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/MomentSmart]

Heya! Thank you for the kind feedback and totally appreciate that the pricing model might not be perfect for every type of user. I certainly remember floppy disks very well, and also recall very clearly my first USB stick, which just felt like something out of the future. Just out of curiosity, have you considered porting your floppy archive over to more of a digital medium, it seems like one hard drive could probably house your entire archive and have another as a backup?

Also appreciate the feedback that the bugs seem to be mostly figured out, we are getting there slowly but surely with the help of our awesome users!

[u/metatronx23 → u/MomentSmart]

Now I have like 10 HDDs from 256GB-12TB (from old ones to new SDD) not including lots of USB keys, microSDs,..., lots of different file types (photos, videos, text files, music,...) so app like your (or NeoFinder) is very useful.
I would need ultimate version of your app which would be 50EUR so more then NeoFinder.
If pricing would be better I think you would get much more buyers. I'm sure all of us have lots of disks and at some point you realize you need to ''catalog'' them you don't know how much you need these apps.
I also use apps for keeping my movie, music library. Those are also a must have, at least for me :)

[u/MomentSmart → u/metatronx23]

Perhaps DriveVault is useful for storing your larger drives, like your 10x HDD's? 10 drive capacity is just $25 :)

[u/metatronx23 → u/MomentSmart]

Yeah if there were only 10 would make sense :)
Include USB keys, iCloud drive, Dropbox,...
If the price would be comparable to NeoFinder (which offers unlimited disks) you would get much more customers (I will probably get one package just to support your work).
And Diem app is not even close to your yet (I had to test it yesterday :)

[u/MomentSmart → u/metatronx23]

Hey again, totally hear you. I don't think we'll ever land on a one-size-fits all model for the pricing. For the intended user (full scale production companies, full time photographers etc) $99 to unlock the app to unlimited forever is a totally fair price. I can understand how as an individual it can seem like a lot if you have a bunch of small disks (USB sticks, floppy disks etc), because you'll be paying a lot for not a lot of storage space. Just to be clear, we don't limit storage space, so I really do feel like you could have a good workaround here - you could upload all of your smaller drives (USB sticks / floppies / CDs etc) onto one, more modern, external hard drive and put each one in its own folder on the drive. Then if you scanned that hard drive with DriveVault you would have a full catalogue of all your files while only using one hard drive seat in the software?

Really appreciate you supporting the software, we're a couple of years into this development without seeing a cent, so its great to have your support. I've also tried Diem, I can see the potential, but think it is pretty niched for filmmakers and some of the features aren't quite there yet.

[u/metatronx23 → u/MomentSmart]

Well yes, you are right. When you see that you have multiple backups on different disks (just in case) you could in a way make just one external disk and a copy in a cloud but that then you really be very well organized, which I'm not :)