Chipmunk: Field Backup Is Now on the App Store

November 3, 2026

Ochre Software today released Chipmunk: Field Backup, an iPhone and iPad app that backs up the photos, video and audio on a camera card to an external drive, to the device itself, or to iCloud Drive, with no laptop required. Every file is read back after it is copied and compared to what came off the card. Chipmunk remembers what it has already backed up, and it never writes to, moves or deletes anything on the card.

At a glance

• Backs up photos, video and audio from a camera card to an external drive, the device itself, or iCloud Drive
• Reads every file back and compares it to what came off the card, and you can't turn that off
• Remembers what it already backed up, so the second backup of the day only moves the new files
• Tells same-named cards apart and never overwrites a file
• Never writes to, moves or deletes anything on the card, and has no Erase button
• Runs on iPhone and iPad with iOS or iPadOS 26 or later, with no account

Why Chipmunk exists

It started with a photographer friend traveling through Europe with a few cameras and no laptop. He had left it at home because he was worried it would get lost between towns. Reasonable, and it raised an obvious question: without the laptop, where do the backups go?

I have been the guy with the laptop. On my last big photo and video trip I did a backup at the hotel every night, because I wanted the backup and I was posting to social every day. I brought a 2TB SSD, shot a lot, and hauled a laptop along for the backup. The iPad Pro I had brought anyway could have handled the editing in Final Cut for iPad and Photomator. The one thing it could not do properly was the first step: getting the cards safely off the camera and onto a second drive, and knowing it worked.

You can do that in the Files app, and I have. Files is not the Finder. It shows a progress bar and then stops showing it, so you never learn whether all 1,400 files arrived. It has no memory of what you already copied, so a second backup the same day means copying everything again or guessing. And it has no safety net if you rename a folder, pull a cable or fill a drive. Chipmunk is the missing piece.

How it works

Plug a card reader into your iPhone or iPad and put the card in. Choose the card, choose where the copy goes, tap Copy, and read the answer. If you need lots of space, use an adapter with an extra USB port so the reader and an SSD can both be connected. If you don't, the backup can go to the device itself.

Chipmunk remembers what it has already backed up. Shoot all morning and back up at noon, shoot until two and back up again, and the second backup only moves the new files. It does not just trust its own records, either. It checks what is actually in your folder, so a file you delete from the drive is copied again on the next run.

It handles the whole kit: RAW, JPEG, HEIF and other photo formats, video including drone and 360 footage, and audio, with recorder folders kept together. Choose Types lets you copy only what you want off the card. Files can be organized by type then date, date then type, date only, or all in one folder, using the file dates on the card.

Three cameras, three cards, one name

If you shoot with two or three bodies, the cards in every camera tend to carry the same generic name, and the cameras tend to write files with names that look just like each other's. A careless backup tool can get confused by both.

Chipmunk fingerprints each card instead of going by its name, so same-named cards are tracked separately. Back up camera A at noon, camera B at two, and camera A again at dinner, and Chipmunk knows which card it is holding and what it has already taken from it. When two cameras produce files with the same name, nothing is overwritten. The second file gets a number added to its name, and both files make it home.

Simple on the outside, a lot going on underneath

There is no such thing as a backup app that is mostly right, so most of the work went into the back end. Every file is copied under a temporary name and only gets its real name once the copy is complete, so a half-finished file never poses as a finished one. Then Chipmunk reads it back from the destination and compares it to what it read from the card. Every file, every time, and there is no switch to turn that off.

Each run ends in plain words: Copied, Verified or Failed. If a run is interrupted, nothing is called Verified. If a file could not be checked, Chipmunk says so. If the destination drive is swapped, unplugged, renamed or deleted mid-copy, the run stops and tells you.

Chipmunk never writes to, moves or deletes anything on your card, and there is no Erase button. Erasing the card is your call, made after you have read the word Verified.

The engine is built around ten safety rules. It was reviewed with AI assistance, and the reviewer's job was to break those rules on purpose, eighteen different ways. Fourteen of the breaks were caught by tests that already existed. Four slipped past them, and those four have tests now.

Who it is for

The traveling photographer with a couple of bodies and a bag that is already too heavy. The wedding and event shooter who wants a second copy before leaving the venue, not after the drive home. The videographer or drone pilot with files big enough that you want proof they arrived. The audio person with a field recorder and a folder for every take.

What you need

• An iPhone or iPad running iOS or iPadOS 26 or later.
• An SD card reader that works with your device. Chipmunk reads the card through the Files app.
• A place for the copy: an external drive formatted APFS or exFAT, the device's own storage, or iCloud Drive. To use an external drive you need the reader and the drive connected at the same time, so you need a device with two ports or a reader with a pass-through USB port.

Honest limits

• One card at a time, and one destination per run.
• It backs up cards, not your phone's camera roll.
• It backs up and nothing else. There is no viewer, culling or editing.
• iOS does not let apps see a connected card on their own, so you choose each new card in Files once.
• Drives formatted FAT32 cannot hold files of 4 GB or larger. Chipmunk tells you which files are affected.
• AVCHD cards are detected but not supported.
• Cinema-camera workflows that depend on keeping clip folders exactly as the camera wrote them are better served by a tool built for that.

About the name, and the rest of the Ochre suite

Chipmunk is the little cousin to Squirrel, Ochre's Mac app for putting every file where it belongs. Squirrel organizes at the desk. Chipmunk backs up in the field, and its folder logic matches Squirrel's, so what lands on your drive is what Squirrel expects. Chipmunks stuff their cheeks and run, which is more or less the app. Each Ochre app owns one area of your workflow and handles it completely.

[IMAGE I5, reused from the Substack set]

Chipmunk is also the last Ochre app with a critter name. It was honestly hard to name, because every name that said mobile backup for professionals was either already taken or so generic it sounded like a line item on an expense report. After this, the names say what the tool does. Scaffold and Prowl already work that way.

Availability

Chipmunk: Field Backup is available now on the App Store for iPhone and iPad.

About Ochre Software

Ochre Software is a native Mac, iPhone and iPad app studio founded by Dan Kildahl. Handcrafted software for people who make things. Learn more at getochre.app.

Questions or press inquiries: getochre.app/contact.php