Ingest
Card to folder, named on the way.
Press ⌘G, or plug a card in and the dialog opens on it. One pass copies the frames, renames them, sorts them into a folder and stamps your metadata.
Pick the source. Mounted cards are listed with a card badge. Click more than one and the photos merge into a single batch, which is how a two-slot body or a second shooter’s card comes in with one set of sequence numbers. Choose folder… adds anything else, and Recursive reaches into subfolders rather than the top level alone.
Decide what comes across. Files is Both, JPEG only or RAW only. Skip existing copies new frames and leaves what is already at the destination alone. Protected first copies and stamps your in-camera selects ahead of everything else, so they are the first thing in Browse while the rest is still running. Focus check scores the ingest for blur and soft faces once the copy finishes, without slowing the copy itself.
Say where it lands. Either straight into the folder you pick, or Create sub-folder from pattern, which defaults to {date} Ingest. A preview line under the field shows the real folder name before you commit.
Renaming
A pattern needs at least one token
The default is {date}_{name}_{seq}. A pattern with no token would give every file the same name, and the dialog refuses it rather than letting you find out afterwards. Seq digits sets the width, and Numbering decides whether the counter starts fresh each time, runs continuously across ingests, or keeps a separate count per destination folder, so adding to a folder continues where it left off. A slash in the pattern nests subfolders.
Tokens. Beyond the date and sequence, the pattern reads your IPTC fields and the camera: {headline}, {credit}, {camera}, {lens}, {iso} and the rest. Photo Mechanic’s own names work too, so {head}, {iptcyear4} and {fldr} behave the way your fingers already expect.
Metadata on the way in. Apply XMP sidecars sitting beside the files, or apply a saved IPTC template so every frame lands captioned. You can also edit the IPTC for this one batch before it runs, and revert it if you change your mind. The folder’s roster can be set here too, so the photos arrive ready to tag.
Copy or move. Copy keeps the originals on the card, which is the default and the one to stay with until the backup is done. Move deletes them from the source.
Profiles
Set it up once per kind of job
A profile remembers the whole dialog, and the bar at the top says Unsaved changes when you have drifted from it. GalleryID also remembers your last setup on its own, so the next card opens where you left off even without saving a profile.
Ingest keeps running if you close the dialog, and a toast tracks it. Tick Open destination in Browse and the app jumps to the folder as it fills, so you can start culling the protected frames while the rest of the card is still copying.