v1.0.2 for macOS, App Store

Cull at the speed of thought.

A keyboard-driven photo culling app for macOS. Rate, label, reject and advance. One keystroke per image. No mouse required. No subscription.

Download on the App Store See screenshots →
macOS 26 or later Universal Binary No subscription
1keystroke

To rate, label or reject. Auto-advances to the next shot.

0network

Zero network entitlements. Everything happens on-device.

∞undo

Full undo & redo stack. Every action is reversible.

.xmp

Ratings saved as sidecars. Compatible with Lightroom & Capture One.

$0recurring

One-time purchase. No subscription, no account, no recurring charges.

Built for the cull

Everything a photographer needs.
Nothing you don't.

Cull Kit is built around one idea: every interaction should be one keystroke away. No menus. No mouse trips. Just you and your shoot.

Keyboard-first, always

1–5 for star ratings. 6–9 and ⇧P for color labels. X to reject and auto-advance. Your fingers never leave home row.

12345 6789⇧P X

Five-color labels

Lightroom-compatible color labels for your own sorting taxonomy. Keeps, picks, reviews, rejects. Organize however you think.

Compare view

Press C to open two images side by side. Each panel zooms independently. Spot the keeper.

Batch apply

Select multiple images with ⌘A or shift-click, then press a rating key to apply to all at once.

Slideshow

Press S to auto-advance through your shoot at 1–10 second intervals. Great for a first-pass review.

Smart folder sidebar

Navigates your shoot's folder tree. Jump into subfolders, step back up to the root. Auto-refreshes when files move or get added.

Loupe view with full EXIF

Double-tap to zoom. Full metadata: camera, focal length, aperture, shutter, ISO. Lives in a HUD bar that never gets in the way.

Grid view

See the whole shoot
at a glance.

Scroll the thumbnail slider for denser rows. Filter by rating, color label or reject flag from the top bar. Batch-select with ⌘A or shift-click.

  • 01Adaptive grid. Thumbnails resize smoothly from overview to detail.
  • 02Filter bar. Isolate by rating, label or flag in one click.
  • 03Star & label overlays. Your ratings are always visible where the work happens.
Cull Kit grid view
Cull Kit loupe view
Loupe view

Every pixel.
Every piece of metadata.

Double-tap to enter loupe view and see one image edge-to-edge. Pinch to zoom deeper. Stars and labels stay right where you expect.

  • 01Full-resolution. No thumbnails. The real pixels.
  • 02EXIF HUD. Camera, lens, focal length, aperture, shutter, ISO.
  • 03Rate in place. Never leave the image to tag it.
System requirements

What you'll need.

Platform

  • macOS 26 or later
  • Apple Silicon
  • Mac App Store distribution

Sandboxing & privacy

  • Full App Sandbox. No system-wide access.
  • Zero network entitlements. Offline by design.
  • Security-scoped bookmarks for long-term folder access

Formats

  • All formats macOS natively decodes
  • Reads & writes XMP sidecars
  • Compatible with Lightroom & Capture One

Under the hood

  • Native SwiftUI & AppKit
  • Core Image for decoding & thumbnails
  • No third-party SDKs. At all.
Questions

Frequently asked.

No. Cull Kit is a culling tool, not an editor. It reads your images and writes your ratings, labels and reject flags to XMP sidecars alongside the originals. Your image files are never modified.
The ratings, labels and flags Cull Kit writes are industry-standard XMP, the same format Lightroom and Capture One use. Point either app at the same folder and your culls show up as you'd expect.
The image is marked with a reject flag and the view auto-advances to the next shot. Nothing is deleted. Press U to un-reject, or ⌘⌫ to move rejected files to the Trash when you're done culling.
No. Cull Kit is a one-time purchase on the Mac App Store. No sign-in, no account, no recurring charges.
Always. Cull Kit ships with zero network entitlements. It's technically incapable of making a network connection. Nothing leaves your machine. Ever.
Any still-image format macOS decodes natively through Core Image, including common RAW formats, HEIC, JPEG, PNG, TIFF and DNG.
Available now

Get culling.

One-time purchase. No subscription. No sign-in. No internet connection required. Ever.

Download on the App Store