Download for Windows   |   Features   |   Packaging   |   Build it yourself

Cargo opens After Effects projects without After Effects and shows you every file they use. Drop an .aep on it and you see which footage is used, which is dead weight and which is missing. Then package the project for a client, archive it to another drive, or clean up what you don't need anymore.

Features

Every file at a glance. Footage, audio, image sequences, stills, graphics and data files, with size, resolution, duration, frame rate and where they sit in your project panel. Thumbnails and a preview for images, video and audio. Search, filter by type or status and sort however you like, even with thousands of items.

Used, unused, missing. An item counts as used when a layer in any composition uses it. Data files that are only read by expressions (footage("scores.json")) count too. Green is used, yellow is used but missing, red is unused. For every file you see which comps use it, and for every comp which files it pulls in, through all its precomps.

Find missing footage. Cargo looks on your other drives, around the project and in folders you add, lets you confirm each match or pick the file yourself, and saves a relinked copy of the project.

Clean up. Send unused files to the Recycle Bin, or tick any files you like, or clear out all of a project's media in one go. Favorites, files tagged keep and footage another open project still needs are never picked for you. Organize sorts the footage into tidy folders and saves a project that points to them. Archive copies a finished project with all its footage to another drive, checks the copy, and can then remove the originals.

Insights. How big the project really is, how much you'd save by deleting what's unused, how long it takes to send, the largest files, and which comps are the heaviest. The effects tab lists every plugin the project needs, with third-party ones flagged.

More. Duplicate finder, batch scanning of whole folders (auto-saves are skipped), manifests as PDF, text, CSV or JSON, tags and favorites, and a history of everything you packaged.

Packaging

Package Project writes a zip or a folder named Project_Package_YYYY-MM-DD with the project, its footage sorted by type or by your project folders, a MANIFEST.txt and a Relink Footage.jsx script. Unused footage stays out unless you want it, and a single composition can be packaged on its own.

Packages are private by default. File paths inside an .aep contain your user name and folder structure, and its metadata keeps a save history with times. A private package points every path to a neutral folder named after the package, removes that history, and keeps paths, dates and version info out of the manifest. Extract it to C:\ and After Effects finds everything, or open it anywhere and run Relink Footage.jsx (File › Scripts › Run Script File).

Your original project is never changed. Packages, archives and relinks always write new files.

Install

Download CargoSetup from the latest release and run it. It installs for your Windows account only, so no admin rights are needed, and it keeps itself up to date.

The setup isn't code signed yet, so Windows SmartScreen may say it "protected your PC". Click More info and then Run anyway. Every release lists the SHA-256 checksum of its files. If you'd rather not install anything, the win-x64.zip is a portable version: unzip it anywhere and run Cargo.exe.

You need Windows 10 or 11, 64 bit.

Where your files are

What	Where
Settings, tags, recent projects and history	%AppData%\Cargo
The program	%LocalAppData%\Programs\Cargo

Deleted files go to the Recycle Bin. Uninstalling removes the program and keeps your settings, unless you tick the box to remove them too.

Updates

When Cargo starts, it asks GitHub whether a newer version exists. If there is one, you can install it from inside Cargo: the new setup is downloaded, checked against its SHA-256 checksum and run. You can switch the check off under Help.

Good to know

• Fonts aren't packaged, and neither are plugins. The manifest lists both so whoever opens the project knows what to install.
• Delete Unused removes files, not project items. In After Effects, File › Dependencies › Remove Unused Footage tidies up the project itself.
• Projects saved on a Mac have /Volumes/... paths and show as missing on Windows until you run Find Missing.
• If Cargo reads a project wrong, please open an issue with the After Effects version. A small sample project helps most. docs/aep-format.md explains how Cargo reads .aep files.

Building

You need Node.js 20 or newer, and the .NET 8 SDK for the setup.

npm install
npm start            # run Cargo
npm test             # parser, packaging and cleanup tests
.\build-release.ps1  # setup, portable zip, checksums and source zip in dist

node scripts/demo-project.js "<folder>" creates a small demo project with real footage, a missing file, unused files and a duplicate to try things on.

License

Copyright (c) 2026 slashneck. Cargo is free software under the MIT License.