Keep It Shot

If you’re anything like me, your Mac’s 'Desktop' or 'Downloads' folder is a digital graveyard of poorly named files. It’s a chaotic jumble of "Screenshot 2024-05-18 at 11.21.45 PM.png" and "Untitled_Final_v2_final_FINAL.jpg". Trying to find that one specific screenshot you took three months ago of a competitor's checkout flow? Good luck. You might as well be searching for a single grain of sand on a very, very large beach.

I live and breathe SEO and content. That means my life is a constant stream of screenshots: SERP results, analytics dashboards, ad copy examples, weird website layouts... you name it, I've snapped it. For years, my system has been a clunky mix of wishful thinking and a frantic Command-F search, hoping a file's date might jog my memory. It’s a huge time suck. So when I stumbled upon a Mac app called Keep It Shot, my interest was definitely piqued.

It claims to use AI to automatically—and intelligently—rename all that mess. A bold claim. Could this finally be the tool that brings some sanity to my digital hoarding? I had to find out.

So, What Exactly is Keep It Shot?

In the simplest terms, Keep It Shot is like hiring a tiny, hyper-efficient digital librarian to live inside your Mac. It’s a dedicated app that looks at your screenshots (and other media files like PDFs and videos), understands what’s in them, and then renames them with a clear, descriptive name.

So, "Screenshot 2024-05-19 at 9.03.11 AM.png" might become something like "Twitter-profile-page-of-Elon-Musk-with-blue-check.png". See the difference? One is computer gibberish, the other is human-readable. But it doesn't just stop at renaming. It also creates a private, offline index of your files, making them searchable with simple keywords, right on your machine.

Visit Keep It Shot

The Digital Mess We All Pretend Isn't a Problem

We've all been there. Your boss asks for that chart from last quarter's performance report. You know you screenshotted it during a Zoom call. You spend the next 20 minutes frantically scrolling through hundreds of thumbnails, your blood pressure slowly rising. It’s a frustratingly common workflow bottleneck that we just… accept. We lose so much time to this kind of digital disorganization.

It’s not just about finding old files. It's about the mental friction. The dread of having to manually rename a dozen screenshots before dropping them into a client report. The clutter that makes your desktop look like a teenager’s bedroom. Keep It Shot is designed to tackle this specific, nagging problem head-on.

How Keep It Shot Tries to Declutter Your Life

Okay, so how does it actually work in practice? The magic is in a few core features that work together pretty smoothly.

AI-Powered Naming That Feels a Bit Like Witchcraft

This is the main event. You point the app to a folder, and its AI gets to work. It's not just looking at metadata; it’s performing a visual analysis of the image content. I threw a bunch of random stuff at it: screenshots of Google Analytics, photos of my dog, a PDF of a recipe. The results were impressive. Not perfect, mind you, but miles ahead of the default timestamp gibberish. A screenshot of a SEMrush dashboard was correctly identified and named "SEMrush-keyword-overview-for-seo-tools.png". That's a huge win.

Your Own Private, Offline Search Engine

This is a big one for me, and probably for anyone concerned about privacy. All the analysis and indexing happens on your Mac. Your files are not uploaded to some random server in the cloud. This means it's fast, and more importantly, it's private. Searching feels like using Spotlight or Alfred, but instead of searching file names, you’re searching the actual content of your images. I could search for "bar chart" or "pricing page" and it would pull up relevant files, even if those words weren't in the filename. It's incredibly powerful.

Batch Renaming and the All-Important "Oops" Button

If you have a backlog of hundreds (or thousands, I'm not judging) of messy files, you can just drag and drop the whole folder and let it cook. The batch renaming feature is a lifesaver. And for the control freaks among us, there's a crucial safety net: the ability to revert files back to their original names. So if you don’t like what the AI came up with, you can undo it with a click. No harm, no foul.

My Honest Take: The Good, The Bad, and The Mac-Only

No tool is perfect, right? After using Keep It Shot for a while, here’s my no-fluff breakdown. The automated naming is genuinely a game-changer for productivity. The time and mental energy it saves from the 'hunt and peck' file search is worth a lot. And the offline, private nature of the search is a massive plus in an age where everything wants to sync to the cloud.

However, there are a few things to consider. First, it’s a Mac-only application. So if you're on a Windows or Linux machine, you're out of luck for now. Second, the renaming process runs on a credit system. You get a certain number of renames per month depending on your plan. For heavy users, this could be a factor. I also noticed that the Q&A feature, which lets you ask questions about your indexed files, is listed as coming “soon.” I'm curious to see how that works when it lands, but for now, it's just a promise.

Let's Talk Money: The Keep It Shot Pricing Plans

So, what's this convenience going to cost you? The pricing structure is pretty straightforward and offers a few different levels, which I appreciate.

The free plan is great for getting a feel for the app. The 'Individual' plan feels like the sweet spot for most people like me. The 'Bring Your Own API Key' option is an interesting one for more technical folks who might already be paying for OpenAI's API and can get a better rate that way.

Is This Really the End of Messy Folders?

So, is Keep It Shot the magic bullet? For a certain type of Mac user, I'd say it gets pretty darn close. If your daily workflow involves capturing, storing, and later retrieving visual information, this tool can genuinely shave hours off your week and reduce a significant amount of mental clutter. It transforms a folder of uselessly named files into a searchable, logical database.

It’s not for everyone. If you only take a handful of screenshots a month, you probably dont need it. But if you’re a designer, developer, marketer, researcher, or just a certified digital packrat, it’s absolutely worth a look. It solves a simple problem with a surprisingly elegant and powerful solution.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Keep It Shot safe and private to use?

Yes. One of its main selling points is that all file analysis and indexing happens locally on your computer. Your screenshots and other media are never uploaded to an external server, so your data remains private.

What happens if I run out of my monthly credits?

If you're on a subscription plan and use up your credits, you'll have to wait until the next month's cycle for them to refresh. Alternatively, you can upgrade to a higher tier plan to get more credits immediately.

Does Keep It Shot work on Windows?

No, at the moment Keep It Shot is an application built exclusively for macOS. There's no version for Windows or Linux users.

What kinds of files can Keep It Shot rename and index?

It's primarily designed for screenshots but works well with a variety of media files, including other images (JPG, PNG), PDFs, and even video files. The AI analyzes the content to provide a descriptive name for each.

Is the 'Bring Your Own API Key' option a good deal?

It can be a very good deal if you fit a specific profile. If you're a developer or tech professional who already has and uses an OpenAI API key for other projects, using your own key can be more cost-effective than the standard subscriptions. It's also great for a one-time, large-batch processing job.

My Final Thought

At the end of the day, Keep It Shot is a sharp tool for a dull problem. It's a prime example of using AI for something genuinely practical—saving us from our own digital chaos. It’s not going to change the world, but it might just change your desktop. And for me, that's more than enough.

Reference and Sources

• Keep It Shot Official Website
• Keep It Shot Pricing Page