Why use a card slot when you can usually connect most cameras view their USB port and use the Image Capture app that comes with macOS to transfer files directly?
My present MBP is a 2019 model complete with no ports (apart from USB-C/Thunderbolt) and that touch strip that I never even look at, never mind use. I had to get a Thunderbolt hub to connect the monitor but it does also give me most other connections as well, including a power supply.
Dear Keith,
I can confirm that it works for DPL4 and if both machines are Win10.
After my Win notebook crashed and I replaced it with a MBA I splitted it again, because I wan’t sure what will happen if I work with Mac and Win on same database. I’m not even sure if that’s possible…I am Mac Rookie Because I don’t work with dop files, and also not sure if dop files are compatible between the 2 OSes.
At the moment my originals are lying on my NAS and I sync it with a little old tool to my main working system on Windows PC. On Mac I copy only parts of my picture folder, for working on my loggia or outside. On windows I work with DPL4, and on Mac with DPL4 and DPL5.
Maybe I will install 5 on windows system too.
That’s only for information and for my workflow
Since the 1980’s or so, maybe even earlier, I used PhotoMechanic to copy my files from the memory card into my computer. I have no idea if it would work with a USB port, but why would I want to carry around yet another cord? Getting them right from the memory card is fast, and once I know they’ve all been copied, I put the card back in the camera and format it. For a long time now, PhotoMechanic creates a name for the folder they are being copied to, and renames the files with as much additional information as I want:
In my screen shot above, all my photos taken this month will go into a folder named _2021 December
The next column over shows the folder that is created for that day’s photos
The next column over shows the automatically re-named image files
(This is before I start editing - as I edit, the DOP files will show up, along with a new folder for the exported images, and finally, in yet another column to the right, my image exports from PL5 will be listed.
To answer your question, it’s mostly a matter of “don’t rock the boat”. What I’m doing now seems to work fine, I don’t need to remember to bring a USB cable, and as for Image Capture App, why use that at all when PhotoMechanic does it so much better for me?
In a few weeks, there will be a new folder named _2022 January for all those photos (including those that PL5 will process, and those that DarkTable will process, for all my cameras.
Hmm, what you wrote about the 2016 to 2020 MacBook Pro’s, is why I never bought one. I specifically did not want that touch strip. If anything, I wanted even more ports, not less. Apple thought they were “simplifying”, but not for users - with their way, we needed to carry around dongles, and there were never enough ports.
Also, doing things this way on the MacBook Pro makes it very easy for me to copy all those new folders in my second column, from the MacBook Pro to my Mac Mini. I wish I had been aware of that for the past several years.
One last thing - my brother was copying images using a USB cable, and somehow he managed to damage the USB connector on one of his cameras. I told him to just use a card reader - problem solved. …and as to why Apple puts the card slot on the BACK of their iMac computers is beyond me. I figure for many years, “looks” was more important to “function”, which is why as the MacBook Pro laptops got thinner, the ports were left off. But for that, I wouldn’t now be using an almost 7 year old laptop. 
@Joanna & @mikemyers as a non Mac user I cannot comment on things Mac but I have never connected my cameras via their USB cables. The risk to my cameras is a failure of the SD card slot or the cover given how often the card is ejected for reading etc…
The connected camera is too ungainly and the risk of damaging the connection or pulling the camera off its “perch” simply not worth the risk, in my opinion. Hence, I have been using a Lexar high USB 3.0 card card reader, then replaced with a Lexar USB 3 UHS II reader and finally replaced with a USB 3.0 hub in the 3.5 floppy drive slot (that’s how old my cases are) for convenience.
Both my Lumix and Olympus cameras provide outlets but one uses the big USB 3 connector and the other a C connector. Given how ancient my PCs are (and to a certain extent my cameras are) it is convenient to be able to add newer technology externally. I do not use tethering so my port covers are never used and can stay snugly shut (although the card cover takes a pounding!)
Hard for me to put this into words here, but the pictures aren’t “in the camera”, they are on “the SD card”. To me, I want to simplify, and just move the card from the camera to my computer.
Maybe I’m just doing this out of habit, but I would be and am more concerned about damaging the USB connector on my camera, than damaging the SD card slot. Maybe I’m just being stubborn (as in, I’ve always done it this way). I wonder if one way or another is faster. I don’t know if all my cameras even have a USB connection, or which style of connector they use, something that is changing every few years.
Some of my cameras can even do this via Wi-Fi or Bluetooth or whatever it is they use,
Like I wrote, my brother got into the habit of using the USB connector on his cameras, which apparently got damaged on his D200, and also on the D3 that I gave him. We couldn’t get that to work, so I told him to forget it, remove the SD card, and use a “Card Reader” - no longer needed, since the iMac he bought has an SD card slot (on the back).
@KeithRJ thank you for that suggestion things went from worse to even worser (worse).
Plan X (NAS):-
My NAS drive(s) are mapped on my systems as X: and Y: and I have never had any problems synchronising to them or opening files on them in the past (you know what is coming). I configured T and M to use a database on the X drive and attempted to start M (after configuring and restarting).
PL5 reported that it could not acquire write permissions on the database file on X. In a later attempt I saw a new database file appear on X when I changed the database location but it still said it could not acquire write permission after I re-opened it! Changing PL5 to run as ‘administrator’ had no (positive) affect! It might be something to do with the permissions on the NAS drive but no other device has any problems accessing files on the drive.
I have abandoned Plan X for the time being (NAS is DS220J and PCs are WIN 10)
Plan M(ain):-
So I attempted to do the suggested NAS tests but with the database and the photos located on M. I opened the database on T and navigated to the V: drive (mapped to F: on M) changed one file to no noise reduction and closed T down.
Opened M and navigated to the same folder and Virtual copies instantly.
While PL5 on M is running I attempted to open PL5 on T which hung so attempted to close PL5 on M which also hung and finally dumped after which T could access the files and yet more Virtual Copies were made. Looking at the snapshot I believe that of the VCs [M] is the change made on T, [1] is the original that was on M and [2] is the one from T!
Plan S(pare):-
I have another (Win 10) machine that I could try as a NAS replacement to hold the database and the files in one location and then access from M and T to the mapped drives of S(pare) (the “only” complication is 3 machines and only 2 screens so I will need to do screen switching and keyboard switching - in fact I started to type this last bit with the keyboard attached to the wrong machine)!!
So M is pointing to DB on S, T is pointing to DB on S and while T is up after the DB switch restart I changed 2 photos to DeepPRIME in directory on S and closed T. Started M and navigated to directory on S and all O.K, no VCs and 2 photos with DP. Set ‘Reject’ flag on one photo on M. Closed M and started T, one photo with ‘Reject’ flag so set another photo with ‘Accept’ on T and closed PL5. Opened on M all O.K. and ‘Accept’ flag on as expected. Started PL5 on T and hung so terminated. Attempting to close PL5 on M hung and finally dumped!!
This is similar to the test I ran earlier except that both the database and the photos are held on the same device which is not running PL5, PL5 is accessing this third machine from two other machines across the LAN. The issue with the NAS has got to be some permissions issue!!
The excitement of all this almost exceeds the excitement of Christmas or dodging you know what!!
PhotoLab on Mac offers no built-in way to use the database in any other location than the one burnt into PL’s preferences file.
Changing the respective entry in that file does the trick, but I’d not really want to rely on such a mod.
Pre-PL5, I think that should work fine. However, now that PL5 is incorporating more ‘DAM’ functions, it’s possible that latency to/from the NAS could cause some issues with reads & writes (but I certainly haven’t tested this).
@KeithRj and @jch2103 going from left to right under my desk we have Win 10 machines T, M and S with T and M having PL5 installed and S handling the database and the photo files in place of my NAS which doesn’t seem to want to play nicely with the PL5 database open command (which may or may not be a problem depending on whether it is my configuration of the NAS which is causing the problem).
Fortunately I have another PC which is also a Win10 PC but of an earlier generation than the two 4790K (an overclocked I7 2700K) and LAN access between the PCs is faster than access to the NAS. I ran a series of tests including keywords and given that it appears to be impossible to run PL5 on both PCs at the same time this seems to be the safest configuration and all appears well on the limited size tests that I have run including keywords assigned by either PL5[T] or PL5[M]; but I have not mixed in externally allocated keywords (yet).
The main problem that I want to test again is the one where having the photos on the NAS but local PL5 databases seemed to work, I am puzzled as why it worked!?
After reading all the posts with tests (thanks all for trying this suggestion) here are some comments:
I need to find time to test.
How this helps.
I changed in the preference the place of the database to the nas and did uncheck the save settings in sidecar file and load setting from sidecar file. Closed PL and restarted it again. Changed a picture, added a new keyword, closed pl and restarted it again. Everything ok.
Database was written on the nas. No problems.
George
@KeithRJ , @jch2103 and @George and anyone else who hasn’t lost interest, I have been repeating the test where the files are held on a NAS (in this case machine S being accessed by T and M running PL5) to see why it appears to work if the application is run only on one machine at any time but with the database running local to the copy of PL5 i.e. machines T and M have their own copy of the database.
The photo files and associated DOPs and ‘xmp’ sidecars are held on the disks of S. I was monitoring the Uuid of interest while opening on one machine and then another and then the same a number of times just to mix it up a bit and the Uuid of interest simply did not change throughout the test. That is more than enough for today (almost yesterday).
Dear @sgospodarenko
did you know if DOP Files are compatible between the OSes, or if they will be in nearer future?
And maybe someone of DXO could moderate this post?
Thanks and enjoy the week
Guenter
Günter, you have both win and mac platforms. Why not test what you get? Or post two files?
As far as I know from a while ago, some of us have exchanged DOP files and they were compatible, but it would be good to check that it is still the case.
Hallo platypus,
that is basically a good idea, but the tests would be quite extensive and exceed my possible time expenditure for a purchase software.
I would actually expect DXO to make clear and reliable statements about this.
I don’t want to test, for example, with 60% of the possibilities, then work with a clear conscience for a few weeks and then catch a function that produces errors, and I get annoyed.
There are a few other things that I find progressively not good.
This morning, for example, I installed V5 on my main computer under Windows in addition to an already installed V4. Of course only after I created a current backup of the V4 
What would be so difficult that the installation routine of the V5 recognises an existing V4 and then gives me the option via query to possibly remember the V4, or also immediately gives the option to select for DB and cache directories. I know that the versions are separated in the user profile, but then you first have to start the V5, change the settings in the preferences (which is not possible with MAC) in order to be able to work.
Certainly complaining on a high level, but why not 
For me the time of image processing starts now, so there is no time for testing.
Edit: And together with DXO we should work to prevent from this events Lost all ratings in PhotoLab Elite 5.1.0 ??? - #3 by RKyburz
Compared the sidecars written by Win (thanks, @Guenterm) vs. Mac…
Summary: The sidecars use a structure that makes them interoperable for WIN and MAC versions of PL. Due to different entries, mostly in the “Overrides” section and the tests I’ve run, I can say that the files are still different and that “ping-ponging” files between Mac and Win versions of PL might result in some information loss. There are enough differences between those PL versions to make me shrug away the differences though.
As for MAC sidecars, they look like being able to be a backup of database entries including IPTC and keyword entries, but not for history. Nevertheless, delete the database at your own risk.
I used to have this problem. I spend a few months every year in France and the rest of the time in the United States. I had an iMac in both places and a laptop; twice a year, I would make a clone of one of my iMacs and take it with me when traveling to the other one. This is a pain in the neck for reasons that go well beyond PhotoLab, so after several years of working like this, I sold both my iMacs and replaced them with good displays. I then replaced my 2017 MacBook Pro with one of the new October 2021 models with plenty of storage. Now all my data is always wherever I am. Problem solved: I can work in either place as well as on the road. Not the cheapest way of going about it, but incredibly simple and convenient. Plus, it also solves the problem for those software titles that don’t give you three seats as I only need one.
Suggestion - check out the Mac Mini, either with Intel chip (save $$) or the new Mac chip (newer). It’s 8" square, and an inch high, and has as much power as you want. Mine has 1TB of flash drive, lot of RAM, and does everything I want - except ports. I bought a port extender which I plug the Mini into, which solved that issue.
I bought a nice Logitech mouse and keyboard, both with Bluetooth. You would need two of each, for both your locations.
