Every time an editor creates a new Avid project, Avid Project Watcher automatically builds the standard folder structure inside it - FOOTAGE, SEQUENCES, GFX, SFX, or whatever your facility uses. No one has to remember. No one has to do it manually. It just happens.
Two pieces work together:
The Daemon is the background service that does the actual work. It watches your Avid project share and reacts the moment a new .avp file appears - creating whatever folders you have configured. Editors never see it or interact with it.
The Admin UI is the desktop app you use to configure the daemon. You open it when you want to change what folders get created, add a new share to watch, or run a backfill on existing projects. Once you have saved your settings you can close it - the daemon keeps running.
Both need to be on the same machine, or the Admin UI needs to be pointed at the machine running the daemon. Editors themselves need neither.
Get the latest release from the Releases page.
| Platform | File | Contains |
|---|---|---|
| Windows | AvidProjectWatcher-Setup-win-x64.exe |
Single installer - choose what to install |
| macOS (Apple Silicon) | AvidProjectWatcher-Admin-osx-arm64.dmg |
Admin UI app |
| macOS (Apple Silicon) | AvidProjectWatcher-Daemon-osx-arm64.zip |
Daemon binary |
Run AvidProjectWatcher-Setup-win-x64.exe as an administrator. The installer will ask what to put on the machine:
- Both (recommended) - installs the daemon as a Windows Service and the Admin UI. Use this for a new setup on a machine that has access to your Avid project share.
- Daemon only - installs just the background service, no desktop app. Use this on a dedicated server.
- Admin UI only - installs just the config tool. Use this on a workstation that will connect to a daemon running on another machine.
The daemon starts automatically after install and will start again on every reboot. You do not need to do anything else to keep it running.
To update, just run the new installer on top of the existing one. It stops the service, replaces the files, and restarts it.
To remove, go to Settings → Apps and uninstall from there, or use Add/Remove Programs.
macOS requires two separate steps - one for the Admin UI, one for the daemon.
Open AvidProjectWatcher-Admin-osx-arm64.dmg and drag the app to your Applications folder. On first launch, macOS may say the app is from an unidentified developer. Right-click the app and choose Open, then confirm. This only happens once.
Extract AvidProjectWatcher-Daemon-osx-arm64.zip. Inside you will find a single file: AvidProjectWatcher.Daemon. Open Terminal, navigate to the folder, and run:
chmod +x AvidProjectWatcher.Daemon
./AvidProjectWatcher.DaemonKeep this Terminal window open. The daemon runs until you close it or quit Terminal.
For a permanent background setup (so it survives restarts), ask your IT person to register it as a launchd service. A setup guide for this is coming in a later release.
- Make sure the daemon is running (Windows: it started automatically; macOS: you ran it from Terminal).
- Open the Admin UI. The green dot in the top-left corner means it is connected to the daemon.
- Click New in the sidebar to add a watch folder.
- Set the root path to your Avid project share - for example
\\nas\Projectsor/Volumes/Projects. You can type it, paste it, or drag the folder from Finder or Explorer directly onto the field. - In the Folder Template section, add the folder names you want created inside each new project. These are flat names:
FOOTAGE,SEQUENCES,GFX,SFX, and so on. Nested paths likeFOOTAGE/CAMERAare not supported. - If there are subdirectories you want the watcher to ignore (for example an
Archivefolder where old projects live), add those under Excluded Paths. - Click Apply Changes in the top bar. The daemon picks up the new config straight away.
From this point, any new .avp file created anywhere under that root path will trigger automatic folder creation.
If you have projects that existed before you set this up, use the Backfill tool to create the missing folders.
- Select the watch folder in the sidebar.
- Scroll down to Maintenance and click Backfill.
- Click Dry Run to preview what would be created without actually doing anything.
- When you are happy with the results, click Commit. The daemon creates only what is missing - it never touches folders that already exist.
If the daemon is running on a server and you want to manage it from a different computer, open the Admin UI on your machine, go to Settings, and change the daemon URL to point at the server - for example http://192.168.1.50:47821.
Make sure port 47821 is accessible between the two machines.
Every folder creation, backfill, and config change is logged. Open the Logs panel in the Maintenance section to see recent activity, or export a CSV for your records.
Copyright (C) 2026 Mark Battistella and Melissa Anderton-Battistella
This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU Affero General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
See LICENSE for the full text.
See CONTRIBUTING.md or browse the source. The project targets .NET 10 LTS.
dotnet restore
dotnet build
dotnet testThe daemon listens on http://localhost:47821 by default. See config.example.json for the config structure.