Watch Folder: the universal bridge for any NLE

We have native plugins for Premiere, Resolve Studio, Blender, Photopea, and Lightroom CC. We don't have native plugins for everything — Final Cut Pro, OpenShot, CapCut Desktop, VN Desktop, and a long tail of others don't have plugin APIs we can reasonably target.

For all of those, the Watch Folder helper is the answer. It's a tiny background process that watches a folder on your computer and auto-uploads any new video file to a Fotofolio album you've linked it to. From the editor's perspective you're just rendering to a folder. From your client's perspective the finished render appeared in their gallery without you doing anything.

What it does in v1

• One-way upload: folder → album. New video files dropped into the watched folder upload to the linked Fotofolio album.
• Video formats supported: mp4, mov, mkv, webm, avi, wmv, m4v, 3gp.
• Robust against half-rendered files: we wait ~2 seconds for the file size to stop growing before uploading, so partial renders don't get pushed.
• Survives restarts: a ~/.fotofolio/sync-state.json file tracks what's been uploaded so the helper doesn't re-upload on reboot.
• Auto-poster: if you have ffmpeg installed, we grab a still frame ~1s in as the album thumbnail. If you don't have ffmpeg, upload still succeeds and the album shows a placeholder thumbnail.

Setup

1. Install Python 3.8+ if you don't have it. Most Macs do. Windows users grab the official installer from python.org.
2. Fotofolio dashboard → Integrations → Watch Folder Sync. Generate token + download the helper zip.
3. Unzip the package somewhere on your machine.
4. In a terminal/PowerShell, navigate to the unzipped folder and run:
   • python -m pip install -r requirements.txt
   • python fotofolio_sync.py
5. The first run prompts for your access token, the local folder to watch, and the destination album. Settings save to ~/.fotofolio/sync.json with mode 0600.
6. Helper is now running. Drop a video file into the watched folder; it uploads.

Running as a service so you don't have to remember

The helper is meant to run all the time. You don't want to manually launch a terminal every morning.

• macOS: install as a launchd agent. The README in the zip includes a .plist template; copy it to ~/Library/LaunchAgents/ and run launchctl load on it. Helper starts on login.
• Windows: Task Scheduler → Create Task → Trigger: At log on, Action: Start a program → Program: python, Arguments: path to fotofolio_sync.py. Helper starts on login.

Day-to-day with Final Cut Pro

• In Final Cut: File → Share → Master File (Default). Set destination to your Watch Folder.
• Hit Send. Final Cut renders the master into the folder.
• Helper notices the new file, waits for the size to stabilize (2 seconds), then uploads.
• Couple's gallery has the new film. You didn't click anything Fotofolio-related.

What v1 doesn't do

• Bidirectional sync. New items in the album don't download to the watched folder. v2 will add this; for now use the album's "Download all" for local copies of source media.
• Native menu-bar / tray app. We're building one but the v1 helper is terminal-only.
• Native installers. v2 ships signed .app and .exe so you don't need Python at all. We're holding off until we're ready to commit to the ongoing code-signing cert fees.
• Photos. Video-only for v1. Drop an image in the folder and the helper ignores it.

Why this is the universal answer

Most desktop NLEs that don't have a plugin API still have an Export / Render dialog with "output to folder." If the editor can write a file to disk, Watch Folder can pick it up. That makes it the lowest-common-denominator integration — works with everything; doesn't care what the editor is.

Native plugins give a better UX where they exist (no terminal, no Python, you don't leave the editor). Watch Folder is the safety net for everything else.