RapidFetcher - Bulk download galleries for Mac/Win/Linux

raam

UPDATE (October 10 2016): A new version is available for mac and windows for $9.99 here: http://diagram.co/rapidfetcher/


UPDATE (May 24, 2010): There is a completely new build (not Adobe-AIR based) here ( http://bit.ly/rapidfetcher ) that should fix some of the issues with zero byte files. This is BETA (and has been tested only on a Mac), but please do report bugs/quirks that you find.

Hey guys,

I wrote a tiny Adobe AIR application that pulls images/videos from people's galleries. The application (and download instructions) can be found here . It's very early - does the basic stuff. It would be great if I could get your feedback / request features.

Ram


Installation Instructions for Old Adobe AIR application.

1. Download and install Adobe AIR installer from here: http://get.adobe.com/air/ (if you don't have it installed already)
1. Go to this page: http://rf-smugmug.appspot.com/latest/index.html
2. Click on the Install Now button
3. Click "Open" in the dialog. (This should install RapidFetcher in your Applications Directory)


==========================================
UPDATE [Version 0.50] (May 24, 2010)

There is a completely new build here that should fix some of the issues with zero byte files. This is BETA, but please do report quirks that you find.

1. Fixes zero-byte download issue.
2. Allows for URL-based download
3. Supports "largest" Video Size.

===========================================
UPDATE [Version 0.27] (Jan 4, 2010)

1. Automatic check for a newer version on startup.
2. Faster download speeds.

===========================================
UPDATE [Version 0.26] (Jan 2, 2010)

1. Added support for downloading into separate directories per category/subcategory/album
2. Added better integration of progress.
3. Added support for Album specific passwords
4. Fixed filenames to reflect the names given while uploading.

===========================================
UPDATE [Version 0.21] (March 4, 2009)

1. Fixed a bug that prevented images to be downloaded from Subcategories.

===========================================
UPDATE [Version 0.20] (Feb 19, 2009)

1. Now allows Original downloads.
2. Logout button added.
3. Added Progress bar on downloads.

===========================================

gluwater

Hey Ram I just installed it and it works as stated. We've got a couple suggestions for you though.

Allow Original downloads - I think you already know about this one.
Have a log out button - people like to know they have logged out of their site.
Have some sort of progress indicator on the downloads. Like a % or file x of y. Something like that.

Nice simple easy to use program

raam

===========================================

UPDATE [Version 0.20] (Feb 19, 2009)

1. Now allows Original downloads.
2. Logout button added.
3. Added Progress bar on downloads.

===========================================

Thanks,
Ram

Andy

raam wrote:

===========================================

UPDATE [Version 0.20] (Feb 19, 2009)

1. Now allows Original downloads.
2. Logout button added.
3. Added Progress bar on downloads.

===========================================

Thanks,
Ram

Seems to work! Cool

JDub

I have to personally say thank you so much! This application works like a charm. I downloaded all my photos to my computer, since I just purchased a 1TB HDD. The wedding galleries, with over 2000 photos, downloaded perfectly with your program. The other smugmug photo grabber program, who will remain nameless, timed out after only downloading 200 pictures, and aborted itself. WTH! But yours, works beautifully. THANK YOU!!!!!!!

rich56k

raam wrote:

===========================================

UPDATE [Version 0.20] (Feb 19, 2009)

1. Now allows Original downloads.
2. Logout button added.
3. Added Progress bar on downloads.

===========================================

Thanks,
Ram

OK - even a novice like me finally figured out how to get in this tool once downloaded (its not very clear at all to us non-tech-minded users)...

are there instructions somewhere I missed??????

however, once in it won't respond to my 'get album list' how 'bout a hand please...

so then if I click 'download' I get the att. reply - what am I missing?

ps: using an iMac 20" 2.33g C2D OSX 10.5.6 Safari 3.2.1

thanks
rich56k

raam

It's an Adobe AIR application - setup can be a bit complicated if this is the first Adobe AIR application you are installing. I'll be happy to upload a video showing the installation process if there is more demand for it.

Anyway, as far as your specific issue is concerned: you may have to wait till your list of albums populate before selecting the image/video size.

I have uploaded a video that explains the entire process here:

http://ram2.smugmug.com/gallery/7430881_C4zeX#479014595_JYVdu

Please let me know if that fixes your problem,

Ram

PS: In the next release I'll add a delay + a message that requests you to wait till your list of albums populate.

rich56k wrote:

OK - even a novice like me finally figured out how to get in this tool once downloaded (its not very clear at all to us non-tech-minded users)...

are there instructions somewhere I missed??????

however, once in it won't respond to my 'get album list' how 'bout a hand please...

so then if I click 'download' I get the att. reply - what am I missing?

ps: using an iMac 20" 2.33g C2D OSX 10.5.6 Safari 3.2.1

thanks
rich56k

raam

I'm glad you found it useful. Let me know if there are any other features you would like me to implement.

I know I still have to work on the front-end to make it as hip as SmugMug.com.

Ram

JDub wrote:

I have to personally say thank you so much! This application works like a charm. I downloaded all my photos to my computer, since I just purchased a 1TB HDD. The wedding galleries, with over 2000 photos, downloaded perfectly with your program. The other smugmug photo grabber program, who will remain nameless, timed out after only downloading 200 pictures, and aborted itself. WTH! But yours, works beautifully. THANK YOU!!!!!!!

rich56k

raam wrote:

It's an Adobe AIR application - setup can be a bit complicated if this is the first Adobe AIR application you are installing. I'll be happy to upload a video showing the installation process if there is more demand for it.

Anyway, as far as your specific issue is concerned: you may have to wait till your list of albums populate before selecting the image/video size.

I have uploaded a video that explains the entire process here:

http://ram2.smugmug.com/gallery/7430881_C4zeX#479014595_JYVdu

Please let me know if that fixes your problem,

Ram

PS: In the next release I'll add a delay + a message that requests you to wait till your list of albums populate.

Hi Ram,

I appreciate your response and the video...

however, have followed the video instruction and it's 6 minutes still no albums 'populating'

note: does illustrator need to be open? when I dbl-clicked on RapidFetcher.xml it opens illustrator (I have adobe creative suite 4 - design standard installed) but nothing happens - when I dbl-clicked on RapidFetcher.html it opens the window shown in the video (thats where I was earlier) I have approx 70 public non-passworded galleries and about 25 more unlisted with/without passwords - but nothing is 'populating'... now more like 15 minutes - hmmm...

knowing me its something so simple - but again

just for feedback sake - as a non techie when you open the downloaded folder whats to indicate what is needed to use this program = I just started clicking on items until something opened - could that be part of my problem?

rich

9:52 pm UPDATE: when I clicked on 'logout' and it replied 'you're not logged in yet' !!??...the plot thickens!!

10:05 pm UPDATE: just downloaded adobe AIR - but don't have a clue what to do with it ... I did re-try both as user and guest and still isn't 'populating' or even indicating I'm logged in...

raam

It definitely sounds like an installation problem then.

1. download and install Adobe AIR installer from here: http://get.adobe.com/air/
2. Download RapidFetcher.air from http://raam.splitbook.com/RapidFetcher.air
3. Double click RapidFetcher.air (it should now automatically open with Adobe AIR).
4. After the installation process completes, you will find the file in your applications folder (usually /Applications/RapidFetcher.app)
5. This is the file that you want to double-click.

Hope this helps. Let me know

Ram

rich56k wrote:

Hi Ram,

I appreciate your response and the video...

however, have followed the video instruction and it's 6 minutes still no albums 'populating'

note: does illustrator need to be open? when I dbl-clicked on RapidFetcher.xml it opens illustrator (I have adobe creative suite 4 - design standard installed) but nothing happens - when I dbl-clicked on RapidFetcher.html it opens the window shown in the video (thats where I was earlier) I have approx 70 public non-passworded galleries and about 25 more unlisted with/without passwords - but nothing is 'populating'... now more like 15 minutes - hmmm...

knowing me its something so simple - but again

just for feedback sake - as a non techie when you open the downloaded folder whats to indicate what is needed to use this program = I just started clicking on items until something opened - could that be part of my problem?

rich

9:52 pm UPDATE: when I clicked on 'logout' and it replied 'you're not logged in yet' !!??...the plot thickens!!

10:05 pm UPDATE: just downloaded adobe AIR - but don't have a clue what to do with it ... I did re-try both as user and guest and still isn't 'populating' or even indicating I'm logged in...

rich56k

Still no luck...

raam wrote:

It definitely sounds like an installation problem then.

1. download and install Adobe AIR installer from here: http://get.adobe.com/air/
2. Download RapidFetcher.air from http://raam.splitbook.com/RapidFetcher.air
3. Double click RapidFetcher.air (it should now automatically open with Adobe AIR).
4. After the installation process completes, you will find the file in your applications folder (usually /Applications/RapidFetcher.app)
5. This is the file that you want to double-click.

Hope this helps. Let me know

Ram

OK still no luck...I agree with the 'instalation problem' theory - I don't see anything in the file ending ".air" to double click on...

Have installed Adobe AIR but when I double click on your "RapidFetcher.html" it opens in safari (not opening in AIR) and still won't complete the log-in (assuming by the fact when I try to 'logout' after being unable to accomplish anything (re: populate any lists) it says 'you haven't logged in' ...)
either this is way over my head or somethings wrong - - again there is no "RapidFetcher.air" file - as your step #3 refers to - only the original zip folder has that name -nothing else I can find... :cry

Thanks for the attempts to help - if this becomes newb friendly let me know I'll keep checking back


thanks,

rich56k

raam

Okay, let's try something different.

Go to this page: http://raam.splitbook.com/RapidFetcher/install.html
Click on the Install Now button, and click "Open" in the dialog. This should be much easier to install. Let me know if this works for you.

Thanks,
Ram

rich56k wrote:

OK still no luck...I agree with the 'instalation problem' theory - I don't see anything in the file ending ".air" to double click on...

Have installed Adobe AIR but when I double click on your "RapidFetcher.html" it opens in safari (not opening in AIR) and still won't complete the log-in (assuming by the fact when I try to 'logout' after being unable to accomplish anything (re: populate any lists) it says 'you haven't logged in' ...)
either this is way over my head or somethings wrong - - again there is no "RapidFetcher.air" file - as your step #3 refers to - only the original zip folder has that name -nothing else I can find... :cry

Thanks for the attempts to help - if this becomes newb friendly let me know I'll keep checking back


thanks,

rich56k

rich56k

raam wrote:

Okay, let's try something different.

Go to this page: http://raam.splitbook.com/RapidFetcher/install.html
Click on the Install Now button, and click "Open" in the dialog. This should be much easier to install. Let me know if this works for you.

Thanks,
Ram

Hi Ram,

Yes , that not only works perfectly - it's completely 'newb-proof' also!

Super easy install, super fast download, even pulled originals when not 'enabled' in the gallery ...
this is ready for mass consumption!!


Thanks for going the extra mile for us that need an extra bit of simplcity!
:ivar :ivar
A 'tip of the hat' to you sir!!

Thanks again,

rich

ps: this is a real bonus to us intel mac users that were having difficulty with smugDav

raam

I am glad this worked for you! I have updated my main post to make this the default installation style.

Thanks,
Ram

rich56k wrote:

Hi Ram,

Yes , that not only works perfectly - it's completely 'newb-proof' also!

Super easy install, super fast download, even pulled originals when not 'enabled' in the gallery ...
this is ready for mass consumption!!


Thanks for going the extra mile for us that need an extra bit of simplcity!
:ivar :ivar
A 'tip of the hat' to you sir!!

Thanks again,

rich

ps: this is a real bonus to us intel mac users that were having difficulty with smugDav

jonstle

Not seeing all of my galleries
I have downloaded and installed RapidFetcher. When I log in I only see 2 of my 30+ galleries available to download.

Any thoughts?

raam

Hmmm... never seen this. But, could you tell me a little bit more about what is different about these 2 galleries with respect to any of the rest of the gallaries?
E.g. date of creation, size of galleries, images / videos, access permissions etc.

Thanks,
Ram

jonstle wrote:

I have downloaded and installed RapidFetcher. When I log in I only see 2 of my 30+ galleries available to download.

Any thoughts?

jonstle

raam wrote:

Hmmm... never seen this. But, could you tell me a little bit more about what is different about these 2 galleries with respect to any of the rest of the gallaries?
E.g. date of creation, size of galleries, images / videos, access permissions etc.

Thanks,
Ram

I took a quick look at the 2 galleries that appear in rapid fetcher, here is some basis information:

Gallery one created February 28, 2009
55 images
unlisted
password protection - no
hello world - no
helllo smugers - no
external links - yes
Protected - no

Gallery two created December 2008
unlisted
password protection - yes
hello world - no
helllo smugers - no
external links - yes
Protected - no

The only thing I can see is that they are the only two which are not in a subcategory.

jonstle

I think I may be onto something, I use sub-categories for organization, when I set a galleries subcategory to "none" it shows up in RapidFetcher.

raam

jonstle wrote:

I think I may be onto something, I use sub-categories for organization, when I set a galleries subcategory to "none" it shows up in RapidFetcher.

I'll look into this.

Ram

raam

This bug has been fixed in the latest version (0.21)

Sorry about that,
Ram

jonstle wrote:

I think I may be onto something, I use sub-categories for organization, when I set a galleries subcategory to "none" it shows up in RapidFetcher.

ptraykovski

rapid fetcher feature request
Just downloaded your rapid fetcher program and it works great..thanks.

One feature request would be to preserve the filenames that the images were imported with. I use filenames sometimes to tweak the order of images, for instance if the camera date was set wrong.

also the one you had on your web page:

Retain the Category/Sub-Category and Year/Month of a Gallery (using Folders and Sub-Folders).

would be really useful!

nixage

no originals
Hey. Thanks so much for sharing this app.

For me it seems to work from tiny all the way to XL sizes. But, when I try to download the originals (Original URL), nothing happens. I select the folder to download to and then nothing....

Any help is appreciated. (using a mac).

thx.

nixage

works in xp
Decided to download AlbumFetcher and run it in XP via VMWare Fusion on my mac, since RapidFetcher wasn't working for originals. AlbumFetcher worked right off the bat.

bbeck4x4

having trouble with original downloads in macos
I can get to where I select all of the galleries, create a location to store them and then nothing happens, any ideas?

raam

Could you give me more details on the type of files you are downloading?
Are they in a category?

Ram

nixage wrote:

Hey. Thanks so much for sharing this app.

For me it seems to work from tiny all the way to XL sizes. But, when I try to download the originals (Original URL), nothing happens. I select the folder to download to and then nothing....

Any help is appreciated. (using a mac).

thx.

raam

1. Please make sure you have the latest version of Adobe AIR in your system - it should usually prompt you to update if you don't have the latest version.
2. Could you look into the directory where the files were downloaded to make sure they weren't downloaded in the background? If the files are very large, they may take a while before they show up on the progress bar.

Let me know if you still need assistance,

Ram

bbeck4x4 wrote:

I can get to where I select all of the galleries, create a location to store them and then nothing happens, any ideas?

Jcox3

for the shooting i do i use a lot of keywords to group images for the clients to find. it would be nice to be able to grab all of the images with certain keywords, so i can make cds of the groupings they like.

other then that i think its a great program

System

fantastic - thank you for writing this app and making it available.

so far i have only one complaint: when i try to download the 530 big D2x JPEGs from one of my galleries, between the time i click "Save" in the save dialog (to indicate to which directory i want to save the downloaded images) and the time RF starts to download the images, about a minute and a half passes during which RF gives no indication that it's doing anything at all. this is a problem in and of itself, on top of which if the user figures this means RF didn't "hear" him the first time and he clicks "download" and indicates the directory a second time (and a third, as i did), RF will queue and execute all those download commands, resulting in the download of multiple copies of each image. that needs fixing.

but that issue aside, it's an indispensable tool, providing a function that should have been built into the smugmug website. again: thank you!

[oops...of course, the moment i'd posted the above message i noticed that RF had choked on image #72 of 530 ("downloading (95%)") and was just sitting there doing nothing. alas, i may have to try one of the other options.]

yeah, this time it stopped on #114 of 530. i don't have the patience to try this downloader over and over, each time just hoping it will work. i'm off to find another.

raam

I'm sorry you were having problems. I thought the wait bug was fixed - I'll look into it.

I never got hiccups during the transfer. I'll try to put in a cancel/resume somewhere to fix this issue.

Ram

plaintiger wrote:

fantastic - thank you for writing this app and making it available.

so far i have only one complaint: when i try to download the 530 big D2x JPEGs from one of my galleries, between the time i click "Save" in the save dialog (to indicate to which directory i want to save the downloaded images) and the time RF starts to download the images, about a minute and a half passes during which RF gives no indication that it's doing anything at all. this is a problem in and of itself, on top of which if the user figures this means RF didn't "hear" him the first time and he clicks "download" and indicates the directory a second time (and a third, as i did), RF will queue and execute all those download commands, resulting in the download of multiple copies of each image. that needs fixing.

but that issue aside, it's an indispensable tool, providing a function that should have been built into the smugmug website. again: thank you!

[oops...of course, the moment i'd posted the above message i noticed that RF had choked on image #72 of 530 ("downloading (95%)") and was just sitting there doing nothing. alas, i may have to try one of the other options.]

yeah, this time it stopped on #114 of 530. i don't have the patience to try this downloader over and over, each time just hoping it will work. i'm off to find another.

wellman

I was unable to get RapidFetcher to work (nothing happened after clicking Download), but it might be the fault of some proxy shenanigans at work. I'll try again at home later.

LOVE the idea of it being cross-platform! Nice.

bugbug

Echo the comment of a few previous poster -- The download starts 2 minutes after you click the download, save buttons. It thought it wasn't working...

If the wait cannot be elmininated, then just show something in the status (Please wait while...it may take a few moments) etc.

It is a cool app though. It saves the day when the other album downloader doesn't work for one reason or another.