CullKit
Culling photos on a Mac does not have to mean clicking through every frame with a mouse. If you are a photographer who shoots hundreds or thousands of RAW frames per job — weddings, events, portrait sessions, travel — you already know that the cull is the single most time-consuming step before editing. Every second you spend moving a cursor and clicking a button is a second that does not improve the final image.
CullKit replaces the mouse with a keyboard-driven photo culling workflow that lets you rate, flag, and reject frames without lifting your hands from the keys. Number keys assign star ratings. P picks a keeper. X rejects a frame. Arrow keys navigate the sequence. Every rating and flag is written to an XMP sidecar that Lightroom, Capture One, and Darktable read automatically on import. This guide covers the full keyboard culling workflow: how to connect your Mac to any photo source, the exact shortcuts and when to use each one, realistic timings for 1,000-frame shoots, and how your ratings reach your desktop editor without a re-import step.
CullKit is an independent product. It is not affiliated with or endorsed by Synology Inc., QNAP Technologies, Inc., TrueNAS / iXsystems, UGREEN Group, Adobe Inc. (Lightroom), or Capture One A/S. Compatibility claims only.
Why cull photos on a Mac with a keyboard?
A mouse is a pointing device, not a decision device. When you are making one binary decision — keep or reject — every 1.5 to 2 seconds across 2,000 frames, the mechanical overhead of moving a cursor onto a button and clicking it accumulates. Over a 1,000-frame cull, that overhead adds roughly 15 to 20 minutes of time spent on cursor movement alone, not on the decision itself.
Keyboard culling removes that overhead entirely. Your hands stay on the home row. Your decision moves straight from your eyes to your fingers. The physical distance between judging a frame and rating it drops to zero. This is not a marginal gain; it is the difference between a 50-minute cull and a 75-minute cull on a 2,000-frame shoot. For photographers who shoot multiple jobs per week, that time gap compounds. A keyboard workflow also reduces wrist and forearm fatigue compared to repetitive mouse movement over long sessions, which matters if culling is part of your daily professional routine.
How do I connect CullKit to my photos on a Mac?
CullKit connects to three types of photo storage on macOS, and the keyboard shortcuts work identically across all three. You set up the connection once and the app remembers it for subsequent sessions.
Synology NAS over SMB. Open CullKit, tap the plus icon, and choose SMB. Enter your DiskStation IP address and the share path. The standard Synology Photos folder path is smb://<DiskStation-IP>/photo. If your photos are in a custom shared folder, the path is smb://<DiskStation-IP>/<share-name>. Enter your Synology credentials. If you have two-factor authentication enabled, CullKit handles the TOTP prompt transparently and stores the session in your Mac’s Keychain.
QNAP, TrueNAS, or UGREEN NAS over SMB. The process is the same as Synology: tap the plus icon, choose SMB, and enter the NAS IP address with the share path. On QNAP the default multimedia share is smb://<NAS-IP>/Multimedia. On TrueNAS the share path depends on the dataset name you configured, typically smb://<NAS-IP>/<dataset-name>. On UGREEN the NAS advertises its shared folders automatically; the path follows the same convention: smb://<NAS-IP>/<share-name>. Enter the NAS user credentials and CullKit connects through the native macOS SMB stack. Bonjour auto-discovery surfaces compatible devices on your local network, so the NAS often appears in the connection list without manual IP entry.
Local folder or external SSD. Choose Local Folder from the source picker and navigate to the directory in the macOS file browser. This is the fastest loading option because the drive is directly attached over USB-C or Thunderbolt. Use it when you have just copied a card to an SSD and want to cull before anything moves to the NAS.
After the first connection, CullKit saves the source in a recent-connections list. Subsequent sessions start with a single click.
What keyboard shortcuts does CullKit use for photo culling?
The keyboard shortcut layout in CullKit maps to a standard QWERTY keyboard with no modifier keys for the most common actions. Your left hand stays on the number row and the home row; your right hand optionally handles the arrow keys or stays on the mouse if you prefer a hybrid approach.
| Action | Shortcut | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Rate 1 star | 1 | Lowest keeper tier; frame is usable but not a standout |
| Rate 2 stars | 2 | Solid frame, worth including in the gallery |
| Rate 3 stars | 3 | Strong keeper; likely a deliverable |
| Rate 4 stars | 4 | Portfolio-grade; among the best of the shoot |
| Rate 5 stars | 5 | Exceptional; the hero shot of the set |
| Pick / flag as keeper | P | Marks the frame as a pick without assigning a star rating |
| Reject / flag as discard | X | Marks the frame for deletion or exclusion |
| Clear rating | 0 | Removes any existing star rating from the frame |
| Next frame | Right Arrow or Down Arrow | Advances to the next frame in the sequence |
| Previous frame | Left Arrow or Up Arrow | Goes back to the previous frame |
| Undo last action | Cmd + Z | Reverses the most recent rating, pick, or reject |
CullKit can also be configured to auto-advance after each rating. When auto-advance is enabled, pressing a number key, P, or X both assigns the rating and moves to the next frame in one motion. This is the fastest mode: one keystroke per decision, with no navigation key required between frames. A 2,000-frame cull in auto-advance mode processes roughly one frame every 1.5 seconds, or about 50 minutes for the full set.
Colour labels and tags are available from the metadata inspector, which opens as a slide-out panel on macOS. The inspector is accessible via a button in the culling toolbar and is designed for occasional use during the culling session rather than as a per-frame action.
How fast can you cull with keyboard shortcuts vs swipe gestures?
Keyboard culling on Mac is approximately 20 to 30 percent faster than swipe culling on iPad or iPhone for experienced users who touch-type. The reason is mechanical: a keystroke registers in under 50 milliseconds and your fingers do not change position between frames. A swipe gesture on a touchscreen takes roughly 200 to 300 milliseconds of finger travel, and your hand must return to a neutral position between swipes.
The absolute numbers from real sessions: a keyboard cull of 1,000 frames in auto-advance mode takes roughly 25 to 30 minutes for a first-pass keep-or-reject decision. Adding star ratings to the survivors in a second pass adds another 10 to 12 minutes. The same 1,000-frame shoot on an iPad takes about 35 to 40 minutes for the first pass. Neither is slow, but the keyboard gap matters when you shoot multiple jobs per week.
The important qualification is that keyboard speed depends on your typing fluency. A photographer who hunts for keys on each rating will not see the full gain. But the shortcuts are deliberately simple — the number row, P, X, and arrows — so even moderate typists settle into a rhythm within the first 100 frames. By the second session, the muscle memory is set.
How do my keyboard ratings get into Lightroom or Capture One?
Every rating you assign with a keystroke in CullKit is written to an XMP sidecar file in the same folder as the RAW image. The sidecar is a small XML file: if your frame is WED_1042.CR3, the sidecar is WED_1042.CR3.xmp. It contains the star rating, pick flag, colour label, and any tags you assigned. The sidecar is a plain-text standard that every major desktop photo editor reads natively.
In Lightroom Classic: When you import the folder into Lightroom, the Import dialog reads the sidecars and populates star ratings and flags on every frame before they enter the catalogue. You can filter the import to 3 stars and above or flagged picks only, so the rejects never reach your catalogue. If the folder was already imported before you culled, select the folder in the Library module and run Metadata > Read Metadata from Files. Lightroom updates the ratings in place.
In Capture One: Import the folder into a session or catalogue. Capture One reads the XMP sidecars during import and applies star ratings and colour labels automatically.
In Darktable: Import the folder. Darktable reads XMP sidecars natively and populates ratings, flags, and colour labels during the folder scan.
The sidecars travel with the folder. Copy the shoot folder from your SSD to your NAS for archival, and the ratings come with it. Send the folder to a retoucher, and the ratings come with it. The metadata belongs to the files, not to CullKit or to any one computer.
Can I use keyboard shortcuts on a MacBook without a numeric keypad?
Yes. CullKit uses the number row above the QWERTY keys, not a numeric keypad. Any MacBook keyboard, from the 13-inch Air to the 16-inch Pro, has the number row. The shortcuts are 1 through 5 on the main keyboard, not on a separate numpad.
On a compact Apple keyboard without a dedicated arrow cluster, the inverted-T arrow keys at the bottom right of the keyboard serve as navigation controls. The layout is the same on every current Mac: Magic Keyboard, MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, and the iMac’s bundled keyboard all have the number row and arrow keys in the same positions.
The only practical difference between keyboards is key travel. The scissor-switch keys on a MacBook Pro have slightly more tactile feedback than the lower-travel keys on the Magic Keyboard, which can make rapid culling feel more certain. This is a preference issue, not a functional one; the shortcuts work identically on both.
Does keyboard culling work with photos that are on a NAS?
Yes. The keyboard shortcuts are client-side on your Mac; they have no dependency on where the photos live. Whether your frames are on a Synology DS923+ over SMB, a QNAP TS-464 connected to the same 5 GHz Wi-Fi network, or a Samsung T7 SSD plugged directly into a Thunderbolt port, the rating happens on your Mac and the sidecar is written back to the source folder over the active connection.
The only variable that changes with a NAS is preview loading time. On a directly attached SSD, a full-resolution RAW preview loads in under half a second. On a NAS over a 5 GHz Wi-Fi connection, previews take roughly one to two seconds to load from the NAS disk to your Mac’s memory. The keyboard shortcut response is instant in both cases, but the preview delay means your decision rhythm may slow slightly on a NAS compared to a local SSD. The workaround is to enable thumbnail pre-generation for NAS folders in CullKit, which pre-loads lower-resolution thumbnails so the preview grid renders immediately while the full-resolution image streams in.
If your NAS connection drops mid-cull — because the Mac moved to a different Wi-Fi access point or the NAS entered sleep mode — CullKit pauses the session and shows an offline banner. When the connection recovers, the session resumes from where you stopped. No ratings are lost.
What is the fastest keyboard culling workflow for a large shoot?
The single biggest speed gain in keyboard culling is not a shortcut key; it is the two-pass structure that separates the keep-or-reject decision from the star-rating decision. Trying to assign a 1-to-5 star rating to every frame on the first viewing is slower than splitting the job into two quicker passes.
Pass one: keep or reject. Start a culling session from the beginning with auto-advance enabled. Your fingers rest on P and X. Every frame gets one of two decisions. If the frame is usable — the subject is in focus, the exposure is correct, there is no blinking or motion blur that ruins the shot — press P. If the frame fails any of those criteria, press X. Do not assign star ratings on this pass. A 1,000-frame folder takes roughly 25 minutes.
Pass two: rate the keepers. Restart the session in unrated-only mode. CullKit skips the rejected frames and the frames you already rated. Now the survivors appear in sequence, and your fingers move to the number row. Assign 1 to 5 stars based on quality. Because the discards are gone, there are fewer frames to rate — typically 300 to 400 survivors from 1,000 frames shot — and the pass finishes in 10 to 15 minutes.
Pass three (optional): batch review. Switch to batch-review mode and scan the grid of rated frames. This is where you re-evaluate whether the 4-star frames deserve 5, or whether a 3-star frame should become a 2. Use the arrow keys to step through the grid and adjust ratings with the number keys. This pass takes five minutes on 300 survivors.
After the three passes, you have a folder of fully rated frames with XMP sidecars written and ready for Lightroom. Total time: roughly 40 to 45 minutes on a 1,000-frame shoot.
Troubleshooting keyboard culling on Mac
- Keyboard shortcuts stop responding. Check that the CullKit window has focus. If you switched to Finder or another app, click back into CullKit or press
Cmd + Tabto return focus to it. - Auto-advance is not working. Auto-advance is a toggle in the culling session toolbar. If it is off, each keystroke rates the frame but does not advance; you must manually press the right arrow to move forward. Turn auto-advance back on in the toolbar at the top of the culling screen.
- Sidecars not appearing in Lightroom. Verify that the culling session finished and metadata was written. In Lightroom, check Catalog Settings > Metadata and confirm “Automatically write changes into XMP” is enabled. Then select the folder and run Metadata > Read Metadata from Files.
- The number keys are typing numbers into a text field. Some macOS input methods intercept the number row. Dismiss any text input field in CullKit and ensure the culling viewer is the active focus target. If you are running a keyboard customisation tool like Karabiner-Elements, check that it is not remapping the number keys or P/X outside CullKit.
- NAS previews load slowly. If the preview takes more than three seconds to load over a NAS connection, check the Wi-Fi link speed. A congested 2.4 GHz network produces noticeably slower loads than a 5 GHz connection. Switch the Mac to the 5 GHz band, or connect the NAS to the router via Ethernet and move the Mac onto the same wired switch or a line-of-sight 5 GHz access point. Enabling thumbnail pre-generation in CullKit reduces the perceived delay.
How does keyboard culling compare to Photo Mechanic and Lightroom?
CullKit vs Photo Mechanic. Photo Mechanic is a fast, keyboard-driven photo browser that is popular with press and sports photographers. It runs on Mac and Windows and has deep IPTC and code-replacement features for captioning and metadata. For the specific job of culling — rating, flagging, and writing XMP sidecars — CullKit and Photo Mechanic share a keyboard-first philosophy. The difference is scope: CullKit works across iPhone, iPad, and Mac from a single codebase and can connect directly to a NAS over SMB without mounting the share in Finder first. Photo Mechanic is desktop-only. If you work exclusively on a Mac and need IPTC captioning, Photo Mechanic may be the right tool. If you want to cull on an iPad at an event venue and then open the rated selects on your Mac later, CullKit covers both devices.
CullKit vs Lightroom’s built-in culling. Lightroom has keyboard shortcuts for rating and flagging in the Library module. The shortcuts are similar: number keys rate, P picks, X rejects. But culling in Lightroom requires importing everything into the catalogue first, which triggers preview generation, catalogue expansion, and potential ingest-time processing. For a first-pass cull on 1,000 RAWs that you know will be halved to 500 keepers, importing all 1,000 into Lightroom is more work than culling first and importing only the keepers. CullKit does the cull before import, writes XMP sidecars, and lets Lightroom read the survivors on import. Less catalogue bloat, fewer previews generated.
Related reading
- Get Your Culls into Lightroom Without Re-Importing — the full XMP handover story from sidecar to catalogue, including the Lightroom settings to check.
- CullKit vs Photo Mechanic: Culling Tools Compared — a side-by-side comparison of features, platforms, and workflows.
- How to Cull Photos on an iPad: A Faster Workflow — the gesture-driven alternative for photographers who prefer a tablet in the field and a keyboard at the desk.
Cull faster on your Mac
CullKit is a native Mac app, not a web wrapper. It runs on any Mac with macOS 26 or later and uses the same SwiftUI codebase as the iPhone and iPad versions. The free tier lets you browse any connected storage — NAS, SMB share, local folder, external SSD — and view your images at full resolution. No account, no trial, no cloud upload.
The Pro tier unlocks culling with keyboard shortcuts, star ratings, colour labels, tags, XMP sidecar writing, and folder organisation. A 7-day free trial lets you run a full keyboard cull on a real shoot before the monthly or yearly subscription begins. A built-in demo mode with seeded sample data is available if you want to test the keyboard flow without connecting a real photo source.
Open your next shoot folder, turn on auto-advance, and let your fingers do the work.
Download CullKit on the App Store
CullKit is independent software. Not affiliated with or endorsed by Synology, QNAP, TrueNAS / iXsystems, UGREEN, Adobe (Lightroom), or Capture One. Compatibility claims only.