Capture One trial license key will be active within 30 days from the moment the software was first activated on any of your workstations. After that period, Capture One trial will be deactivated on all your workstations. IMPORTANT: The 30-days trial period cannot be extended.
Even if you own Sony or Fujifilm cameras (see below) your best best is to download the free trial of the full version of Capture One Pro 12 here, with support for over 500 different cameras. If you operate a professional multi-user studio, and/or have an in-house production team, there’s also Capture One Studio – more info here.

Most trial software add a key in your system registry by tweaking it. When you uninstall a software after it’s trial period has expired, all files are deleted except the keys in the registry. Therefore when you try installing it again, it detects the key and gives you a message like for e.g, “Your trial period has expired”.

Capture One can run in four modes: Pro, Pro (for Sony), Express (for Sony), and DB. You need a license key for both Pro modes and activate your installation with that key. Activating Capture One Pro and how to manage your activations is what you learn from this post.

Activating Capture One Pro

You have a license key and need to activate Capture One Pro to be able to use it. However, activation is not always as straightforward as it is meant to be. How does it work and what should you do if it does not?

Another topic is that you can manage your activations. You can deactivate Capture One to free up activation for use on another system. Or you need to know how many activations you still have left.

Activation Requirements

Activation is required for Capture One Pro and Pro (for Sony). Without activation, you can use the program for a limited time, the 30-day trial period. The screenshot below shows the product selector that you see when you start Capture One for the first time.

Other running modes like Capture One DB and Express (for Sony) do not require activation. You can read more on the different Capture One running modes in Capture One Modes.

To activate Capture One the following three requirements apply.

a workstation with Capture One installed
- you need access to the internet and administrative user account
a license key
- delivered with your CD-ROM, via your Phase One partner or directly from Phase One in the mail
a Phase One profile
- know your account name and password

The workstation with Capture One, the license key and the Phase One profile are each required to successfully activate Capture One Pro.

Step 1 – Install Capture One

First, you install Capture One on your workstation. Use the installer from the free download.

For Mac users, make sure you drag Capture One to your main Application folder as indicated. Do not run the program from the installer!

Admin Account

To be able to install Capture One on your workstation the account you are logged in with must be an Administrator user account, not a Standard user account. Most users are not aware of that as they only have one user account on the system, which is automatically an Administrator account. It means that you are able to activate Capture One as well.

I prefer not to use my computer while being the Administrator from a security point of view. As a result, I have at least two user accounts on each computer, one Administrator for installations and one Standard user for day-to-day work.

Start Capture One

Next, start Capture One. On the Select Product screen (see above) you choose your product. If you choose Pro or Pro (for Sony) you are welcomed with a What would you like to do? screen.

Assuming you already have a license key, select Activate to start the Activation process and enter your license key and Phase One profile as I will explain below. If you do not have a license key, click on Buy and come back later to activate.

Step 2 – Enter Your License Key

The next step in activating Capture One Pro is that you enter your license key.

In the Activate Capture One dialog you first enter your license key in the License Code field. The license key is what you get when you buy Capture One Pro, whether it is a full product or an upgrade. If you have it in an e-mail or saved it in a document, just copy and paste it here.

The license key consists of four times four characters, alphanumeric. After you entered your key Capture One checks whether you have not made any typing errors. If not, it says Valid license code for Capture One Pro.

In the next step, you connect to your Phase One profile.

Step 3 – Connect To Phase One Profile

In the second part of the Activate Capture One dialog make sure you select the Online Activation tab. The alternative method of Manual Activation I will discuss later.

Your Phase One profile is your account with Phase One. Your account name and password secure the profile so that only you can access it. The account name is an e-mail address you own.

The Phase One profile plays a critical role during activation. When you activate a license key for the first time, the key is stored in your profile. This means that you can retrieve your license key when you log in to your Phase One profile as I will show later.

If you, later on, activate the same license key again, on a second workstation, for example, you must use the same profile, that is your e-mail address that belongs to your profile because profile and key are connected.

I assume you already have a Phase One profile as you probably logged on to the Phase One website to download Capture One.

Get Profile

You fill in your e-mail address and click on the Get Profile button.

In the new dialog, you enter your password. When you click the OK button Capture One retrieves your name and country from your profile and fills in the Activate Capture One dialog.

In case you lost your password, click on the E-mail My Password button. You will receive an e-mail at the e-mail address you provided for a new password.

Now everything is ready to activate. Press the Activate button and wait for the confirmation. Note that you need an internet connection during activation.

Now your license key is linked to your profile and your workstation linked to your license key. The activation is stored in both your computer and the Phase One activation server. Each time you start Capture One Pro the activation on your computer is checked for validation by the Phase One activation server.

Manage Activations

Now that you have activated Capture One successfully, the next stage is to manage your activations. That sounds more complicated then it is. There are three aspects of activation management.

control the number of activations
deactivate Capture One
upgrade your license key to upgrade Capture One Pro

I will discuss each aspect in detail now.

Number Of Activations

The license you purchased comes with a number of activations. The amount of activations depends on the type of license. Each activation decreases the number of activations for your license key with one (1).

A single-user perpetual license of Capture One Pro 10 has 3 activations and a subscription 2 activations. There are also multi-user licenses for Capture One Pro 10 that allow for 5, 10 or more activations.
A single-user perpetual license of Capture One Pro (for Sony) 10 has 2 activations.

The screenshot above shows the license status from Capture One. Go to Capture One menu > License. Notice that you can deactivate Capture One from this screen.

You can also review the license status including deactivation from the Phase One website. See the section on deactivation below.

Deactivating Capture One

When you deactivate Capture One you effectively unmount the license key from

Capture One Pro Trial Reset