DiskCatalogMaker App Reviews

I love this and have been using it for years. The only thing knocking two stars off my review is the lack of support for 4K/Retina screens. PLEASE ADD THIS and I’ll gladly re-review!

Please add «Always Skip» and «Always Continue» checkboxes, it is very annoying to push the «skip» button a dozen times per import. Also I get a memory leak every import. It consumes all 64gigs of ram. Rescan is super slow, like it recreates every thumbnail again.

This reviews DiskCatalogMaker as used to keep track of about 4 million files with considerable redundancies and different versions of files that need to be distinguished. Cataloging is fast. Boolean searching is straightforward. When a find target file or folder is double clicked, the software prompts mounting the appropriate volume and navigates to the target for opening. There seems to be a comprehensive set of features and configuration options. Exploratory search and browsing wants a good bit of screen real estate. It operates across two open windows, and thumbnails display requires screenflow which opens an extra column. Use of contextual menus for some information would be helpful in reducing the need to have both windows open. Also, quick look requires the original files, thus mounting their volumes. It would expedite searches if quick look, particularly in the find window, could show the names and/or thumbnails of a target folders contents. These are minor inconveniences.

Its rare to find a purpose built utility these days that does what it intends to do and doenst feel like its constantly in beta. DiskCatalogMaker gets the job done and does it well. Well maintaned by the developers. Recent search crash i discovered (introduced by 10.7.3) was fixed almost immediately by an update.

I hate to say anything negative about something Im sure someone has worked hard to create but I also hate spending money on something that is so woefully inadequate to the task at hand. Yes, this is a *simple* disk cataloging tool. Thats where it ends. Its too simple and actually quite infuriating in that the interface mimics the mac os but functions very little like it. If you like Mac OS 9 you will probably love this app. What is a shame is that NeoFinder is not on the Mac App Store - because it would sell very well. NeoFinder is pretty much what I wanted and was hoping to get in DiscCatalogMaker.

I received a WIndows NT external disk that contained 50,000 files for archival purposes. I needed to “catalog” this so a client could see the file/directory structure of the disk. I mounted the disk, ran DCM, and exported the resulting (dcmd) file. Asked my client to purchase the program so he can review the catalog of the disk. Super easy, and way worth the price. I emailed him the dcmd file and not the entire hard drive. I saved the dcmd file for later examination here even though the drive will be on a shelf in storage. I also exported a text version of the scan, messed with this tabbed version a bit, and was able to make an Excel-readable CSV that also shows the hierarchy. (The DCM program doesn’t do it, but it took me 15 minutes total.) For these basic purposes this was a super program with no snags or gotchas.

Thumbnails not working/