Where apps hide your files

Hunting RAW files

Updated 2026-07-31 · 3 min read

Every camera brand ships its own RAW extension, which is why 'find my RAWs' takes a list.

The extension zoo

Brand	Extension
Canon	.CR2 .CR3
Nikon	.NEF
Sony	.ARW
Fujifilm	.RAF
Panasonic	.RW2
Olympus/OM	.ORF
Adobe/universal	.DNG
Apple ProRAW	.DNG

Find them all

find ~ -type f \( -iname "*.cr2" -o -iname "*.cr3" -o -iname "*.nef" \
  -o -iname "*.arw" -o -iname "*.raf" -o -iname "*.rw2" -o -iname "*.orf" \
  -o -iname "*.dng" \) 2>/dev/null

Or by content type, which catches the lot in one clause:

mdfind "kMDItemContentTypeTree == 'public.camera-raw-image'"

With sizes, for the audit:

mdfind "kMDItemContentTypeTree == 'public.camera-raw-image'" -0 | xargs -0 du -ch | tail -1

RAW+JPEG pairs

Cameras shooting both produce IMG_4021.CR3 and IMG_4021.JPG side by side. Listing RAWs whose JPEG twin exists (or vice versa) is a small shell exercise:

for r in *.CR3; do [ -e "${r%.CR3}.JPG" ] && echo "$r has JPEG"; done

Culling JPEGs where RAW exists (or the reverse) halves many folders.

Where they hide

Photos.app imports copy RAWs inside the library package — invisible to Finder search. Offload folders on Desktop/Downloads from hurried card dumps are the other stash. RAWs being 25–80 MB each, a few forgotten offloads is tens of gigabytes; the searches above routinely pay for themselves in reclaimed disk.

Common questions

What is the RAW file extension for my camera?

Canon CR2/CR3, Nikon NEF, Sony ARW, Fuji RAF, Panasonic RW2, Olympus ORF — and DNG as the universal container.

How do I find all RAW photos regardless of brand?

mdfind on the content type: kMDItemContentTypeTree == 'public.camera-raw-image'.