Catalogs
Each time a tape is mounted, Canister will create a Catalog for it. Catalogs are special folders containing a tiny stub for each file that's on your tape, making it easy to see what's on a tape without having to mount it first.
When Canister is open, all Catalogs are available as a virtual drive called
LTO Archive. Since a driver installation is required, Canister will prompt you for the installation. You can also download the installer directly from our servers. Don't see any Catalogs? Check if your user has administrator permissions.
Catalogs live in Finder so you can utilize all the power of Finder's search.
When Canister is open, you'll see the
LTO Archive mount in Finder. You can also click the Catalog icon in Canister to go there. There, you can do a Finder search. Just hit Command-F and be sure to select LTO Archive as the scope. Pro-tip for online/offline workflows: use Smart Folders.Here's an example of a search for the file Quitter.zip, with Finder indicating it's located on LTO tape "A":
Canister installs a Finder extension that allows you to retrieve a file or folder directly from the Catalog. Right-click the folder you want to retrieve and select "Retrieve" to launch Canister. This will trigger Canister to check if the correct tape is mounted and automatically select the required files. Then, Canister will ask to specify a location to retrieve to.
Canister creates a Catalog when mounting a tape and updates it after each Archive. Old Catalogs are moved into a hidden folder named
Tapename (serial).history, essentially archiving them.To see previous generations of your Catalogs, enable Show Hidden Files in Finder with the shortcut
Shift-Command-.To clean up the Catalog, or remove test entries, you can open the original location where the stubs are saved. To access catalogs directly, bypassing the virtual drive,
Alt-Click the Catalog icon in Canister (top-right) and a folder in ~/Library/Application Support/Canister will open with editable catalogs. It's possible to set a custom Catalog location through a User Default. Open Terminal.app and enter
defaults write nl.syncfactory.Canister.Mac CatalogLocation followed by the full path of the folder, all on one line:By default, Catalogs are saved in the user's Application Support folder. For those that want to share Catalogs, there's a way to change this default using a Terminal command:
defaults write nl.syncfactory.Canister.Mac CatalogLocation /Users/[username]/Documents/Canister/Alternative\ Location
Pro-tip: don't type the folder path, but drag the folder you want as Catalog location from Finder into the Terminal.
Note: when checking for a User Default value for the Catalog location, Canister expects a full path, including the name of the Catalogs folder itself. If a path is unreachable (e.g. if on a network server or cloud drive) or Canister doesn’t have the correct permissions, Canister will use the default Catalog location.
defaults write nl.syncfactory.Canister.Mac CatalogLocation [path]
Enter the correct
[path] either enter manually (Pro tip: use Tab for auto-completion to prevent typos) or drag the folder from Finder into Terminal, to paste the path.Canister expects a full path and will save Catalogs into the last specified folder. If a path is found that is unreachable or doesn’t have the correct permissions, Canister defaults to the Application Support folder without warning.
Due to the typically large amount of files in a catalog, it's best not to copy catalogs but to archive them first — without applying compression.
Run this command in Terminal, and it will create an archive on your desktop:
tar -cvzf ~/Desktop/catalogs.tar.gz ~/Library/Application\ Support/Canister/Catalogs
Last modified 1mo ago