See the full plan before anything moves.
Scan is read-only — you get the exact list, action count, bytes affected, and a plan checksum, and nothing has moved. Approve, and Sort quarantines instead of deleting; History rollback restores originals, byte-verified. Your files never leave your Mac.
Scan is the trial — run it on your real mess, keep it only if the plan is true. $29 is execute.
2.3.0 · 808 engine + 276 UI tests passed at the release build · notarized & stapled by Apple · SHA-256 published below · zero network calls
Top half: real output from a scan of our seeded 97-file test volume. Bottom half: what every run guarantees. Your receipt shows your files.
This page sells 2.3.0, so it proves 2.3.0
No screenshots of an older build, no video to take on faith. The proof is the artifact you download and what it does on your own files:
- ArtifactVersion 2.3.0, Apple silicon (arm64), macOS 11.0+ — one notarized DMG, about 10.8 MB.
- Apple's gateDeveloper ID signed, notarized by Apple, stapled. Check it yourself:
spctl -a -vv -t install Archivist-Sort.dmg - IntegrityThe SHA-256 is published on this page; your download must match it byte for byte:
shasum -a 256 Archivist-Sort.dmg - BehaviorZero network calls. Scan is read-only. The exact plan — action count, bytes affected, plan checksum — is in front of you before anything moves.
- Release gate808 engine + 276 UI tests passed at this build; one timing test is ignored. Quarantine never deletes; rollback restores byte-verified.
Commands and full checksums: Verify before you install. Every artifact claim above — version, signature, checksum — is checkable on your machine before you run anything.
It doesn't guess. It testifies.
Every "smart cleaner" asks you to trust it. Archivist Sort is built the opposite way — like evidence handling, not magic:
- FolderChoose a folder. One click starts a quick scan. More options stay behind More options.
- ScanRead-only. On an M5 Max, a 12,439-file quick inventory finished in 1.88 s (2026-05-25). Full hashing and dense trees take minutes to tens of minutes — time follows file count, depth, and disk.
- FindingsFolders and duplicates. You see everything before anything moves. Cleanse: Review duplicates. Structure: Apply folder plan. Both go to the exact list next.
- DecideOne card, one finding: Keep / Quarantine / Skip. Quarantine moves copies aside; it never deletes.
- PlanThe exact list — action count, bytes affected, plan checksum. Nothing has moved.
- RunLicensed execute. The plan-bound acknowledgement (base phrase plus that plan's checksum prefix) is on screen before Approve and Execute.
- HistoryDone on a completed run opens that journal. Rollback is byte-verified. Quarantine is not delete.
Two jobs, one reversible spine. Cleanse: review duplicates — one card per finding, Keep / Quarantine / Skip. Structure: apply the folder plan Sort drafts from your own scan. Both run the identical loop — folder → scan → findings → exact plan → licensed execute → journal rollback — and both end in receipts you can undo, never deletions you can't. Scans come in three depths: quick sort, full-hash duplicates, full-hash free space.
After you pay, your licence file arrives by email at the address on your Stripe receipt. Licences are issued by hand right now, so allow a few hours. Didn't get it? Reply to your Stripe receipt or email contact@centennialdefense.systems. Then install that file in the app (Settings → Licence, or Install licence on Execute). Not a typed command.
Protects what tools destroy
Sacred paths
Rekordbox and Pioneer/AlphaTheta device libraries, keys, and git internals are inventoried as protected classes and never moved — enforced at plan time and again at execution. Everything else is only ever suggested for your review; nothing moves without your approval.
Local-first, provably
No cloud calls. No accounts. No telemetry. The engine works fully offline — the page you're reading makes claims the binary can back.
Video archive intelligence
Transcribe locally with Whisper-family backends and search every spoken word across your archive. Export the matching source files as an experimental FCP7 XML (xmeml) bin — a handoff starting point for Resolve or Premiere, not a finished timeline.
Agent-native
41 MCP tools let Claude, Codex, and other AI agents drive scans and plans. Read tools mutate nothing. Execute and rollback take a plan-bound acknowledgement, quarantine instead of delete, and are byte-reversible.
Fixed in 2.1.1: the 2.1.0 CLI and agent kit read their policy bundle from a path that existed only on our build machine, so they failed on every other Mac. 2.1.1 compiles the bundle into the binary, the way the desktop app always has. If you downloaded 2.1.0, replace both zips.
Verify before you install
The DMG is Developer ID signed, notarized by Apple, and stapled. Check it yourself:
shasum -a 256 Archivist-Sort.dmg # 74f9147bcb8e2f3b69167e57f0d9cb544bf5e9527b9a13d38400555417a73d1a spctl -a -vv -t install Archivist-Sort.dmg # expected: accepted · source=Notarized Developer ID
The plan is free. The undo is the product.
Download, scan, full plan. Read-only. The exact list before anything runs — action count, bytes affected, plan checksum. Nothing has moved.
Execute that plan through Sort. Quarantine, checksummed journal, byte-verified rollback. Your Macs, no seat tracking, no phone-home.
Maintenance, in plain terms: $29 is one-time and covers the current major version outright — every 2.x update, fixes and features both, at no extra charge. No subscription, nothing expires.
Multi-seat and organizational use — contact us. Built for environments where data cannot touch cloud APIs.
Launch price — $49 after the first public case studies. No countdown games; the price rises with proof.
Requirements
Apple silicon (arm64) · macOS 11.0+ · notarized DMG. Intel Macs are not supported in 2.3.0. Optional local transcription: brew install whisper-cpp, or pipx install mlx-whisper / pipx install openai-whisper — the app finds Homebrew and pipx installs automatically. Sort works fully without transcription.
Questions a careful buyer asks
Does any of my data leave my machine?
No. There is no server side, no account, no analytics, and nothing you scan ever leaves your Mac. The app makes no calls to the internet. The one exception is entirely local and opt-in: if you enable the optional AI-assist feature, it talks only to a model running on your own machine (loopback) — a remote address is rejected before any connection is made.
What happens if it moves something I needed?
Nothing is deleted by execution — approved moves land in a quarantine with a checksummed journal. Rollback restores originals and verifies every byte.
Why not Gemini 2, dupeGuru, or DaisyDisk?
Use them if they fit: DaisyDisk is a great visualizer (it shows, you delete), dupeGuru is free and earnest, Gemini is polished "smart selection." Sort exists for the moment you stop wanting smart and start wanting accountable: nothing deletes — approved moves land in a quarantine; every action carries a checksummed receipt; rollback is byte-verified; protected classes never move at all. The scan and the full plan are free; $29 once pays to execute that plan through Sort — the checksummed journal, byte-verified rollback, and the plan checksum that refuses a stale plan. Most alternatives have moved to subscriptions. If you'd happily let a one-button cleaner make the call, Sort is overkill. If your drive is your work, that's exactly the call you shouldn't outsource.
Can I point it at my Photos library?
Photos & video is a secondary Findings plan after you scan — date pack and extension buckets, not a home tile, and not RAW+JPEG same-stem pairing. That pack will not propose moves inside a .photoslibrary package. A normal scan of Pictures can still inventory files inside one; nothing executes without your approval. Point Sort at exports, card dumps, and copies around the library — not at the package — if you want an organize plan.
Is there a trial?
Scan is the trial — download it, run it on your real mess, keep it only if the plan is true. The full plan is free and read-only; nothing has moved. $29 is execute — the checksummed journal, byte-verified rollback, and sacred-path enforcement at write time.
Is this another subscription?
No. $29 once. Subscriptions make sense for services; this is a tool.
Why should I trust the claims here?
Don't — verify. The SHA-256 and Gatekeeper commands above prove the artifact. What $29 buys is the part you can't hand-verify from a page: the checksummed journal, byte-verified rollback, sacred-path enforcement at write time, torn-move recovery, and a plan checksum that refuses a stale plan — all provable on your own files, on your own run.
Refunds?
14 days, no drive contents required — if the app can't run on a supported Mac or materially fails the described workflow, you get your money back.