Use cp to import files
On Unix-like systems, Shotwell should use the cp
system utility to import files.
Please describe the problem you are trying to solve
Attempting to import large files (e.g. 1-2 GiB) from a USB-connected device uses a lot of memory, causing the operating system to hang until the import has finished. I assume that Shotwell is loading the entire file into memory and then dumping it to disk.
On the other hand, cp
has very little memory footprint. I tested this by copying a large video file from my SD card into the Pictures folder (to which Shotwell usually imports photos) and observed that its peak memory footprint was about 128 KiB.
Other solutions you have considered
N/A; using cp
seems to be a huge improvement over whatever the software is currently doing.