Using Tropy between a Mac and PC

Tropy stores absolute paths to your photos by default; if you want to use the project on a Mac and PC this will not work because of the different file systems used (on Windows an absolute path always starts with a drive letter; on a Mac it will always start with the root folder).

To solve this, you can use the experimental ‘portable’ project mode. Because of Window’s drive letters this will only work if you can put the project file on to the same device (i.e., same drive letter) on Windows – i.e., your image folder on Box. The best way to do this is:

  1. Close Tropy
  2. Move your project file to your image folder
  3. Make a backup copy of your project file just in case!
  4. Open Tropy and open your project (since you moved the project in step 2, Tropy will not open the project automatically)
  5. Enable dev mode in the preferences
  6. Rebase the project from the developer menu. Do this only once (the menu action is a toggle) – there should be no visible changes, but if you close the project now and open it on the other device Tropy should be able to find your images.
  7. You can disable dev mode again if you like.

Tropy does not yet help you avoid or resolve potential sync conflicts which can happen if you work on the same project file simultaneously (if your devices are connected to the cloud service continuously; if they are not you need to be even more careful), so please always make sure you’re working off of the latest version.