types.

There has to be a better way

I looked for a simple tool that would let me drag a folder in, automatically detect what's inside, and sort everything into the right place. Something fast, something focused, something that wouldn't try to be Lightroom or Photo Mechanic.

I couldn't find one. The tools that existed were either overkill (full DAM suites with a learning curve), too expensive for what I needed, or they wanted to move my files instead of copying them — which made me nervous. What if something went wrong? What if a file got corrupted during the move? I didn't want to risk my originals.

So I built PickRAW

PickRAW does exactly what I wished existed: you drag in a folder, it scans everything and shows you what's inside (RAW files, JPGs, videos, proxy junk), you pick a destination for each category, and you click Sort. Done. Hundreds of files, organized in seconds.

And the most important part: it only copies files. Your originals are never touched. They stay right where they are on your camera card. If something goes wrong, your files are still safe. If you change your mind, you can undo the sort with one click.

I built this for myself first. Then I realized every photographer I know deals with this exact same frustration. Whether you shoot Canon, Nikon, Sony, Fuji, or GoPro — if you've ever manually sorted files after a shoot, PickRAW saves you that time.

What PickRAW is (and isn't)

PickRAW is not Lightroom. It's not Photo Mechanic. It doesn't edit photos, rate images, or manage a catalog. It does one thing: sort camera files by type, fast. That's it. And it does it really well.

If you're tired of the post-shoot file sorting ritual, give it a try. The free trial gives you 3 full sorts — no credit card, no signup. Just download it and drag a folder in.