It's the notebook you always forget to bring. Tap once as you take each photo and Film Sidekick keeps the camera, lens, aperture, shutter, time and place. When the scans come back from the lab, it lines them up with your frames and writes every detail into the files.
Free to start, with a one-off upgrade when you want more.
iPhone, iPad, Mac and Apple Watch.
One roll, start to finish. Film Sidekick sticks with it from the moment you load the camera until the scans are on your computer with every setting written in. No more guessing which one was f/8.
Add your cameras and lenses once. Loading a roll takes two taps from a list of popular stocks, and if you're pushing or pulling it, just say so.
One tap and the frame is logged with your camera, lens, exposure, time and location. Shooting at f/8 all day? Lock the dial and forget about it.
Drop it off and note where it went, the order number and when it's due. You'll never again wonder which lab has your Portra.
Pull them in from Photos or Files. On a Mac, just drag the lab's folder onto the window. Your originals stay untouched.
Scans line up with frames in order. Lab scanned it backwards, or slipped a blank leader in? A couple of taps sorts it out.
Save copies with everything written in, to a folder or into Photos in an album named after the roll. One at a time is free. Premium does the whole roll at once.
Little things that matter when you've got a camera in one hand and your phone in the other.
This is where the logging happens. Swipe to the camera you're holding, tap, keep walking.
Spread a roll out on a big map, tidy up frames and drag scans around with room to spare.
Drag the lab's folder onto the window and export tagged copies right where you edit. Your frames come across from your iPhone through iCloud.
Log a frame from your wrist and set exposure with the Digital Crown. Your phone can stay in the bag.
Most answers are below. If yours isn't, email me and I'll get back to you.
The full help guide goes from logging your first frame to getting a stubborn roll to match.
Email support
help@filmsidekick.appNever. It only reads them and writes new copies, into a folder you pick or into Photos. If a file with that name is already there, the copy gets “ 2” on the end.
JPEG and TIFF, untouched apart from the new details. HEIC works too, but it has to be re-encoded to take them, so you're asked first and can leave those files out. PNG and DNG files are skipped.
Log away. The frame saves straight away and picks up its location once your phone finds one. You can add or fix a location later, too.
No. You pay once (US$5.99, A$9.99 or your local equivalent) and that's it. It works with Family Sharing, and “Restore Purchases” brings it back on a new device. Refunds go through Apple at reportaproblem.apple.com.
On your devices and in your own iCloud account. There's no Film Sidekick account, and I can't see any of it. The privacy policy has the details.
An iPhone or iPad on iOS 18 or later. The Mac app needs macOS 15 and the watch app needs watchOS 11, but both are optional.
Load the camera and head out. When the scans come back, they'll know exactly where you were.
