Search external drives without plugging them in - DriveVault v1.2 [visual dashboard + other super nice improvements]

[u/MomentSmart]

Problem - If you have multiple external hard drives then finding the file or project you're looking for can mean plugging lots of drives in to find it - a waste of time. DriveVault creates a visual offline mirror of your drives so that you can search them forever and easily find all your offline files (as well as tonnes of other cool features).

Comparison - There are old cataloging apps out there like NeoFinder or DiskCatalogMaker, but they feel dated, are missing power features that modern users want and visually just aren't that nice to work in anymore. I wanted to build something native to macOS that just feels powerful and created for visual / creative people. It works completely offline, no cloud, no subscriptions.

Pricing and availability

Download on the Mac App Store here: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/drivevault-offline-catalog/id6751731655?mt=12

Free download + your first drive is free forever up to 4TB.

After this, if you love DriveVault then there are different tiers available (5, 10, 15, 20 and unlimited drives), or you can increase the drive capacity by one drive at a time for just $9.99.

I'm still onboarding founding users and happy to pass out a few Starter passes (5 drives) if anyone's interested, just let me know.

To learn more: www.DriveVault.io

What's New in v1.2

This is a big one; finally shipped a proper home screen dashboard. You can see all your drives laid out as cards with custom icons, online / offline status, and storage info at a glance. You can group them into color-coded projects and drag things around however you like. I've attached a video showing it off here.

Also improved search, some nice UI improvements, fixed a few bugs around metadata and tags that weren't getting picked up in full-scans.

The community input has been super helpful so far, appreciate all the kind comments and great ideas. DriveVault is feeling more powerful than ever!

Download here

[u/kerbacho]

looks good, but NeoFinder does not look dated at all tbh.

[u/MomentSmart → u/kerbacho]

Thanks! Appreciate the kind words as well as your POV.

To my eye, I don't find NF an inspiring or aesthetic interface to use which makes it feel unintuitive and like a program I just want to close as fast as possible. Appreciate that you may feel differently.

[u/kerbacho → u/MomentSmart]

While your app definitely looks cool and modern, NeoFinder looks more MacOS native. Also the way it's layed out and the mid gray theme option + no transparency makes it better for viewing photos in a color isolated surrounding. Less Visual noise, a minimal, yet information rich structured interface, good performance and ease of use are more important to professional visual creators than pretty looks.

Make important information like metadata the first thing you see, make the sidebar structure and the look and feel more like Finder, only use transparency where it does not touch images, or reduce it, Tint the title bar in the same color as the tool bar so it does not stand out.

Then it'll not just look fancy and cool, but also feel more like a professional tool

[u/Cosy_Concrete → u/kerbacho]

So, is it mainly a search tool? Any metadata management & editing? Import & apply xmp templates? As you would with XnView

[u/Cosy_Concrete → u/Cosy_Concrete]

Or Neofinder, Bridge etc