Using Media Card Wrangler

Wrangler is a cleanup tool, not an offload tool. It doesn't copy your card, verify checksums, or manage backups. It takes a card you've already copied and safely backed up, and tidies it for editing.

So a healthy order of operations looks like this:

• •Offload the card to your working drive with whatever tool you trust.
• •Verify the copy completed and you have a second backup somewhere else.
• •Point Wrangler at the copy on your working drive.

Want to practice on something disposable first? Grab the free sample cards — realistic camera folder structures full of dummy files, so you can experiment as freely as you like.

• •Download the .dmg and open it.
• •Drag Media Card Wrangler into your Applications folder.
• •Open it from Applications.

Every build is signed with a Developer ID and notarized by Apple, so macOS opens it normally without security warnings. Requires macOS 13 (Ventura) or newer; runs natively on both Apple Silicon and Intel.

The free download is the complete app in Demo mode: 10 full wrangles, no account, no time limit. When you buy a license, your key arrives by email.

To activate, open Manage License in the app, paste your key, and activate. A license covers up to 2 Macs. If you replace a machine, deactivate it from that same screen to free the seat.

Lost your key? Recover it here with the email you bought it with.

Add your cards

Drag a copied card folder into the app, or use the button to choose one. You can add several cards at once — see wrangling several cards below.

Wrangler scans what you dropped and tells you what it found: how many cards, what media is inside, and anything that needs your attention before it will proceed.

Preview before anything moves

Hit Preview to see a read-only before-and-after of every card: exactly which files move where, what gets set aside, what goes to the Trash, and which empty folders disappear. Nothing has touched your disk at this point.

Wrangle

When the preview looks right, confirm and run it. Media rises to the top level of each card, recognized junk goes to the Trash, emptied folders are removed, and anything unrecognized is set aside rather than deleted.

Not every folder needs flattening. If you point Wrangler at a folder whose media is already sitting at the top level, it notices and says so: the card is labelled Media in place · Tidy Up. There is no mode to switch on and no setting to find.

A folder like that is included by default. If you would rather leave it completely alone, uncheck it before you run.

A Tidy Up does exactly two things, and nothing else:

• •Recognized system junk (.DS_Store and the hidden ._ AppleDouble files) goes to the Trash.
• •Folders that are genuinely empty are removed. A folder with anything at all still inside it is left alone.

This is useful well beyond fresh cards: archive drives, old project folders, anything you sorted by hand years ago that still carries junk and empty folder skeletons from its card days.

And if there is genuinely nothing to do, Wrangler tells you that too: media already at the top level, no junk, no empty folders, nothing to wrangle. A folder in that state can't be added to a run, because there is no work to be done on it. That is good news, not an error.

Undo works the same way, with one thing worth knowing. Restoring recreates the empty folders that were removed, but junk that went to the Trash stays in the Trash. The app tells you this rather than pretending otherwise. If you want those files back, pull them out of the Trash yourself before you empty it.

After a run, each card contains:

• •Your media, at the top level. No more digging through PRIVATE → M4ROOT → CLIP. File contents are never altered — they're moved, not converted, recompressed, or renamed (unless you explicitly turned on renaming for duplicate filenames).
• •Ω_STRAYS — everything Wrangler didn't recognize as media, preserved with its original folder structure intact. LUTs, sound notes, XMLs, sidecars: all still there, just tidied out of the way.
• •Ω_WRANGLER REPORTS — a plain-English Markdown report of everything that happened, plus a JSON undo receipt.

Recognized system junk (.DS_Store files and the hidden AppleDouble ._ files macOS leaves on cards) goes to the Trash rather than being deleted outright, so it stays recoverable until you empty it.

Every run writes its undo receipt before a single file moves. That gives you two ways back:

• •Undo — right after a wrangle, while the app is still open.
• •Restore from Receipt — days later, even after quitting and reopening. Point Wrangler at the saved receipt in Ω_WRANGLER REPORTS and it puts everything back where it was.

If a file can't be moved partway through a run, Wrangler stops, automatically returns anything it already moved, and writes a plain-English failure log. You're never left with a half-finished card.

Wrangler flags anything it isn't certain about. Some warnings let you review and opt in; others won't budge until you resolve them.

Locked files

A locked media file blocks the wrangle, so nothing gets silently skipped. Unlock it in Finder and add the card again. Locked metadata or sidecar files are simply left in place and noted in the report.

Duplicate filenames

If a file already exists where Wrangler wants to move something, it stops and flags it rather than overwriting. Nothing is ever silently replaced.

Not a recognized camera card

A folder without real card structure is always flagged, so you know Wrangler didn't recognize it. What happens next depends on what is inside. If a wrangle would actually move things around, the card stays excluded until you review what it found and opt in. If the media is already at the top level and there is only junk and empty folders to clear, it is included by default as a Tidy Up, and you uncheck it to leave the folder untouched.

Format cautions

Certain card types — ARRI/Avid structures, spanned clips, AVCHD — get a heads-up because they carry structure that some workflows depend on. Read the note, then decide.

Media already in place

If a card's media is already at the top level, Wrangler says so rather than inventing work, and includes the folder as a Tidy Up instead. See already-sorted folders.

You can batch multiple cards as long as the copied card folders share the same parent folder. Point Wrangler at that parent and it treats each card folder as its own card in the batch.

Where the media lands

Wrangler can flatten each card in place, or corral media into a destination folder. Pick whichever matches how you organize projects — the preview shows you the result either way before you commit.

Renaming duplicate filenames

Off by default, on purpose. Wrangler's promise is that it moves files without altering them, and renaming is the one thing that breaks that promise. Leave it off and collisions get flagged for you to resolve; turn it on only if you specifically want Wrangler to resolve them by renaming.

• •The FAQ covers the most common questions.
• •Practice risk-free with the sample cards.
• •Anything else — get in touch. Include your macOS version, your Mac's chip, and the report or receipt from the run in question, and it'll be a much faster conversation.