Sync Shutter vs QSDC
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Sync Shutter
Automatically back up photos and videos from your camera cards to multiple destinations like cloud storage, local drives, or NAS. The app intelligently copies only new files and offers verification for data integrity. It also allows for organized sorting and selective import.
- Automatic card detection and backup
- Incremental copying of new files only
- Byte-for-byte verification
- Sorting into date folders
- Support for various cloud services
- RAW+JPEG pair handling
- Custom file naming
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Never lose a shoot. Sync Shutter backs up your camera card the moment you insert it. Set it up once on your Mac, then plug in any card and walk away: every photo and video is copied to every destination you chose, automatically. On iPhone or iPad, plug in a card reader and import straight from the card. It was built for photographers who come home with several cards and cannot afford to lose one. WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU INSERT A CARD • The card is detected and the backup starts on its own. Progress lives in the menu bar; a notification tells you when it is done. • Only new files are copied. Already-backed-up shots are recognized and skipped, so the second run after a shoot takes seconds. • Copies to a folder or drive can be verified byte for byte after copying. • Files can be sorted into date folders taken from the photo's own capture date. • Cards that do not use a DCIM folder — video-first layouts from Sony, Panasonic and Canon bodies — are recognized too, and any card can be copied whole from the menu bar. • No internet where you're shooting? The card is still safe. Sync Shutter keeps its own copy and sends it to your cloud destinations on its own the moment you are back online. • A backup that cannot reach one of your destinations says so and names it. It never calls itself complete when something is missing. EVERY CARD, BY NAME • Each card gets its own name the first time it goes in, like purple-frog. Rename it, number it, give it a colour. • Say what each card was doing in a shoot: Primary, Backup slot, Second shooter or Video. • Cards lists every card with its last job and whether it is safe to format, meaning nothing on it would be lost. • Nothing is ever written to your cards. WHERE THE FILES GO Send one card to several places at once: a local folder or external drive, iCloud Drive, Google Drive, OneDrive, Dropbox, Google Photos, the Lightroom auto-import folder, or the Photos library. Turn on as many as you like; each card is copied to all of them in a single pass. CHOOSE WHAT COMES OFF THE CARD Turn on a review step and a grid of thumbnails appears before anything is copied, so you can leave the test frames behind. SYNC SHUTTER PRO — ONE PURCHASE FOR MAC, IPHONE AND IPAD • Back up to a NAS or server: any S3-compatible storage (Synology, Backblaze B2, MinIO, Amazon S3), or SFTP over SSH. • Cold storage: Amazon S3 Glacier and Deep Archive storage classes, chosen per destination, for an archive that costs cents a month. • RAW+JPEG pairs: keep both, RAW only, or JPEG only. • Import date filters: only today's shoot, the last few days, or everything since a date. • Custom file naming from the capture date, a counter and the original name. • Per-card rules on the Mac: route each card to its own destinations. • Auto-delete from the card after every destination has confirmed the copy, and low-storage alerts before a backup would fill the disk. Pro is a single purchase, not a subscription. IPHONE AND IPAD Plug in a USB-C or Lightning card reader, open Sync Shutter, and pick the card. Photos go to your Photos library, a folder in Files, your cloud drives, or an S3 NAS. A Live Activity follows the import and a widget shows your totals. PRIVATE BY DESIGN No account, no sign-up, no servers of ours in the path. Files go straight from the card to the destinations you chose. The only thing the app ever sends home is an anonymous count of backups and errors, so that problems get fixed; it is never linked to you. Works with any card your Mac or card reader can mount: SD, microSD, CFexpress, CFast, XQD.
QSDC
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QSDC is a fast culling and viewer app for the photos on your SD card — without importing them first. Plug in a card reader, review on the spot, and download only the shots you want to Photos. It never writes to the card — fully non-destructive. WHO IT'S FOR · Photographers who need to cull hundreds of shots quickly after a shoot · Anyone who wants to check and select high-resolution RAW (RAF, etc.) in the field · People who'd rather keep their camera roll clean and import only the keepers KEY FEATURES · Import-free SD browsing — open the card and view without importing · Fast culling marks — sort into Keeper / B-cut (maybe) / Reject, and filter by mark · Photos-like browsing — smooth zoom transition, swipe paging, swipe down to dismiss · 100% zoom — check focus and detail at native pixels · Composition guides — rule of thirds, golden ratio, golden triangle (long-press to switch) · RAW dual-path — fast embedded previews for browsing, full decode for precise checks · Sort — by capture date, newest or oldest first · Download keepers only — save just the photos you picked; already-downloaded shots are marked, and duplicates can be skipped · Photo info — lens, focal length (35mm equivalent), aperture, shutter, ISO and exposure compensation, plus camera, resolution and bit depth · Per-card thumbnail cache — set retention and a size cap, with low-space warnings · Camera-roll grid — adjustable columns, portrait and landscape · Non-destructive (read-only) — never deletes or alters photos on the card HIGHLIGHTS · Light & dark themes, minimal UI that puts photos first (customizable detail background) · iPhone and iPad, with smooth layout across rotation · No ads, no sign-up, no network — everything runs on device Start culling the photos on your card, fast and light, with QSDC.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is in-app purchases: QSDC at none against Sync Shutter's 1. Sync Shutter's advantage is update cadence (every 3 days vs every 2 weeks) and iOS requirement (16.0 vs 26.0). On price, ads and device support there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Both are free to download. Sync Shutter sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. QSDC asks for nothing beyond the download.
Sync Shutter ships an update every 3 days, QSDC every 2 weeks. The most recent releases landed on November 9, 2026 and November 5, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Sync Shutter | QSDC |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.2 (5 ratings) — better | — |
| Positive reviews | 66.7% of reviews | — |
| Number of ratings | 5 — better | — |
| Update frequency | Every 3 days — better | Every 2 weeks |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | No — better |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | — |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, Mac — better | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 16.0 — better | 26.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 15 MB | 16 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Utkarsh Jain | Seung Hyun Jin |
In-app purchases
Sync Shutter
- Sync Shutter Pro$9.99
QSDC
No in-app purchases









