New
- New Sidebar, four-tab navigation shell. Favorites, Libraries, Browser, and Photos as dedicated tabs. Libraries replaces Quick Access as a first-class concept for registered, indexed folders. Browser expands any folder on your Mac recursively, Finder-style, with lazy loading, auto-expand to the current directory, and star-to-Favorites promotion. A persistent header strip surfaces Launchpad and Tools without navigating away.
- Keyword Workbench, one window for everything. Vocabulary Browser, Keyword Rules, Transformation Rules, Activity Log, Keyword Sets, Custom Fields, and Profiles consolidated into a single Tools → Workbench… surface with seven tabs (⌘1 to ⌘7). Tab selection persists across close and reopen. Cross-tab right-click navigation wires vocab terms, rules, and activity entries together. Template Manager remains a separate window.
- Keyword Inspector popover. A reusable inspector available from any keyword chip (info panel, Batch Keyword Editor, Vocabulary Browser, suggestion chips). Shows canonical vocabulary form, hierarchy, orphan status, usage count, matching rules, and inline synonym editing for editable source vocabularies.
- Interactive side-panel keyword chips. Keyword chips in the info-panel Keywords section respond to right-click (context menu: open inspector, add/remove, copy) and double-click (opens Keyword Inspector directly). Hover tooltips show the canonical vocabulary form.
- Keyword Sets. Save reusable named keyword collections and apply them in one click from the Batch Keyword Editor's Sets menu. The Workbench Sets tab (⌘5) provides full management with rename, delete, and inline edit. Sets stored at ~/Library/Application Support/MetaScope/Vocabularies/keyword-sets.json.
- Cross-image keyword operations on the Compare Tray. Right-click any tray image for Equalize Keywords (union across all tray images), Copy Keywords → Replace, or Copy Keywords → Merge to or from any other tray image. Single Cmd+Z undoes all affected files.
- Add files directly to the Compare tray. A new toolbar tile, a plus button on the compact-tray header, and an empty-state button each open a multi-select Open panel for images and videos that remembers your last-used folder, no need to pre-load a folder first. Adding past the 12-image cap shows a clear tray-full notice.
- Full Compare-tray context menu. Right-click any tray image for the complete file-browser context menu: metadata, keyword operations (Equalize Keywords, Copy Keywords → Replace or Merge), copy and move to folder, export, and Edit In…, rather than only the previous Equalize Keywords shortcut.
- Pinch and ⌘-scroll to resize thumbnails. Pinch-to-zoom and ⌘ plus scroll now resize thumbnails directly in the file browser, integrated metadata search, and all three Photos grid shapes (square, landscape, and Masonry). The gesture shares the same size slot as the footer slider and persists per window.
- Categories operationalisation. Staged Apply Category and Remove Category actions in the Batch Keyword Editor. Right-click a vocabulary category header for a one-step Add all keywords from this category. The {category:CategoryName} template token expands to the deduplicated keyword set for that category.
- Keyword rule creation wizard. A guided 3-step wizard for new keyword rules (Conditions → Actions → Name & Save) with vocabulary suggestions in Step 1. An Advanced… button on any step escapes to the full editor pre-seeded with the wizard state.
- Transformation rule creation wizard. A 4-step wizard for new transformation rules (trigger → action with live preview → guard conditions → name and save). Same Advanced… escape hatch.
- Masonry thumbnail grid. A new Pinterest-style cell shape packs variable-height tiles matching each image's real aspect ratio. Available in both the Filesystem and Photos browsers. Toggle via the cell-shape button in the footer or Settings → Interface.
- Thumbnail size cap raised to 1024 px. Up from 512 px across the Filesystem browser, Photos browser, standalone Metadata Search, and Compare Tray slider. A new Max Thumbnail Quality picker in Settings → Advanced offers 1024, 1536, and 2048 px stops.
- Footer toolbars on every surface. Filesystem, Photos, and Sidebar footers each have a dedicated toolbar with independent H/V spacing sliders, density presets, view-mode toggle, cell-shape cycle, filename and rating overlay toggles, selection-style toggle, and a thumbnail-size slider. Three-stage responsive collapse cadence as the window narrows.
- Per-window grid display preferences. Six grid settings now per-window: cell shape, filename labels, star-rating overlay, provider-badge overlay, horizontal spacing, and vertical spacing. Two windows can run different densities without coupling. Settings remains a seed-only control for new windows.
- Configurable Launchpad. Toggle tiles on or off, drag-to-reorder, or reset to defaults from Settings → Interface → Launchpad → Configure Tiles, or via the new Edit Tiles… button directly in the Launchpad. New-tile migration: default users automatically receive new tiles, customised users see a new tile available banner.
- 12 new Launchpad tiles this cycle. Apply Template, Apply Profile, Compare, Redact Metadata, Export Metadata, Export Photos to Filesystem, Edit Keywords, Search, Analyse, Import to Photos, Fix GPS, and Doc Export. Apply Profile and Apply Template tiles show inline progress during multi-file apply.
- Active Library. Tap any Library to mark it as the active configuration scope, shown with a filled accent-color left border. Persists across app restarts. Foundation for downstream library-scoped settings in v1.4.1.
- Go to Containing Folder. Select any file and press ⌥⌘↑ to navigate to its parent folder in place, or ⌥⇧⌘↑ to open it in a new window. Clears Include Subfolders and preserves the selected file for highlighting.
- Lightroom-style offline grammar. Folder rows whose target is unreachable dim to about 45% opacity with a ? badge on the trailing edge, replacing the v1.3.x mix of warning icons. Applies across Favorites, Libraries, and Browser. Auto-reconnect on volume mount clears badges automatically.
- Temporal Enrichment, three derivation paths. Derive OffsetTimeOriginal from GPS timestamps (arithmetic, no network), from GPS coordinates via CLPlacemark.timeZone (medium-confidence, with a warning badge for captures older than about 15 years), or write UTC GPS timestamps from local time and offset. All available in the Date Operations panel.
- Transformation rule auto-apply. Rules with On Save, When Any Field Changes, or When <field> Changes triggers now fire end-to-end after every successful metadata write. Changes queue for user review before landing. Activity Log reaches full query parity with the keyword log.
- Custom Fields and Profiles moved to Workbench. Custom Fields lives at ⌘6 and Profiles at ⌘7. Reachable via Tools → Custom Fields… / Profiles… or the Workbench tab strip.
- Custom field type-correct editing. Date fields render a full DatePicker with ISO 8601 manual entry. Number fields restrict to numeric characters. List fields with Allowed Values show a constrained chip picker.
- Custom field validation rebuild. The raw Regex Pattern field is replaced with a structured Validation Type picker (None, Whole Number, Decimal Number, Pattern Match, Allowed Values). Live test affordance with green or red indicator, plus an Examples popover with seven ready-made patterns.
- Profile merge mode. The two overwrite or append toggles are replaced with a single Merge mode picker: Smart (default), Fill Empty Only, Replace All, or Append to Lists. Existing profiles auto-migrate on first decode.
- Move to Folder service. Right-click selected files for a Move to Folder… action. Folder-picker confirms the destination, undoable with Cmd+Z. Available in both grid and list browser modes.
- Apply Template in context menu. The browser right-click context menu gains an Apply Template submenu as a sibling of Apply Profile. Templates grouped by category with built-in templates first. Submenu tail opens Template Manager.
- Drag files from Finder into sidebar folders. Drop files onto Favorites, Quick Access, or Library rows to import them in place. External drag from Finder defaults to copy; intra-app drag between sidebar folders defaults to move (hold ⌘ to switch). A single Cmd+Z undoes every drop, copies are deleted and moves are reverted.
- External drive reliability for non-APFS volumes. Adding an exFAT, NTFS, or NAS root now shows a clear Choose Subfolder… prompt instead of failing silently, since macOS sandbox cannot bookmark non-APFS volume roots. Browser navigation, breadcrumb clicks, and parent-folder jumps that land on a volume root all redirect to the granted subfolder.
Improvements
- Entity Enrichment clarity. The Enrich from Descriptions preview defaults to keeping populated scalar fields, surfaces unrecognised location candidates, and separates written, overwritten, and skipped counts in the result. Every candidate is labelled fill, append, skip, or overwrite.
- Faster sequential metadata writes. Batch writes reuse a long-running ExifTool session by default, eliminating per-file launch overhead during large operations.
- Faster pop-out image viewer. The viewer opens noticeably quicker from a cold start, with the image decoder prepared at launch and reused while idle instead of spawning on demand.
- List subfolder scan performance. Subfolder scan is faster for large folder trees. Include Subfolders paging loads subsequent pages with lower latency.
- Go to Containing Folder polish. ⌥⌘↑ scrolls the selected file into view after navigating. List-view selection survives the navigation without resetting to the top.
- Batch Keyword Editor vocabulary side-panel toggle. The vocabulary side panel in the BKE can be shown and hidden with a toolbar toggle. Scroll position persists across toggle off and on.
- Settings and Workbench sidebars open wider and persist drag-resize. Both auxiliary windows open with a 200 pt default sidebar width. Drag to resize, and the width persists across close and reopen. Range 140 to 400 pt.
- Vocabulary Browser reframing. The Vocabularies tab opens search-first. Faceted filters narrow by active vocabularies only, terms with synonyms, orphaned terms, and most-used terms. Keyword-count badges show total terms and active-index matches.
- Active Vocabulary strip. A persistent strip in the Batch Keyword Editor shows currently active vocabularies as dismissible chips. Clicking a chip deactivates that vocabulary for the session.
- Launchpad UX redesign. All tiles use a uniform standard size (icon 36 pt to 30 pt, height 150 pt to 128 pt). Open Folder renamed to Open New Window with a direct native folder picker, no intermediate sheet.
- Settings Interface and Advanced reorganised. Both tabs reordered with most-tuned controls at the top and diagnostic or restore actions at the bottom. Sidebar Icon Size, Sidebar Row Spacing, and Font Size Scale grouped under Sidebar and Typography. Max Thumbnail Quality splits into its own card under Advanced.
- Sidebar row spacing slider. New slider in Settings → Interface → Sidebar for vertical spacing between sidebar rows, with live update.
- View-mode toggle migrated to footer. Grid and list toggle buttons removed from the NavigationToolbar. Both footers stay visible in list mode so you can switch back without navigating away.
- Compare Tray cards reflow tight headers. When a card becomes too narrow, the header snaps to a vertical layout with text below the thumbnail before SwiftUI can collapse text into single-character strips.
- Sandbox scope robustness. Security-scoped access now holds correctly across long sessions, multiple windows, pop-out video preview, video info extraction, PDF and HTML exports, and rename operations on external drives. Fewer permission-required prompts on workflows that span those surfaces.
Fixes
- Compare Tray placeholder for deleted or moved files. Cards now show a File moved or deleted placeholder instead of attempting to load thumbnails from a dead path.
- Launchpad edit-mode grid no longer clips the bottom row at narrow window widths.
- Batch Keyword Editor vocabulary side-panel scroll position persists across toggle off and on.
- Smoother drag for sidebar, info-panel width, and info-panel split-height dividers.
- Toolbar Open Folder button removed (redundant with File → Open Folder… and the Launchpad Open New Window tile).
- Settings thumbnail spacing slider removed (redundant with the in-window footer).
- Browser recents and Documents cleanup. Recent Locations rows can be removed individually via context menu. This Mac standard folders prefer the real user home over sandbox container fallbacks.
- Favorite and Browser bookmark recovery hardening. Refreshing an inaccessible location opens the permission panel inside the exact folder MetaScope needs.
- Missing saved-folder recovery alert clarifies that the location may be gone and directs the user to remove and re-add the sidebar item.
- Photos Library bundle sidebar sync. Opening a .photoslibrary bundle's Browse in Photos Environment action now switches the sidebar tab shell to Photos.
- RAW-decode memory leak fixed in the pop-out image viewer.
MetaScope 1.4.0 (Build 45)
June 2026, Build 45
v1.4.0 is the Keyword-First and Sidebar as Starting Point release. It is the largest single-cycle UI expansion in MetaScope’s history, covering the sidebar restructure, the Keyword Workbench, masonry thumbnail grids, per-window footer toolbars, per-window display preferences, a fully configurable Launchpad, keyword sets, the custom-fields workspace, and temporal enrichment.
Two headline features anchor the release. A completely new four-tab sidebar turns the left panel into a first-class starting point for every workflow. A unified Keyword Workbench collapses several previously separate windows (Vocabulary Browser, Keyword Rules, Transformation Rules, Activity Log, Keyword Sets, Custom Fields, Profiles) into one coherent surface with seven tabs reachable from ⌘1 to ⌘7. Both land alongside masonry thumbnail grids, per-window footer toolbars, a fully configurable Launchpad with 12 new tiles, temporal enrichment for timezone offsets, cross-image keyword operations on the Compare Tray, transformation rule auto-apply, and a wide sweep of keyword workflow improvements.
New Sidebar, Libraries, Browser, Favorites, Photos
The sidebar is rebuilt from the ground up as a four-tab shell. Where v1.3.x had a single flat list mixing Quick Access and Favorites, v1.4 separates concerns into dedicated tabs.
Four-tab shell. Favorites, Libraries, Browser, and Photos. The active tab persists across launches; switching is instant.
Libraries tab. Replaces Quick Access with a proper concept for registered, indexed folders, the folders you have added for ongoing metadata work. Rows show a compact path subtitle. Drag-to-reorder.
Finder-style Browser tab. Expands any folder on your Mac recursively with lazy loading. Auto-expands to your current directory. Star any folder to add it to Favorites. Drag a folder onto the Libraries or Favorites tab to promote it.
Go to Containing Folder. Select any file and press ⌥⌘↑ to navigate to its parent folder in place, or ⌥⇧⌘↑ to open it in a new window.
Lightroom-style offline grammar. Unreachable folder rows dim to about 45% opacity with a ? badge, one consistent grammar across Favorites, Libraries, and Browser. Auto-reconnect on volume mount clears badges automatically.
Sidebar Launchpad and Tools strip. A persistent header strip at the top of the sidebar gives one-click access to Launchpad and the Tools popover without navigating away from your current folder.
Active library. Tap any Library to mark it as the active configuration scope, shown with a filled accent-color left border. Persists across app restarts.
Promotion context menus. Right-click any Browser folder row to add it to Favorites or Libraries. Favorite rows can be promoted to Libraries in one click.
Keyword Workbench, one window for everything
Vocabulary Browser, Keyword Rules, Transformation Rules, Activity Log, Keyword Sets, Custom Fields, and Profiles are now a single tabbed window. Tools → Workbench… opens it; ⌘1 to ⌘7 switch tabs. Tab selection persists across close and reopen. Template Manager remains a separate window reachable from Tools → Template Manager and the Launchpad, as it serves a different workflow.
Keyword Inspector. A popover available from any keyword chip in the info panel, Batch Keyword Editor, Vocabulary Browser, or suggestion chips. Shows canonical vocabulary form, hierarchy, orphan status, usage count, and matching rules. Inline synonym editing for editable source vocabularies.
Interactive side-panel keyword chips. Info-panel keyword chips respond to right-click (context menu: inspector, add or remove, copy) and double-click (opens Keyword Inspector directly).
Keyword Sets. Save reusable named keyword collections and apply them in one click from the Batch Keyword Editor’s Sets menu. The Workbench Sets tab (⌘5) provides full management.
Cross-image keyword operations. Right-click any Compare Tray image to Equalize Keywords (union across all tray images), Copy → Replace, or Copy → Merge to or from any other tray image. Single Cmd+Z undoes all affected files.
Keyword and transformation rule creation wizards. A guided 3-step wizard for new keyword rules (Conditions → Actions → Name & Save) and a 4-step wizard for transformation rules (trigger → action and live preview → guard conditions → name and save). Each wizard has an Advanced… escape hatch that pre-seeds the full editor.
Categories: Apply and Remove in one step. The Batch Keyword Editor’s Categories menu stages every keyword in a vocabulary category as a single batch. Right-click a category header in the Vocabularies tab for the one-step shortcut.
Active Vocabulary strip. A persistent strip in the Batch Keyword Editor shows which vocabularies are active as dismissible chips.
Workbench cross-tab right-click navigation. Right-click a vocab term to jump to rules that reference it, jump from a rule row to recent activity, or from an activity entry back to its rule. A filter pill above each destination list shows the active cross-tab filter with a one-click Clear.
Masonry Thumbnail Grids
A new Masonry cell shape is available in both the Filesystem and Photos browsers. Tiles match each image’s real aspect ratio, dramatically reducing uniform empty whitespace for mixed-aspect or portrait-dominant libraries. Switch via Settings → Interface → Thumbnail Cell Shape, or click the cell-shape button in the footer to cycle Landscape (4:3) → Square → Masonry.
Filesystem masonry. Packs items into the shortest available column for a dense, gap-free layout. Aspect ratios resolve quickly from the metadata index where possible, with a fast header-only decode and a 4:3 fallback when not. Scroll stays smooth on large folders.
Photos masonry. Reads dimensions directly from the Photos library for instant layout, with full arrow-key navigation.
Thumbnail size cap raised to 1024 px, up from 512 px, across the Filesystem browser, Photos browser, standalone Metadata Search, and Compare Tray slider.
Size-adaptive thumbnail quality. Decode quality scales with cell size and screen pixel density. A new Max Thumbnail Quality picker in Settings → Advanced offers 1024 px (default), 1536 px, and 2048 px stops.
Compare Tray and Image Viewer
Add files directly. A new toolbar tile, a plus button on the compact-tray header, and an empty-state button each open a multi-select Open panel for images and videos that remembers your last-used folder, no need to pre-load a folder first. Adding past the 12-image cap shows a clear tray-full notice.
Full context menu. Right-click any tray image for the complete file-browser context menu: metadata, keyword operations (Equalize Keywords, Copy Keywords → Replace or Merge), copy and move to folder, export, and Edit In…. Previously the tray offered only the Equalize Keywords shortcut.
Pinch and ⌘-scroll to resize. Pinch-to-zoom and ⌘ plus scroll now resize thumbnails directly in the file browser, integrated metadata search, and all three Photos grid shapes (square, landscape, and Masonry). The gesture shares the same size slot as the footer slider and persists per window.
Faster pop-out viewer. The pop-out image viewer opens noticeably quicker from a cold start, with a RAW-decode memory leak fixed along the way.
Footer Toolbars, Viewport Controls Per Window
Filesystem footer. Independent H/V spacing sliders with editable px fields and ± buttons, three density presets (Compact, Comfortable, Spacious), filename and rating overlay toggles, a 3-state cell-shape cycle (Landscape → Square → Masonry), selection-style toggle (Compact, Classic), and a thumbnail-size slider. Toggle via View → Show Browser Footer Toolbar or right-click the strip.
Photos footer. Mirrors the Filesystem footer with its own thumbnail-size slider and view-mode toggle. Filesystem and Photos sizes are independent per window.
Sidebar footer. One-click ± row spacing, icon size, and font scale controls. Toggle via View → Show Sidebar Footer Toolbar.
Per-window display preferences. Cell shape, filename labels, star-rating overlay, provider badges, H/V spacing, all per window. Changing one window no longer affects another. Settings → Interface remains a seed-only control for new windows.
Responsive collapse. Controls collapse progressively into popovers and an overflow menu as the window narrows, never all at once. Spacing sliders always remain accessible as vertical-popover buttons.
View-mode toggle moved to footer. Grid and list toggle removed from the top toolbar. The footer stays visible in list mode so you can switch back without navigating anywhere.
Configurable Launchpad
Configure Tiles. Toggle tiles on or off, drag-to-reorder, reset to defaults, all from Settings → Interface → Launchpad → Configure Tiles, or via the new Edit Tiles… button directly in the Launchpad.
Edit Tiles mode. In-place customisation with drag-and-drop reorder. Edits are staged until Done. A conflict banner appears if Settings resets the Launchpad while edit mode is open.
New-tile migration. Default users automatically receive new tiles at their registry position. Customised users see a “new tile available” banner.
12 new tiles this cycle. Apply Template, Apply Profile, Compare, Redact Metadata, Export Metadata, Export Photos to Filesystem, Edit Keywords, Search, Analyse, Import to Photos, Fix GPS, and Doc Export. Apply Profile and Apply Template show inline progress during multi-file apply.
Drag Files Into Sidebar Folders
Drag files from Finder onto any Favorites, Quick Access, or Library folder in the sidebar to import them in place. External drag from Finder defaults to copy; intra-app drag between sidebar folders defaults to move (hold ⌘ to switch). A single Cmd+Z undoes every drop, copies are deleted and moves are reverted.
External Drive Reliability
When you try to add a non-APFS external volume’s root (exFAT, NTFS, or NAS), MetaScope now shows a clear “select a folder inside this drive” prompt with a Choose Subfolder… shortcut, rather than failing silently. macOS sandbox cannot bookmark volume roots on those file systems, so the file browser navigates into the actual granted subfolder instead. The same redirect applies to breadcrumb clicks and parent-folder navigation that land on a volume root.
Security-scoped access is also held correctly across long sessions, multiple windows, pop-out video preview, video info extraction, PDF and HTML exports, and rename operations on external drives. Fewer permission-required prompts on workflows that span those surfaces.
Temporal Enrichment
When MetaScope can fill in a timezone offset or a UTC timestamp from data you already have, the Date Operations panel does it. Three derivation paths, all on-device, no network required for the GPS-time path.
Derive OffsetTimeOriginal from GPS timestamps. When DateTimeOriginal and GPSDateStamp or GPSTimeStamp are both present, MetaScope computes the missing timezone offset as the arithmetic difference. High confidence.
Derive OffsetTimeOriginal from GPS coordinates. When GPS timestamps are absent but coordinates are present, the offset is inferred from CLPlacemark.timeZone. Results flagged as medium-confidence; a warning badge appears for captures older than about 15 years to account for historical-rule variance.
Derive GPS timestamps from local time. When DateTimeOriginal and OffsetTimeOriginal are present but GPS timestamps are missing, MetaScope can compute and write the UTC GPS timestamps. Opt-in toggle, handles date rollover.
Bug Fixes and Polish
Compare Tray placeholder for deleted or moved files. Cards now show a “File moved or deleted” placeholder instead of attempting to load thumbnails from the dead path.
Settings and Workbench sidebars both open at 200 pt default width. Drag-resize persists across window close and reopen.
Transformation rule auto-apply. Rules with On Save, When Any Field Changes, or When <field> Changes triggers now fire end-to-end after every successful metadata write.
Entity Enrichment clarity. The preview labels every candidate as fill, append, skip, or overwrite, surfaces unrecognised location candidates, and shows separate written, overwritten, and skipped counts.
Requirements
- macOS 15.4 Sequoia or later
- Apple Silicon or Intel Mac
Get MetaScope
MetaScope is available on the Mac App Store. Free tier includes 5 edits per day. MetaScope Pro unlocks unlimited edits and all professional features.