Cracking Canon’s EOS Utility for Mac
November 4th, 2009
Today I had a small product photo-shoot and lo and behold, I forgot my CF card.
Canon has this nifty program called Digital Photo Professional through their EOS Utility. You can take a picture from and save to your computer with it. Every Canon camera comes with a cd full of great software like this.. but like any true techie I threw away the manufacture disks.
For some reason Canon refuses to give away this software online. Even though the software only works with their cameras and every camera comes with a copy they wont let you download it! Some bigwig CEO must have freaked out when hearing “free” and “online” in the same sentence.
Whats worse is this software is not on any torrent sites or rapidshare.
Well, fortunately for me, there was a work around.
For Mac:
- Download the latest “Updater” for your program here.
- Choose EOS > Digital EOS Camera > Your Model
- Navigate to “Drivers and Downloads”
- Choose OSX under the “Driver / Software Section”
- Mount the dmg image file.
- In the image you should see a file called “UpdateInstaller” Drag that to you desktop.
- Control-click the “UpdateInstaller” on your desktop and choose “Show Package Contents” in the menu.
- In the new window go to Contents > Resources
- Delete updated.plist - update: it may be called update.plist now
- Run the software.
- Enjoy!
Canon, mind getting your act together? Its not like some Nikon user is going to take advantage of the free software you payed good money to develop. You are a leader in digital photography, so step up to the digital age and distribute the software freely in both material and digital form.
November 5th, 2009 at 1:09 am
Negative on this method. Can’t get the updated.plist to delete. Any hints?
Admin Edit: I forgot to add a step! Its all there now.
November 10th, 2009 at 4:43 pm
“Some bigwig CEO must have freaked out when hearing “free” and “online” in the same sentence.”
probably the same person who decided to charge 30 pounds ($50) for a lens hood
November 14th, 2009 at 6:33 pm
good stuff, thanks alot!
November 22nd, 2009 at 12:21 pm
Amazing. Thank you so much. Am trying to experiment with stop motion and this will be a life saver.
November 23rd, 2009 at 1:38 am
Thanks so much! The file seems to just be called update.plist in the latest version, but it stills works.
November 24th, 2009 at 12:43 pm
Thanks for this workaround. I’m in exactly the same spot… who thought we’d actually need a disc that came with hardware! Crazyness!
December 1st, 2009 at 7:14 pm
Thank you so much…. Installing now.
December 2nd, 2009 at 2:03 pm
Thanks for this, I wasn’t sure how to delete from the package, so I copied the folder to my desktop, deleted it, and than ran the installer right out of that folder. It seems to be working good.
December 6th, 2009 at 10:54 am
This does work. For the first poster: it will not delete the file if you opened the package contents from the disk image. You copy the updater to your computer first. The Mac will then set the permissions for you to modify the files.
December 19th, 2009 at 2:11 pm
This is really SUPER!! Saved my life. I’ve been chasing for this forever!! Thanks for great post. Cheers!!
December 19th, 2009 at 9:14 pm
Awesome… works like a charm. Thanks much!
December 22nd, 2009 at 2:04 am
Thank you so much. I am working on a timelapse video and needed the remote capture control program for my 10.6.2 Mac, but lost the original CD. This tip worked great for reinstalling the software.
December 22nd, 2009 at 7:29 pm
Worked perfectly:) Thanks!
December 22nd, 2009 at 7:46 pm
Works for me. Thanks!
December 23rd, 2009 at 9:42 am
Thank you for this, installing it now.
December 24th, 2009 at 3:57 am
[...] Canon’s web site allows you to install updates, but not the actual software. Thankfully, someone found the easy way to get it installed from the update software on Canon’s [...]
December 25th, 2009 at 11:14 pm
I think I love you!
Well not really … but thanks a lot!
So bad they still charge for something like this.
December 26th, 2009 at 11:08 pm
Yeah! Thanks for this! I’m baffled too by the fact that I can’t just plug the camera into my computer and have it mount as a drive and copy the images that way, like my little crappy point and shoot. Normally I read directly from the card with a card reader, but the card reader broke, so was looking for another way to do this. I never keep the CDs that come with the hardware since I figure I can just download the software online.
December 29th, 2009 at 10:46 am
It does work, after 2 hours searching, its the simplest way to go around this nonsense canon problem… Thanks a lot
January 6th, 2010 at 3:41 pm
Thanks for your assistance – works a treat
January 9th, 2010 at 2:14 am
THANK YOU SO MUCH! I own at least $25,000-$30,000 of Canon equipment (two 1Ds Mark III, 5D Mark II, 6-8 L-series lenses, etc.) and I am out of the country traveling on a shoot and don’t have my Canon software CDs with me. After a couple of hours of banging my head against the wall, this works. I’m surprised Canon doesn’t make it easier for their customers to get this software that you can only use if you bought their hardware in the first place. Thanks again!
January 9th, 2010 at 10:47 am
you are a genius ! thank you!
January 10th, 2010 at 8:54 am
Great post, saved me tons of time finding my disk!
Cheers.
January 14th, 2010 at 5:06 pm
thank you so so SO much! there is absolutely no way we could ever keep track of all those discs in my house…and now i can upload my pics! thank you!
January 15th, 2010 at 10:18 am
Worked like a charm, thanks.
January 16th, 2010 at 8:21 am
Perfect! Worked like a charm.. Thanks!
January 21st, 2010 at 7:28 pm
Thanks so much!
January 22nd, 2010 at 1:08 am
It works! Thanks!!!
January 23rd, 2010 at 9:59 am
Well done ! Works fine ! Thanks
January 28th, 2010 at 4:35 pm
genious! this guy is genious!
January 29th, 2010 at 11:09 am
Gracias!!! Muchísimas muchísimas gracias!!! estoy de viaje, en el sur de Argentina, sacando muchas fotos y no tenía la aplicación. Gracias a vos puedo continuar sacando.
January 29th, 2010 at 12:07 pm
LEGEND.thanks
file is called update.plist in current version
Admin Edit: Thanks for letting me know!
January 29th, 2010 at 3:07 pm
Yes, it does work. Thank you very much.
January 31st, 2010 at 1:49 pm
Awsome!!! Thank YOU!!!
February 3rd, 2010 at 3:08 pm
Thx a lot ! I just did it on my macbook pro and works great ! keep on doing this good work !
February 3rd, 2010 at 10:22 pm
You bloody beauty ! Disk stuck in my MBP so this saved my arse.
February 4th, 2010 at 10:52 am
You For This News, blog was added to my bookmarks.
February 4th, 2010 at 6:27 pm
Works perfectly! Thank you very much!!!
February 5th, 2010 at 8:10 am
I love you. Seriously. Canon should really sort this issue out, as you said it only works with Canon cameras.. Anyway thanks very much
February 6th, 2010 at 4:41 am
Great find. Worked perfectly. Thanks for posting!
February 8th, 2010 at 8:47 pm
Yay! thanks!
February 9th, 2010 at 1:48 pm
Thanks a lot man!
February 10th, 2010 at 6:42 pm
THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!
I WAS SO FREAKIN’ FRUSTRATED AND PISSED OFF AT CANON AFTER SPENDING 4200 DOLLARS ON A CAMERA AND THEY ARE SO TIGHT THEY COULDN’ T FIND A WAY TO DOWNLOAD TO CUSTOMERS. FOR EXAMPLE IF YOU HAVE REGISTERED YOUR CAMERA AND USE THAT REGISTER TO VERIFY FOR A DOWNLOAD OR SOMETHING LIKE THAT.
ANYWAY YOU ARE TOO COOL, YOU SHOULD BE A CONSULTANT FOR CANON. (JUST KIDDING)
February 10th, 2010 at 8:01 pm
Great instructions! Thank you for taking the time to publish this.
February 13th, 2010 at 4:47 pm
ERES LA ONDA!!! MUCHAS GRACIAS!!!
February 17th, 2010 at 11:50 am
Say on the phone with Canon when I found this. They were tell me I had to pay for it after I’d lost my CD.
February 19th, 2010 at 4:43 am
OMFG thank you so much I was soo pissed off that my mac kept spitting out the f**kin disc and i couldn’t find a driver on the website! now i can enjoy my 7d that i got for my birthday