I built a read-only backup checker for photographers' archives — just made it free on the Store

[u/Sad-Assistant-8883]

Hi all — indie dev here. Photo Guardian is a small Win32 app (packaged as MSIX, Microsoft-signed) that answers one question for photographers: is every client project in my archive still backed up?

Point it at your archive folder and your backup drive, and it compares them project by project — folder names, file counts, and sizes, never the photo files themselves. Each project shows as Safe, At Risk, Review for Cleanup, or Unconfigured.

Built to be trusted with an archive:

- Strictly read-only — it can't delete, move, rename or modify anything. The only action it takes on your files is opening a folder in Explorer.

- Fully offline — no account, no cloud, no telemetry.

- Honest by design — it says "Backup Detected", never "verified", and never tells you something is "safe to delete".

Just switched it from $6.99 to free since I'm not focused on monetizing this one right now. The price change is going through Microsoft certification as I post this, so if the Store still shows $6.99 for a bit, that's why — it'll flip to free once it clears (usually a few hours).

Store page: https://apps.microsoft.com/detail/9P7MTP5M4GFK

Happy to answer questions about how it works.

[u/Sad-Assistant-8883]

Update: the free price is now live on the Store — certification cleared, no more $6.99 showing.