Installation

Install script

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/sergiocardoso/sift/main/install.sh | sh

This downloads the latest prebuilt release for your OS/architecture, verifies its SHA256 checksum, and installs sift to:

~/.local/bin/sift

It never uses sudo. Prebuilt CLI releases currently target Linux and macOS on x86_64/aarch64 — see Platform Support.

The installer also checks whether ffprobe is on your PATH. It’s entirely optional (the video strategy works without it), but if it’s missing, the installer tells you the right command for your system and offers to run it — only in an interactive terminal, only after you confirm. It never installs anything silently or non-interactively.

Build from source

git clone https://github.com/sergiocardoso/sift.git
cd sift
cargo build --release
./target/release/sift --help

Or install it onto your PATH directly:

cargo install --path .
sift --help

Optional: the tray app

sift-tray is a separate, optional binary — a small desktop UI for Linux and macOS that lists watched folders. It isn’t installed by install.sh automatically yet. See Tray App → Installation for how to get it.

Verifying the install

sift --help

If you’d rather not have Sift check GitHub for newer releases in the background, set:

export SIFT_NO_UPDATE_CHECK=1

See Update notices for exactly what that check does and doesn’t do.

Next

Quick Start walks through the core commands against a real directory.