Formats

The short answer: if your Mac can already open the file, so can InstantRAW. That is not a claim about how much work I put in — it is literally the mechanism.

How the list is decided

Most viewers ship a table of supported cameras, which is why they need an update every time a manufacturer announces something. InstantRAW asks macOS, at launch, which image types the system can decode, and offers exactly those. Apple maintains that list; I do not.

So when a macOS update adds support for a new body, InstantRAW picks it up the next time you open it — no new version, no waiting on me.

The definitive test, in ten seconds

Select one of your files in Finder and press space. If Quick Look renders the photograph, InstantRAW will open it, because both are asking the same part of macOS. If Quick Look shows a grey document icon instead, nothing on your Mac can read that file yet.

RAW formats in practice

Everything below is decoded by a current macOS on Apple Silicon. Which specific bodies within a family are covered is Apple’s call, and recent releases are usually added within a macOS point update.

Sony.arw.sr2.srf

Canon.cr3.cr2.crw

Nikon.nef.nrw

Fujifilm.raf

OM System / Olympus.orf

Panasonic Lumix.rw2.raw

Leica.dng.rwl

Pentax / Ricoh.pef.dng

Hasselblad.3fr.fff

Phase One.iiq

Apple ProRAW.dng

Adobe.dng

And the ordinary ones

Because half a card is usually not RAW at all. These open just as fast, and a JPEG sitting next to its RAW is folded together with it rather than listed twice.

JPEGHEICHEIFAVIFPNGTIFFWebPGIFBMP

What it will not open

Video, which is not what this is for. Layered working files from an editor. And any camera so new that macOS has not learned it yet — in which case Preview, Quick Look and Photos cannot open it either, and the fix arrives from Apple rather than from me.

Still not sure

Then do not take my word for it. The trial is the entire app for a day, with nothing to cancel and no card to enter — point it at a card of your own files and you will know in a minute. Download it, or send me the extension and I will tell you straight.

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