.Lab — Verified backups for everything you shoot

.Lab (“dot-Lab”) is a backup app for filmmakers and photographers. On a professional set or with your very first camera, it copies your footage safely and fast.

It’s built by a working DIT — the crew member whose job on a film set is to take custody of the footage and keep it safe — as the tool for their own daily work. Every feature exists because of something that happened on a real shoot.

One less person losing footage that mattered.

That’s why this app exists.

Where does "complete" actually begin?

1
Written
The OS accepted the write. The progress bar is gone, but the data may still be sitting in memory.
2
Verified
Read back from the destination and hash compared. If that read is served from cache, it only compared memory against memory.
3
Flushed
Read with the cache bypassed, then forced down to the disk itself. Only now does the footage survive a power loss.

Most tools say "complete" at 2. .Lab goes to 3.

Safe and fast — with numbers to prove it

100%

Hash match on every file against an
industry-standard offload tool, run side by side

Full speed

Verification doesn’t slow you below
your hardware’s limit

2 reads

Every byte is read twice and compared —
even transient read errors get caught

Method: same card, reader, SSD and Mac, run alongside an industry-standard offload tool; full xxHash64 comparison. Speed depends on your card, reader and destination (figures are measured examples). For reference: Finder never checks whether what it wrote is actually correct (no read-back, no checksums). .Lab completes that verification in roughly the time of a plain Finder copy.

Features

● Your originals are untouchable

Source media is opened read-only, by design. Overwriting or deleting originals is structurally impossible. Until your backup is verified, your originals stay exactly as they were.

● Power loss? Resume where you left off

A power cut, a yanked card, a frozen reader — .Lab notices within seconds and stops safely. Every step is journaled, so it resumes right where it stopped, skipping verified files. Half-written files never masquerade as finished ones.

● Two backups in one pass

Read the card once, write to multiple SSDs simultaneously (Pro). Chain copies for backups-of-backups, plus a watch-folder mode that copies new files as they appear.

● Proof, not promises

Export verification results as a thumbnail PDF report or industry-standard ASC MHL (Pro). Hand clients evidence — and answer “did it really copy?” with receipts.

● Insert card, ready to go

Auto-detects Sony, Canon, RED, ARRI and Blackmagic cards as well as regular SD cards (DCIM). Insert a card and it’s set as the source, reel name suggested automatically.

● Check your footage on the spot

Double-click a finished reel to browse thumbnails, play clips and inspect metadata (for formats macOS can play). Get completion alerts by chime, macOS notification — or email when you’re away from the cart.

● No slowdown on RAW sequences

Thousands of tiny frames — CinemaDNG, ARRIRAW — are where most copy tools grind to a crawl. .Lab batches the commit work under the hood, keeping full verification depth while holding its speed on sequences.

Then keep it backed up.

The offload ends; the day doesn’t. Timelines, exports, notes, stills — the project keeps growing after the cards are in. Sync mirrors a folder to a second drive and keeps mirroring it, copying only what changed. Not just camera originals — everything you make.

There ten seconds after you save it

Sync listens to the OS for changes, so nothing waits on a timer. It also waits for writing to stop before it copies, so a file still being saved never gets copied half-finished.

Any number of pairs, one window

Run A→C and B→D at once and see which is working, which is waiting, and how long until the next sweep. Close the app and reopen it — each pair catches up from where it stopped.

Nothing gets deleted until you press start

Choose “mirror exactly” and files missing from the source are removed from the destination too. That never begins on its own — not on launch, not on reopen. You press start.

What Sync does — copies folder to folder. Reading files back to verify them is optional here, and off by default, because Sync is built for speed.

What Sync does not have — reel names, ASC MHL, PDF reports, duplicate detection, card auto-detection. Those belong to offloading in the main window.

Offloading in the main window always reads every file back and verifies it. That part is not optional. An unverified copy is the one thing this app exists to prevent.

Sync is a Pro feature.

Pricing

Free

¥0

Free forever, unlimited data

Copy & verify (unlimited, Pro-grade quality)
Resume, disconnect detection
One destination, one job, one project
Queue, chains, watch folder, card auto-detect
Clip browser, MHL, PDF, email alerts

Pro

US$69

One-time purchase, 1 year of updates included.
(Renewal optional — the app keeps working either way.)
Japan: JPY 9,800

Everything
Up to 6 destinations at once
2 Macs (your main machine and a spare)
Move your license anytime (deactivate)
Email support

Buy .Lab Pro

Priced at $69 USD or ¥9,800 JPY. If your card is billed in a different currency, your issuer converts at its own rate, so the statement amount may vary slightly.

Teams & studios

We can supply licenses for as many Macs as your team needs — productions, post houses, rental fleets. Invoicing and pre-purchase evaluation are available. Tell us how you work and we'll put together a quote.

Talk to us

FAQ

Can .Lab damage or delete my original files?: No. Source media is opened strictly read-only, and no code path exists that writes to or deletes from it. It’s a design principle, continuously enforced by the test suite.
What if power dies mid-copy?: All state is committed to an SQLite journal as it happens. On relaunch, .Lab detects the interrupted job and resumes, skipping verified files. Partially written files never end up under their final name (atomic commits).
How do I use it?: Drag a card or folder onto SOURCE (inserted cards are detected automatically), pick a destination, press Start Offload. That's it — a confirmation appears when everything is verified. Full usage notes and FAQ are built into the app (⌘?) and work offline.
What does the destination structure look like?: destination / reel / media name / (card contents as-is), preserving the card's own hierarchy the way sets expect. Leave the reel name empty to copy straight into the destination.
If I stop a copy, do I start over?: No. Verified files are recorded, so resuming continues where it left off. Partially written files never take their final name.
I have a half-finished Finder copy. Can .Lab finish it?: Yes — turn on Repair Copy. Existing files are verified against the source one by one, good ones are kept, and only what's missing is copied. Corrupted files are reported in red, never deleted or overwritten.
What if a sequence has missing frames?: You're warned before copying, and the report records that those frames were already absent on the card — proof it wasn't lost in transfer.
Two Macs?: One license covers two Macs at a time. Deactivate in Settings to move it to another machine.
Does the free version verify too?: Yes — copy and verification are identical to Pro in quality and speed. Free is limited to one destination, one job at a time and one project; queue, watch folder, report PDFs and more are Pro.
Which cameras and formats are supported?: Copying and verification are format-agnostic — every file type works. Card auto-detection covers Sony, Canon, RED, ARRI, Blackmagic and still-photo cards (DCIM). Shooting metadata is read from Sony sidecar files (XAVC/X-OCN); RAW formats (REDCODE/ARRIRAW/BRAW) show the format name only. Thumbnails and playback are available for formats macOS can natively play (MP4/MOV/ProRes, JPEG/HEIF, etc.).
Can I use it offline on location?: Yes. Copying and verification are fully local, and your license never expires from being offline — no matter how long. It is only deactivated if the server explicitly refuses it, such as after a refund.

For every filmmaker
and photographer