New
- Find Duplicates, a new tool that groups the images that are really the same shot. Similar mode (Pro) groups near-identical shots (the same scene at a different exposure, crop, or format) using on-device image analysis, marks the strongest version with a Best badge, and offers Merge Metadata to union keywords across a group and fill each file's empty fields from the group's values. A populated field is never overwritten, a confirmation summary precedes every write, and nothing is ever deleted, moved, or changed on its own.
- Exact mode in Find Duplicates, free for everyone. It compares files by content (sizes first, then a full checksum) so it groups only byte-identical copies with certainty: a copied file, a re-downloaded original, the same export saved twice. It needs no image analysis and no subscription.
- Exact scans can sweep the whole library. A scope menu offers This Folder, This Folder plus Subfolders, or All Libraries. Cross-folder groups show which folder each copy lives in, with the full path on hover and a Reveal in Browser jump straight to it. Wide scans stay responsive, Cancel works throughout, and a Library on a disconnected drive is named and skipped rather than silently missing.
- Open in Compare Tray hands a duplicate group straight to a full side-by-side metadata comparison (Pro).
- Add Location from GPS turns a photo's coordinates into City, Sublocation, State/Province, and Country through the same scan, review, apply window the other enrichment commands use. Empty fields are pre-checked, populated fields stay behind the existing overwrite toggle, unresolved coordinates are listed rather than dropped, and a burst of shots at one spot is resolved once. Nothing is written until you apply.
- Enrich from Descriptions now reads all of a file's free text (title, description, headline, and instructions) rather than the description alone, so a name that appears in several places becomes one suggestion instead of four.
- Video metadata is fully editable. The video Editor tab, in the info panel and in the Metadata Editor window, is now the same registry-driven editor images use, filtered to the fields a video can carry. Hide Empty Fields with its hidden-count badge, keyword chips with vocabulary tooling, per-field saving, Manage mode, field reordering, and workspace presets all now work for video. Every tag the old video editor wrote, including the QuickTime mirrors third-party players read, is still written unchanged.
- Suggest Title, Suggest Headline, and Draft Description now work on video, delivering into the video's info-panel Editor tab with wording that describes a video rather than a photograph.
- The same field, in more than one language. A file can carry its description (or title, copyright notice, usage terms, or alt text) in several languages at once, added, edited, and removed by hand from a new Languages disclosure in the Editor tab. Each variant is a language code with its own row, and your original value is never touched: each language is stored as its own separate tag, so editing the French description and removing the German one are separate, deliberate acts. A code that is not valid is refused rather than written. Authoring variants is a Pro feature, reading a file that already carries them is free.
- The Compare Tray points out what's different (Pro). With two or more files staged, every field whose values are not identical across the cards carries a small orange dot before its label. Fields empty on every file count as equal, keywords compare as an order-insensitive and case-insensitive set, and indicators update live as staged files are saved. A Highlight differences toggle in the display-settings popover turns the dots off.
- In-app Help gains colored callouts. A passage can be set apart as a note, tip, warning, important, or caution, drawn as a tinted card with its own icon and label. Callouts follow system colors and type styles in both light and dark mode.
- Keyboard shortcuts in Help now look like keys. A shortcut mentioned in an article renders as the same rounded key chip the Keyboard Shortcuts settings panel uses, inline in sentences, list items, and shortcut tables. Chips scale with Dynamic Type and VoiceOver reads each aloud.
- Copyright Status, a tri-state rights field that matches what Adobe Bridge shows and round-trips with it in both directions. Three values: Copyrighted, Public Domain, and Unknown, where Unknown means the property is absent, so selecting it deletes the tag rather than writing a value. It appears in the single-file editor, Favorites, batch editing, metadata profiles, rules, and compare and export. A profile that omits the field preserves the file's current value, a profile that explicitly says Unknown clears it, and read-back verification reports a delete that did not stick instead of claiming success. The registry now holds 140 fields.
- Parent-keyword inclusion is visible where you apply terms. The Vocabulary Browser gains an Include parent keywords checkbox bound to the existing preference, plus a live preview of the exact keywords one apply will deliver, so staging Huntsville with inclusion on previews the whole path before anything is staged. Holding Shift still inverts the setting for a single apply, and the control now says so. The preview routes through the same resolver the apply path uses, so the two cannot drift.
Improved
- In-app Help renders like a real document, with proper tables, nested lists, and quotes.
- The Search screen reports the real number of results, and gains a Remove Entries tool that prunes stray index rows without a detour.
- Duplicate group cards use the same lightened background as the Compare tray's cards.
- Choosing Open in Compare Tray from a duplicate group brings the Compare window forward.
Fixed
- Location lookups no longer knock each other out. MetaScope reverse-geocodes in several places at once (the info-panel map label, GPS enrichment, timezone-aware date operations), and each new lookup used to cancel whichever was already running, so the canceled one reported no address. A batch date operation run while viewing a photo's map could leave the map's address label blank. Lookups now queue on a shared geocoder instead of cross-canceling, and two callers asking about the same coordinates share one lookup.
- The address on screen always belongs to the place you picked. Picking two locations in quick succession could let the second lookup finish first if its answer was cached, so the first, stale answer landed last, and on a video saving could write that stale city, state, and country. Every surface now checks that an arriving answer still belongs to the most recently picked location and discards it otherwise. Clearing or removing a location mid-lookup now settles the loading state instead of leaving it stuck.
- Saving a location no longer pairs it with the previous place's address. Picking a new location and pressing Save to File before its lookup finished used whatever address was still on screen. A saved address must now belong to the exact coordinates being saved: while the lookup runs the file gets the new GPS with its address fields cleared, the recents entry falls back to the coordinates, and the banner says the address is still being looked up. The same work uncovered and fixed the info panel's Save to File never writing GPS into video files.
- The View menu's Filter submenu works again. The flyout used to collapse as soon as the pointer moved onto it, and even when reached, its options changed the stored settings without re-filtering the browser. It now stays open and re-filters immediately, exactly like the toolbar filter.
- Edit Vocabulary keeps siblings sorted, naturally, on both surfaces. New, renamed, and moved terms used to land at the bottom of the hierarchy while the keyword-application surface showed the same siblings alphabetically. One shared comparator now orders sibling terms in both places, in the same natural order where Year 2 sorts before Year 10. A moved term stays selected with its branch expanded, and IDs, hierarchy semantics, and import and export round-trips are untouched.
- No more surprise Photos-access prompt. The macOS Photos permission dialog could appear with no Photos feature in use, because three separate background checks each touched the Photos library before permission had been decided. All three are now gated, so the prompt appears only the first time you deliberately enter a Photos feature.
- A Help article no longer loses the rest of a sentence after a link.
- A template that could not be saved no longer looks saved. Deleting and saving templates now report the real on-disk outcome instead of a false success, and the same fix reaches Cover Page templates.
- Location lookups use Apple's current geocoding engine on macOS 26.
MetaScope 1.5.3 (Build 54)
August 2026, Build 54
A release about finding and reconciling the copies in your library, and about making video and multi-language metadata first class. A folder full of bracketed exposures, RAW and JPEG pairs, and re-exports now has a dedicated cleanup tool. The video Editor tab becomes the same editor images already use. A field can carry its value in several languages at once. And in-app Help finally reads like a document.
Find the Duplicates in Your Library
Find Duplicates groups the images that are really the same shot, side by side, so you can decide what to keep. It never deletes, moves, or changes anything on its own.
Similar mode (Pro)
Similar mode groups near-identical shots, the same scene at a different exposure, crop, or format, using an on-device similarity fingerprint that rides the normal image analysis pass. Nothing leaves your Mac. Each group shows its members with a similarity percentage, and the strongest version carries a Best badge ranked by the image-quality score MetaScope already computes. It is a suggestion, never an action.
From a group you can choose Open in Compare Tray for a full side-by-side metadata comparison (the Compare Tray is Pro), or Merge Metadata to union keywords across the group and fill each file’s empty fields from the group’s values. A populated field is never overwritten, a confirmation summary precedes every write, and every write goes through the standard batch pipeline.
Exact mode, free for everyone
Exact mode compares files by content, sizes first and then a full checksum, so it groups only byte-identical files: a copied file, a re-downloaded original, the same export saved twice. It needs no image analysis and no subscription, and it opens the window for everyone.
A scope menu decides how far a scan reaches: This Folder, This Folder plus Subfolders, or All Libraries. Cross-folder groups show which folder each copy lives in, with the full path on hover and a Reveal in Browser jump straight to it. Wide scans stay responsive, Cancel works throughout, and a Library on a disconnected drive is named and skipped rather than silently missing.
Video Metadata, Fully Editable
The video Editor tab is now the same registry-driven editor images use, showing only the fields a video can carry. That one change closes a whole family of gaps at once.
Hide Empty Fields with its hidden-count badge, keyword chips with vocabulary tooling, per-field saving, Manage mode, field reordering, and workspace presets all now work for video. Suggest Title, Suggest Headline, and Draft Description deliver into the video’s info panel with wording that describes a video rather than a photograph.
Nothing is lost in the move. Every tag the old video editor wrote, including the QuickTime mirrors third-party players read, is still written unchanged.
Location from GPS, and Richer Enrichment
Add Location from GPS turns a photo’s coordinates into City, Sublocation, State/Province, and Country, reviewed before anything is written. Empty fields are pre-checked, populated fields stay behind the existing overwrite toggle, unresolved coordinates are listed rather than dropped, and a burst of shots at one spot is resolved once.
Enrich from Descriptions now reads all of a file’s text, title, description, headline, and instructions, so a name mentioned in several places becomes one suggestion instead of four.
The Same Field, in More Than One Language
A file can now carry its description, or its title, copyright notice, usage terms, or alt text, in several languages at once. Open the Editor tab’s new Languages disclosure and add a language with its text.
Your original value is never touched. Each language is stored as its own separate tag, so editing the French description and removing the German one are separate, deliberate acts, and each variant has its own row to edit or remove on its own. A language code that is not valid is refused rather than written.
Adding, editing, and removing variants is a Pro feature. Reading a file that already carries them is free.
Compare and Help, Refined
Spot the difference in the Compare Tray (Pro)
Stage two or more files and every field whose values differ now carries a small orange dot before its label, so the one field that differs between near-identical shots is a glance rather than a field-by-field read. Fields empty on every file count as equal, keywords compare as an order-insensitive and case-insensitive set, and the indicators update live as staged files are saved. A Highlight differences toggle turns the dots off.
In-app Help, rebuilt
Help now renders like a real document, with proper tables, nested lists, and quotes, and gains colored callouts so a warning or a tip stands apart from an ordinary paragraph. Keyboard shortcuts appear as small key chips you can read as keys to press, and VoiceOver reads each one aloud.
Also in This Release
- Copyright Status. A new tri-state field in the Rights category (Copyrighted, Public Domain, or Unknown) that matches what Adobe Bridge shows and round-trips with it in both directions. Metadata profiles carry it too: a profile that omits the field leaves your file untouched, and one that explicitly says Unknown clears the property. The metadata registry now holds 140 fields.
- Parent keywords, visible before you apply. The Vocabulary Browser gains an Include parent keywords checkbox and a live preview of the exact keywords one apply will deliver, so staging a leaf term shows you its whole path up front. Holding Shift still inverts the setting for a single apply, and the control now says so.
- Vocabulary siblings stay sorted. New, renamed, or moved terms slot straight into position in Edit Vocabulary, in the same natural order the keyword surface uses, where Year 2 sorts before Year 10.
- The View menu’s Filter submenu works. It stays open under the pointer, and its options now re-filter the browser immediately, exactly like the toolbar filter.
- Reliable addresses. Reverse-geocoding no longer cancels itself, and the address you see and save always belongs to the location you actually picked.
- No surprise Photos prompt. The macOS Photos-access dialog appears only when you deliberately enter a Photos feature.
- A cleaner Search screen, with a correct result total and a tool to prune stray index entries.
- Steadier templates. A template that could not be saved no longer looks saved, and the same fix reaches Cover Page templates.
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
