MetaScope Features

Hardware-accelerated image viewing using Apple's Metal framework with Display-P3 color management for accurate color reproduction.

Smart thumbnail-first loading with progressive refinement for responsive browsing even with large files.

Native support for professional camera RAW formats including CR3, NEF, ARW, RAF, ORF, RW2, DNG, and many more.

View Adobe Photoshop PSD files with embedded thumbnail extraction for quick previews.

Professional video playback with J/K/L shuttle controls, zoom presets, and frame-accurate navigation.

Intelligent memory management that adapts to available system resources for stable performance with large collections.

Full support for Apple's high-efficiency image formats including HEIC photos and HEIF sequences.

Smooth zoom from fit-to-window to 100% and beyond with trackpad gestures and keyboard shortcuts.

Powered by ExifTool (exiftool.org), extracting over 500 metadata elements from images including EXIF, IPTC, XMP, MakerNotes, and format-specific data.

Organized metadata viewing across Favorites, Essentials, Editor, Location, and Advanced tabs for efficient browsing.

Pin your most-used metadata fields to the Favorites tab with inline editing support for quick access.

Curated metadata model with 69 base fields and 33 structured fields across 7 categories, presenting the most useful data from ExifTool's comprehensive extraction.

Side-by-side metadata comparison for up to 12 images simultaneously to identify differences and similarities.

View GPS coordinates with reverse geocoding for address lookup, interactive map display, location visibility controls, and location matching between images.

Detailed camera body and lens metadata including make, model, serial number, lens specifications, and MakerNotes data extracted by ExifTool.

Toggle visibility of empty metadata fields to focus on populated data and reduce clutter.

Edit metadata fields directly in the info panel with instant save and validation. Free version allows up to 5 edits per day.

Create, manage, and organize metadata templates for consistent metadata application across your library.

Professional templates across Metadata, Technical, and Custom categories ready to use for common workflows.

Build your own templates with any combination of the 102 available metadata fields.

Apply templates to hundreds or thousands of files at once with progress tracking and error handling.

Edit Dublin Core and QuickTime metadata for video files with full format support.

Edit capture dates, modification dates, and GPS timestamps with timezone support.

SQLite FTS5-powered full-text search across 70+ indexed metadata fields with instant results.

Build and maintain searchable indexes of your photo libraries for fast metadata queries.

Filter by ISO, aperture, focal length, shutter speed, camera, lens, date ranges, GPS, and more.

Use AND, OR, NOT operators and exact phrase matching for precise search queries.

Save frequently used search queries for quick access to common workflows.

Visual analytics with histograms, timelines, and camera/lens usage rankings across your library.

Visualize distribution of ISO, aperture, focal length, and other numeric metadata.

See when photos were taken over time with interactive timeline visualization.

Export metadata to JSON, XML, CSV, Markdown, and Plain Text formats in the free version.

Pro unlocks XMP Sidecar, YAML, and HTML Report formats, plus unlimited exports (free limited to 5 exports).

Export in newline-delimited JSON format optimized for Elasticsearch and OpenSearch bulk imports.

Generate professional PDF documents with thumbnails, metadata tables, and custom cover pages.

Create web-ready galleries with responsive design and built-in lightbox functionality.

Design custom cover pages with title, creator, customer, and description fields.

Choose from 6 typography presets (Modern, Classic, Technical, Minimal, Serif, Creative) with font controls.

Apply professional color themes to your exports for consistent branding.

Add text or image watermarks to exported documents for copyright protection.

Browse your Photos library directly within MetaScope without duplicating files.

Navigate Photos albums and smart albums to find exactly the images you need.

Visual progress indicators when downloading originals from iCloud for editing.

Intelligent prefetching of nearby images for smooth browsing even with cloud-stored originals.

Export original files from Photos library to any location on your Mac for backup or sharing.

Import images from your filesystem directly into your Photos library with metadata preserved.

Access photos from shared iCloud albums for collaborative workflows.

Respects system low power mode to preserve battery life on MacBooks.

Automatically apply metadata based on keywords in your images using powerful rule definitions.

Add, remove, and organize keywords with hierarchical support and auto-completion, integrated with the keyword rules engine.

Match keywords using Exact Match, Hierarchy Prefix, Contains, or Regular Expression patterns.

Control how rules apply: Overwrite, Fill If Empty, Append, or Prepend to existing values.

Use dynamic placeholders like {keyword}, {root}, {parent}, and {leaf} for flexible metadata generation.

Organize rules into groups for batch enable/disable and logical organization.

Share rule sets between installations or team members using the .msrules format.

Control rule execution order with drag-and-drop priority management.

Customizable sidebar with pinned folders, recent locations, and smart shortcuts.

Add frequently used folders to the sidebar for one-click access.

Comprehensive keyboard shortcuts for all common operations with customization support.

Adjust sidebar, preview, and info panel sizes to match your workflow preferences.

Pause long-running batch operations and resume exactly where you left off.

Automatic checkpoints protect against crashes with cross-restart persistence.

Process entire folder hierarchies with recursive scanning and file type filtering.

Drag files and folders from Finder directly into MetaScope for quick access.