- Do you want to easily copy photos from your camera's SD card to your Windows computer?
- Would you like to have your files automatically copied to folders by the date you took the photos?
If the answer is "yes" to both of those questions then I recommend Faststone Image Viewer. I've been using it for a number of years now and it's great for taking my photos off my SD card and copying them to my computer. It's simple and it works! In this article I'll explain how to set it up:
Install Faststone Image Viewer
It's free and available for download here:
https://www.faststone.org/
Also, I wrote an article about it in the past, you can find it here:
https://mgxp.blogspot.com/2012/11/faststone-image-viewer.html
Setup
Open Faststone Image Viewer
Click File | Import Photos and Videos
Make sure 'Use file filter' is enabled (as above)
In the box opposite enter the file formats you wish to copy from your SD card. In my example above I've put jpg and mp4. The exact text should be:
*.jpg+*.mp4
You can add more formats by adding a + and the file extension.
In the Destination you can specify anywhere on your computer. In my example I've put:
C:\Users\<username>\Pictures\
Here comes the clever part, you can make sub-folders that represent the date. I recommend Year, Month and Date. The reason is that having the date in reverse means the folders will be listed in alphabetical order in Explorer.
Create subfolder: Year \ Month \ Date
At the bottom of the window you'll see there's a tick box for 'SKIP files that have already been imported to the destination location'. It's good to enable this because then, every time you import it will only copy the new files from your SD card.
Insert an SD card and click Import for it to work!
How does it work in practice?
After entering the above (setup) Faststone Image Viewer will remember your settings. When you insert an SD card it will see it. In my example above you'll note that it says "LUMIX", that's because my SD card is labelled LUMIX.
Cameras save files to a folder structure of their own on the SD card. It is usually something that makes little sense. For Panasonic Lumix cameras this is very true. But using the import option detailed here, Faststone Image Viewer just takes the JPG and MP4 (in my example) from where ever it finds them on the SD card and copies them to the folders on the computer.
On your computer you have a file structure like this:
2020\03\2020-03-06
2020\03\2020-03-07
2020\03\2020-03-10
etc...
So everything is easy to find, by year "2020", month "03" and date.
Conclusion
It works! It's free! It's simple too! I really like this, it has taken the hassle out of copying photos to my computer for years now. Having my photos in organised folders is the best part.
