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New in 1.6 Intelligence · On-device · Pro

Find what matters. Decide what gets written.

Parergon's local image analysis helps you find, caption and tag photos. In 1.6, describe an image to find it, translate metadata, review detected events or propose four fields together. Proposals stay under your control; metadata is written only after you choose to write it.

Download on the Mac App Store All Intelligence features →
Parergon showing a photo's AI-generated description in the Edit EXIF window and the Info Panel, with smart keyword suggestions in the keyword field

The problem

Describing and keywording a large shoot is slow, manual work, and the tools that automate it usually mean uploading your photos to someone else's cloud. Parergon does it on your Mac, and leaves you in control of every word.

New in 1.6 · Pro

Four new ways to work.

Meaning search, Translate Metadata, Detected Events and Run Intelligence, each shown below. Read the release notes.

01 · AI photo descriptions

Draft a caption from what Parergon actually sees.

Tap Draft and Parergon writes a natural caption ("A dog on a beach at sunset."), then stages it for you to edit. Generate AI Descriptions… captions a whole shoot in four tones, with a per-photo review list so you keep only what you want.

  • Stock caption
  • Archival record
  • Social media
  • Fine art

Descriptions fold in location, date and camera, transcribe short visible text, and note composition and people counts. On macOS 26 with Apple Intelligence, an optional prose rewrite adds fluency, still grounded to the facts.

Title and Headline draft too, composed from the file's existing Description, Keywords and written location rather than from the image itself, so they work whether or not a photo has been analyzed. A photo with a city already written to it can get a title naming the real place, and the drafter never looks anything up online. Every user gets a built-in draft on every supported macOS version, and Pro users on macOS 26 with Apple Intelligence get a more fluent one. Nothing is written until you save.

All three drafters sit in Tools → Intelligence and in the single-file right-click Intelligence submenu, and they open their result in the info panel's Editor tab with the target field ready to edit, so you stay where you were. Send Drafts To switches the destination back to the editor window.

The same menu carries Suggest Titles… and Suggest Headlines… (Pro), which draft for exactly the files you selected, or for the current folder, top level only, with no subfolders. Every proposal is listed beside the file's name and its existing value. Files that already carry a value start unchecked. Nothing is written until you press Write.

How descriptions work →
Parergon Generate AI Descriptions review list, per-photo captions in the Stock caption tone with a Write descriptions button

02 · Smart keyword suggestions

Tag by what's in the frame, across 1,000+ subjects.

Analyzed photos surface curated, badged keyword suggestions in autocomplete and the Batch Keyword Editor: breeds, foods, plants, instruments, sports, landmarks, pets and people. Suggest-only, so nothing is written until you accept.

  • Golden retriever ●●●
  • Beach ●●○
  • Sunset ●○○

Auto-Keyword Folder reviews a whole folder in a fast accept or reject grid, each suggestion with a source glyph and a 1 to 3 dot match strength.

How keywords work →
Parergon Suggest Keywords review grid with badged Vision keyword suggestions and accept or reject per photo

03 · Enhanced Recognition · Pro, optional

A second model for the subjects Apple's misses.

Turn on an optional second on-device model that catches specific breeds, vehicles and scene objects, each shown as an Enhanced chip and boosted when both models agree. Bundled with the app, processed locally, and off by default.

About Enhanced Recognition →
Parergon keyword suggestions showing Vision matches with a purple sparkle and Enhanced Recognition matches with a teal wand, side by side in the Edit Keywords window

04 · Meaning search · Pro · New in 1.6

Find a photo by describing it.

Type what you remember, such as mountain scenery, and Parergon returns the photos that look like it, alongside your keyword and metadata matches. A description that fits nothing returns nothing, and a matching level in Settings trades more results for closer matches.

Read the 1.6 release notes →
Parergon Meaning search with the query mountain scenery returning 36 results, mostly mountain landscapes, in the browser grid

05 · Translate Metadata · Pro to apply · New in 1.6

Translate descriptions and titles on your Mac.

macOS's own on-device translation proposes each description and title beside the original. Tick the ones you want and press Apply: accepted translations are stored as language-tagged alternatives, never over what you wrote. Keyword translation is a separate opt-in.

Read the 1.6 release notes →
Parergon Translate Metadata review for five files from English to Dutch, each original description, title and keyword shown above its proposed translation with a checkbox, and an Apply 2 Translations button

06 · Detected Events · Pro · New in 1.6

Your library, grouped into events.

Parergon groups indexed photos by the dates and locations already in them, with no new scanning, and names each event by its date, and by place too where the photos carry a location. Rename or dismiss any event, then write its name to every photo in it in one action.

Read the 1.6 release notes →
Parergon Detected Events window listing events named by place and date, such as London, 28 May 2025 and Kaprun, 11 Aug 2017, each with its photos, Show in Browser and Apply Name to Files, and a confidence badge on the strongest groupings

07 · Run Intelligence · Pro · New in 1.6

Four fields, one review, one Write.

Keywords, description, headline and title in one pass over a selection or folder. The title and headline are drafted from the description proposed in the same run, every proposal can be unticked, and existing values stay protected unless you turn on Replace existing values.

Read the 1.6 release notes →
Parergon Run Intelligence review for 17 files, listing proposed keywords, description, headline and title per file, each with a checkbox, and a Write 17 files button

Private by design

Your photos never leave your Mac.

Image Analysis runs locally using Apple Vision and the bundled model, and Translate Metadata uses macOS's own on-device translation. Parergon does not upload photos or metadata for analysis or translation, and no identities are recognized or stored.

On-device
Apple Vision plus a bundled model. No cloud, no account.
No photo upload
Parergon does not upload photos for image analysis.
You confirm every write
Suggestions stay staged until you accept them.

Requirements

What you need.

System
macOS 15.4 or later, on a Mac with Apple silicon.
Plan
Meaning search, Detected Events, Run Intelligence, Enhanced Recognition and folder-wide drafting are Pro. Translation proposals can be reviewed on any plan; applying them is Pro. Draft Description, Suggest Title and Suggest Headline on a single file are free.
Prose rewrite
The optional fluency pass needs macOS 26 with Apple Intelligence.

Caption and tag your library, privately.

Download on the Mac App Store

All Intelligence features → Related how-to guides →