What is it?
A simple Windows tool to make synchronizing local folders of images and videos with SmugMug super easy.
It was designed to help better utilize your awesome SmugMug account. You're paying for it. Why not put it to even better use?
Do you Backup your Photos?
If you take lots of photographs, you might have a reasonable backup strategy (copying them to multiple hard drives is a must!). Sending some of your better photos to the family and friends via Facebook does not count as a backup.
Or, are you like most people: you put your pictures in one giant folder "system" and that's the only place they are stored? (Maybe you copy some to SmugMug ... but not all because it's too much work?)
Are you prepared for the worst? Do you regularly back your digital files to a location outside of your home? You should if you value your digital memories.
OK, so what does SnugUp do?
SnugUp copies your photos (and videos) from your local computer (or network drive) to a SmugMug account while preserving your folder structure as best as it can (SmugMug galleries can't be nested, so nested folders are expanded into multiple galleries). If you store your digital photos in folders like this:
SnugUp automatically creates galleries for each corresponding folder. In that way, you'll end up with a mirror image of your folder structure (again, within SmugMug limitations).
If however, you use a method that uses sub folders:
It creates galleries for each sub folder, although named so that it implies the hierarchy. Folder Kitara, Day2 as shown above, becomes this single gallery on SmugMug for example:
Notice that the folder names do not include the root location (like "c:\users\Aaron\Pictures"). This simplifies the folder names and makes them more human friendly, but also makes it easy to synchronize photos from multiple computers, like a laptop and a Windows PC. When traveling, you are able to synchronize the new folders directly from a laptop so that you're certain that the photos have been securely saved before you erase the memory card or even head home from vacation! Once home, just copy the photos from the laptop to your primary storage location, and you're all set!
It copies new photos and changed photos (there are a few options to adjust the behavior).
Also, if you have set the caption or keywords on an image it sets those as part of the image upload (only for JPG/JPEG images).
Additional Features
Video
Your SmugMug account may support video files (of a variety of formats). SnugUp can upload videos as well. SmugMug claims to support a huge variety of video file types. However, the supported file extensions aren't as well documented. If you'd like to use SnugUp to upload videos, you'll need to add the appropriate file extensions to the Video settings in SnugUp. By doing so, SnugUp will include matching files during the upload process.
To add an extension, click the Settings button, then Find Photos, and add the extension. In the example above, the file extension was .MTS included (from a Canon pocket digital camera). To add a second extension, just add a comma, and the new file extension. The file extension should include the leading period. For example, you might use:
.MTS,.AVI,.MP4
It is not recommended that you use the aggressive search option when using videos, as it is very likely that the videos will be loaded too frequently.
While there is an upload time limit of approximately 7 days per file, it should accommodate the largest video and photo files currently permitted by SmugMug.
Automatic Start
On the Upload Behavior settings page, you'll find that there is an option to start the upload process immediately when the application has started.
Automatic Run
On the Tools settings page, there is an option to automatically start SnugUp when you login to Windows. When combined with the Automatic Start option you can automatically run and start the upload process anytime you login and start Windows (or use the periodic scan feature described below). SnugUp will automatically start where it left off last time if the upload process did not complete..
Advanced Gallery Naming
If you'd like to tweak the naming convention used by SnugUp when creating (and locating) galleries, there's an option on the Gallery Creation settings page just for that. You can do things like add prefix text to the gallery names (such as "Backup-"). It's specified by using the subsitution string %N%. For example, if you wanted all of the galleries that were uploaded via SnugUp to include the text "Backup-", you'd specify it as:
Backup-%N%.
The gallery name, for a folder named NewYorkCityAdventure, would be called the following on SmugMug:
Backup-NewYorkCityAdventure
Ignore Folders with Name
Folders containing specified characters or words can be excluded automatically.
What doesn't it do?
It isn't a "photo management tool" nor will it ever become one. Those are a dime a dozen and work perfectly fine. (I recommend Windows Live Photo Gallery. It works really well even with large photo collections. It's also free! Lightroom, also rocks if you want to pay).
It doesn't change your local images and it won't delete your local images.
It won't organize your photo galleries on SmugMug. Use SmugMug for that.
If you change the name of a gallery, SnugUp won't know about it, and may upload the photos into the old folder name.
It probably doesn't do lots of other things. SnugUp was designed to do one thing primarily and not have lots of bells and whistles. Feel free to suggest improvements using the support address below.
Support
This program is free and comes without any support or warranties. If you want to contact the author with feedback and suggestions, please do so here.
Appreciation
If you like this program or are using it for commerical
purposes, I'd really appreciate a tiny gift in the form of
an Amazon.com Gift Card
If you do want to give me a gift of a Amazon.com gift card, send it to aaron at this web site (wiredprairie.us). I really appreciate it!
Download
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.NET 4.0 Runtime (Client profile)
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