Breaking changes
- One authoring change comes with the list-field work. In the non-keyword list fields (Person Shown, Creator, Supplemental Categories, and the rest), a semicolon now separates items where it used to stay a literal character. This applies when a profile appends to one of these fields, and to a rule's append or prepend value. A comma never separates, so "Smith, John" is still one person and "Smith, John; Doe, Jane" is two, each keeping its comma. Keywords keep their own rule, unchanged. If you have a profile or a rule that deliberately writes a literal semicolon into one of these fields, check it after updating.
New
- Every tool now lives in the Tools menu. Nine commands that existed only in a right-click menu, a Launchpad tile, or the toolbar gained a menu-bar home, including Draft Description, Suggest Keywords, Auto-Keyword Folder, Apply Template, Export Metadata, Export Originals, Equalize Keywords, and a new Maintenance section for the thumbnail rebuilds. Sections are regrouped around how commands are used, the three largest (Intelligence, Keywords, and Batch & Export) fold into submenus, and the menu now shows only what can act where you are, so browsing your Photos library no longer lists thirty file-based commands that looked available and did nothing.
- All 36 Tools commands are rebindable. Every Tools command gets a row in Settings → Keyboard Shortcuts → Tools Shortcuts, grouped as the menu is, including the commands that ship without a keystroke. Record a shortcut, clear it, or restore the default, with Reset All to Defaults covering Tools too. Conflict detection works in both directions and names the command already holding a keystroke rather than silently taking it, and a new shortcut takes effect without relaunching.
- Identical keyword names in different vocabulary branches. Term names now only need to be unique among siblings, so "Nikon > 2026" and "Canon > 2026" can coexist. Wherever a bare name could mean two different keywords, MetaScope shows the full path: the Keyword Inspector lists every match with its ancestor path, synonym enrichment skips ambiguous names rather than guessing a branch, and expanded CSV import and export round-trip duplicate-bearing vocabularies losslessly.
- New Child Keyword on a term's context menu. Right-click any term in the Hierarchy pane, in the editor or the browser, and a name field opens anchored at the parent row. Return commits, Escape cancels with nothing created, and the new keyword lands selected with its branch expanded, so a deep taxonomy can be built keystroke by keystroke. Empty and duplicate sibling names are refused with inline feedback.
- Undo and redo in the Edit Vocabulary window. Cmd+Z and Shift+Cmd+Z step through term changes (add, delete, rename, reparent, and child creation) for as long as the window stays open, up to 50 steps, including a whole-branch delete restored in one step with its nesting intact. Previously the only way back was Cancel, which discards every edit made since the window opened. Typing in a text field keeps its own per-character undo.
- Deleting a term removes its entire subtree, after a confirmation that names how many descendants go with it, and the whole branch comes back in a single undo.
- An optional preference applies a nested term's full parent chain as individual keywords, with Shift held while applying to invert the setting for one action.
- Controlled-vocabulary pickers for standards-owned fields. Fields governed by an official vocabulary now show a picker instead of a free-text box: you choose the human-readable term, MetaScope stores the canonical value, and a value outside the official list can no longer be introduced through MetaScope's editors. Digital Source Type carries the full IPTC Digital Source Type vocabulary including the AI-provenance terms, and Data Mining is a new field carrying the PLUS vocabulary for AI and machine-learning training and indexing permissions. Non-standard values written by other tools stay visible, marked, and untouched.
- Image Supplier Image ID is now editable, bringing the metadata registry to 139 fields. Unlike Image Supplier, which holds a repeatable list of names, this is a single plain-text value, matching how the PLUS standard defines it. It is editable in the info-panel Editor tab and in batch operations.
- Profile authoring gets the same standards pickers, with a List and Expression toggle. List picks the official term and stores the canonical value; Expression keeps free text so token-based values still work, with an inline warning when a literal value falls outside the official list. The mode is detected from the stored value, and existing profiles are unchanged.
- Compare photos from your Photos library. Add to Compare Tray returns to the Photos right-click menu, and this time the photo stays put across relaunches. A photo's card shows its thumbnail and full metadata (camera, lens, exposure, dimensions, location, keywords, captions) beside anything else in the tray, including files on disk. Because MetaScope never writes to your Photos library, comparing is read-only for photos: actions that would write to the photo, or reach for it as a file on disk, are visibly disabled with an explanation rather than present and inert, and a mixed tray runs keyword actions on the file rows and reports how many photos it skipped.
- Suggest Title and Suggest Headline reach the menus, in Tools → Intelligence and in the single-file right-click Intelligence submenu, beside Draft Description. All three now open their result in the info panel's Editor tab rather than the full editor window: the panel opens, switches to Editor, and opens the target field with the drafted text in place. Tools → Intelligence → Send Drafts To switches the destination back to the editor window. Nothing touches the file until you save.
- Limit a Metadata Search to one folder. The standalone Metadata Search window gains the scope control the in-browser search already had: a Scope picker, a Folder chip naming the scoped folder, and a Subfolders chip deciding whether files further down count. It starts out pointed at the folder you were looking at, and the scope lasts for that window's session rather than changing underneath you because you navigated a browser window behind it.
- Hide built-in vocabularies and profiles from the picking surfaces. Two independent, default-off toggles remove MetaScope's built-in keyword vocabularies and metadata profiles from autocomplete, category filters, Apply Profile, the Launchpad, batch processing, and transformation rules, while keeping your own visible. Nothing is deleted and no automation breaks: keyword rules, synonym enrichment, and profiles resolved by saved jobs all keep working, and the Workbench tabs always list everything.
- A one-time invitation to send feedback and rate MetaScope, on your fifth launch. A single sheet asks whether you would like to help shape MetaScope, then never appears again. Send Feedback opens a message with the running version and build already in the subject, and Rate MetaScope presents Apple's native in-app rating prompt instead of handing you off to a browser. Help → Send Feedback opens the same message at any time.
Improved
- List fields keep their exact item boundaries on every path. Keywords, Person Shown, and Creator now carry as discrete items through every rule action and every profile path, so a name like "Smith, John" appended from a profile stays one person instead of becoming two, and a keyword containing a comma survives a transformation rule intact.
- Rules write the modern XMP form. Every rule action and profile path now writes the current XMP representation, so a change made by a rule appears in MetaScope, Lightroom, and Bridge alike, instead of appearing to do nothing on files that already carry XMP.
- A value your file refuses is now reported instead of being lost quietly. Applying a profile, or a rule that applies one, re-reads the file afterwards and names any field that did not actually move, in the batch summary and in the rule activity log. A rule whose only proposed change is a refused value opens its preview rather than reporting no changes.
- Photos batch export shows its progress, with a file count and a Cancel button. A large export used to look frozen, with no way to stop it.
- Settings → Keyboard Shortcuts lists every Tools command, not just the assigned ones, under its section heading in menu order, with Not assigned where there is no keystroke. The Tools shortcut list is now derived from the menu itself, and the in-app Help articles are checked against it on every build, so the three can no longer drift apart.
- Export Document and Compare Selected join the right-click menu, so it carries every feature that acts on what you clicked. Compare Selected appears at two or more selected files and replaces the tray with your selection, while Add to Compare Tray above it still accumulates across folders. Exporting Photos originals used to appear under two different names that behaved differently; both are now Export Originals, with progress, cancel, and Reveal in Finder everywhere.
- Field visibility behaves like one feature. Shift+Cmd+H toggles both ways, empty fields hide only when you say so, the hidden-count badge counts everything that is hidden, and Manage mode gains Show All and Hide All.
- Undo and Redo are more honest around iCloud. Restoring an iCloud item no longer lets the system pull it back into the Trash after MetaScope has reported success, and a Redo that moves only some files keeps the moved ones undoable and the rest retryable, reporting the exact result.
- Location redaction now removes free-text place names along with coordinates. Remove Location Data and Remove Personal Data (GDPR) wipe the entire GPS group and its XMP mirrors, including the free-text fields that can carry a readable place name, and batch Remove GPS Data no longer leaves XMP-held GPS data behind.
Fixed
- Artwork Inventory Number and Artwork Copyright Owner can be written at last. Setting either field, whether in the Editor tab, by applying a profile, or through a copy or transformation rule, used to write nothing while reporting success. Both are corrected, the search index reads the corrected names so a freshly written inventory number is findable, and a registry-wide writability check now stands behind every field so an unwritable field cannot sit there unnoticed again. Values lost to past writes were never stored anywhere, so re-enter and save them once.
- Four separate routes to a blank search-index entry are closed, including photos that arrive while they are still being copied. A stale row can no longer hide its own file from every future scan.
- The Vocabulary Browser no longer freezes on large hierarchical vocabularies. A vocabulary with many terms nested under a few parents could pin MetaScope at 100% CPU until it had to be force-quit.
- Five missing icons are back, including one that would have been blank for anyone on macOS 15.
- Keyword suggestions stay readable in a narrow panel, a deleted keyword can no longer be applied from a leftover picker row, and the Vocabulary Browser stops listing keywords you already deleted.
- Double-clicking a shared workspace-preset file in Finder now imports it.
- Dragging files out of the grid no longer crashes on off-screen items.
- Cmd+Z, Space, and other shortcuts work again with Caps Lock on.
- Undo restores a file whose folder sits behind a symlink, and a photo library reached through one stops rescanning itself from scratch.
- Star clicks and masonry cells behave correctly after a grid display setting changes.
- The Launchpad's Export Metadata tile no longer claims Pro (single-selection metadata export is free) and no longer shows a paywall before opening a window every other entry point opens without one.
- A shortcut cleared from its default no longer resurrects after a restart, moving a command off its default frees that keystroke for reuse, and Cmd+Up is correctly refused as Go Up One Folder.
Known issues
- In the non-keyword list fields, a single item that itself contains a semicolon cannot round-trip, because the semicolon is read as a separator.
MetaScope 1.5.2 (Build 53)
August 2026, Build 53
A release about finding things and trusting what lands on disk. Every tool MetaScope has now sits in the menu bar with a shortcut you can change, keyword vocabularies work the way Adobe Bridge users expect, fields governed by an official standard carry that standard’s vocabulary, and the longest correctness pass in a MetaScope point release closes every route by which a write could quietly not happen.
Find Every Tool, and Rebind Every One
The Tools menu now holds every tool the app has. Nine commands that used to exist only in a right-click menu, on a Launchpad tile, or on the toolbar finally have a menu-bar home, so “I know MetaScope can do this, where is it?” has one answer. Draft Description, Suggest Keywords, Auto-Keyword Folder, Apply Template, Export Metadata, Export Originals, and Equalize Keywords all join, alongside a new Maintenance section for the thumbnail rebuilds.
The menu is also far easier to read. Sections are regrouped around how the commands are actually used, the three largest (Intelligence, Keywords, and Batch & Export) fold into submenus, and the menu now shows only what can act where you are. Browsing your Photos library no longer lists thirty file-based commands that looked available and did nothing.
Every Tools command is yours to rebind. All 36 have a row in Settings → Keyboard Shortcuts → Tools Shortcuts, including the ones that ship without a keystroke. Record a new shortcut, clear one, or restore the default. MetaScope never quietly steals a keystroke that already belongs to another command; it refuses and names the holder.
Keyword Vocabularies, with Bridge Parity
Building a real taxonomy no longer runs into MetaScope’s limits.
The same keyword name can now live in two different branches, so “Nikon > 2026” and “Canon > 2026” can coexist. Names only need to be unique among siblings, which means an ancestor path always disambiguates, and MetaScope shows the full path wherever a bare name would be ambiguous. Synonym enrichment skips ambiguous names rather than guessing a branch, and expanded CSV import and export round-trip duplicate-bearing vocabularies losslessly.
New Child Keyword sits on a term’s right-click menu, in the editor and in the browser, with the name field anchored at the parent row so a deep tree can be built keystroke by keystroke.
The Edit Vocabulary window finally supports undo and redo. Cmd+Z and Shift+Cmd+Z step through term changes for as long as the window stays open, up to 50 steps, including a whole-branch delete restored in one step with its nesting intact. Previously the only way back was Cancel, which throws away the entire session.
Deleting a term now removes its whole subtree, after a confirmation naming how many descendants go with it. And an optional preference applies a nested term’s full parent chain as individual keywords, with Shift held to invert it for a single action.
Standards Vocabularies, and 139 Fields
Fields governed by an official standards vocabulary now show a picker instead of a free-text box. You choose the human-readable term, MetaScope stores the canonical value, and a value outside the official list can no longer be introduced through MetaScope’s editors. Non-standard values written by other tools stay visible, marked, and untouched.
Digital Source Type carries the full IPTC Digital Source Type vocabulary, including the AI-provenance terms. Data Mining is a new field carrying the PLUS vocabulary for AI and machine-learning training and indexing permissions, pairing with Other Constraints. Image Supplier Image ID becomes editable, bringing the registry to 139 fields.
Profile authoring gets the same picker, with a List and Expression toggle so token-based values still work.
Compare Your Photos Library
Add to Compare Tray returns to the Photos right-click menu, and this time the photo stays put across relaunches. A photo’s card shows its thumbnail and its full metadata (camera, lens, exposure, dimensions, location, keywords, captions) beside anything else in the tray, including files on disk.
Because MetaScope never writes to your Photos library, comparing is read-only for photos. Keyword actions are not offered on a photo’s card, and anything that would write to the photo or reach for it as a file on disk (Edit Metadata, Reveal in Finder, Open File, Export Originals, Batch Operations) is visibly disabled with an explanation rather than present and inert. Everything a photo can do is there: Remove from Compare Tray, Focus in Browser, Open in MetaScope, and Export Metadata. In a mixed tray, keyword actions run on the files and say how many photos they are skipping.
Writes That Land Exactly as You Asked
The largest correctness pass in a MetaScope point release.
Multi-value fields (Keywords, Person Shown, Creator) now keep their exact item boundaries on every path. A name like “Smith, John” appended from a profile stays one person instead of becoming two, and a keyword containing a comma survives a transformation rule intact. Every rule action and every profile path now writes the modern XMP form, so a change made by a rule appears in MetaScope, Lightroom, and Bridge alike, instead of appearing to do nothing on files that already carry XMP.
And a value your file refuses is now reported instead of being lost quietly. Applying a profile, or a rule that applies one, re-reads the file afterwards and names any field that did not actually move, in the batch summary and in the rule activity log.
Two fields that could never be written at all, Artwork Inventory Number and Artwork Copyright Owner, are fixed. A registry-wide writability check now stands behind them, so a field that cannot be written cannot sit there unnoticed again.
One authoring change comes with this. In the non-keyword list fields (Person Shown, Creator, Supplemental Categories, and the rest), a semicolon now separates items where it used to stay a literal character, both when a profile appends to one of these fields and in a rule’s append or prepend value. A comma never separates, so “Smith, John” is still one person and “Smith, John; Doe, Jane” is two, each keeping its comma. Keywords keep their own rule, unchanged. If you have a profile or a rule that deliberately writes a literal semicolon into one of these fields, check it after updating.
Also in This Release
Limit a Metadata Search to one folder. The standalone search window gains the Scope picker, the Folder chip, and the Subfolders chip the in-browser search already had, starting from the folder you were looking at.
Drafting lands where you are looking. Suggest Title and Suggest Headline join the menus beside Draft Description, and all three now open their result in the info panel’s Editor tab rather than the full editor window. Send Drafts To switches it back.
Hide built-in vocabularies and profiles from the picking surfaces with two default-off toggles that delete nothing and break no automation.
A one-time invitation to send feedback and rate MetaScope, on your fifth launch, once and then never again.
Photos batch export shows a progress bar with a file count and a Cancel button.
The Vocabulary Browser no longer freezes on large hierarchical vocabularies, field visibility behaves like one feature with Show All and Hide All in Manage mode, Undo and Redo are more honest around iCloud, four separate routes to a blank search-index entry are closed, and location redaction now removes free-text place names along with coordinates.
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.
Requirements
- macOS 15.4 Sequoia or later
- Apple Silicon or Intel Mac
