New
- Suggest Titles and Suggest Headlines now run across a whole folder (Pro). Both commands live in Tools → Intelligence, on a folder's right-click Intelligence submenu, and on a multi-file selection's. Two or more files selected covers exactly those files, otherwise the run covers the current folder, top level only, with no subfolders. Each proposal is composed from the file's description, keywords, and written location, and shown beside the file's name and its existing value. Nothing is written until you press Write, which reports how many were written and how many failed, and keeps the failures checked so a second Write retries only those. The single-file Suggest Title and Suggest Headline stay free.
- Files that already carry a title or headline start unchecked in a batch run, and stay protected until you turn on Overwrite existing titles (or Overwrite existing headlines in the headline window). Composing shows live progress and can be stopped, or the window closed, at any point without losing the proposals already made.
- Drafting uses the location you already wrote. Suggest Title, Suggest Headline, Draft Description, and AI descriptions now read the file's written location (City, State/Province, and Country, plus Sublocation for descriptions), so a photo with a written city can get a title naming the real place where before there was nothing to draft from. The place name becomes a fact the draft can be checked against instead of an open-ended guess. Drafting never geocodes and never touches the network: it reads only what is already written to the file.
- Batch Rename shows the name it will actually write (Pro). The preview, the conflict check, and the write now all produce the same name: the preview shows the full filename, extension included, on both sides of every row, and that is the name that gets written and the name conflicts are checked against. The preview list scrolls the whole batch instead of stopping at ten rows.
- Rename presets can be managed, not just applied (Pro). Your own presets can be renamed, duplicated, exported, and deleted, with a confirmation before a delete, and saving under the name of an existing preset asks before replacing it instead of quietly piling up duplicates. The built-in presets stay apply-only.
- The Add Date rename rule takes a Custom date format of your own, with a caption listing the common tokens. Insert Text keeps what you typed, always shows the position it will use, and gains a Before Position option that Add Date and Add Metadata now share.
- A folder that stays true to the disk. With Include Subfolders on (a Pro feature), files deleted or added outside MetaScope, in the Finder, by another app, or while MetaScope was not running, now appear and disappear on their own at any depth, with no Force Full Refresh needed. Stale entries persisted by an earlier version heal on the first completed scan after upgrading.
- Grid updates are now surgical. Only the affected cells change, your scroll position stays put, and the grid no longer flashes.
- The Batch Keyword Editor's vocabulary panel works at any width. Its controls collapse to icons when the panel gets narrow, and each vocabulary's header reflows (badges to their own line, actions into a single menu) so the term list keeps the space. The panel stays usable at its narrowest, which brings the editor's window minimum back down too.
- The keyword suggestion list re-opens after each staged keyword instead of vanishing for good, minus the one you just took, so three suggestions land in three clicks. A single click into the already-focused field brings it back after an Escape.
- The upgrade screen names the feature that opened it and shows your live free-edit usage instead of a fixed number. A multi-file edit that needs more edits than you have left today says exactly that, with the count.
- Keyword Rules ships with six example rules a working photographer could switch on as-is: city from Places keywords, genre from Genre keywords, editorial usage terms, event names, project filing, and job identifiers. They still ship switched off, never apply on their own, and never overwrite a value you already have. Applying keyword rules is a Pro feature.
Improved
- The refresh actions in the toolbar, the banner, Settings, and Help now describe what each one actually does, so it is clear which one rescans and which one rebuilds.
- Launchpad's Pro badges disappear the moment you subscribe, with no relaunch needed, and the badge on Import to Photos is gone because importing to Photos has never required a subscription.
- Enrich from Descriptions and Add Location from GPS now require a Pro subscription, matching how they have always been presented. With a subscription, both work exactly as before.
- Locked menu rows all look locked the same way, with one full-size lock glyph wherever a command needs a subscription.
- Option-Command-0 now resets the Batch Keyword Editor's divider along with the window.
Fixed
- The Batch Rename preview no longer disagrees with what gets written. The preview stripped the extension, the conflict check used a different name, and the write could produce a third. All three now agree.
- The Batch Keyword Editor's two halves no longer overlap at narrow widths.
- The keyword-rule activity log no longer lists files that failed to write as applied, and a partly failed batch no longer charges your daily edit budget for the failures.
- Suggest Title no longer drafts from the on-card file paths some cameras write into the description field, which it used to treat as real text and could invent a place from. That kind of path is now ignored, and drafting says when a file has nothing to draft from instead of doing nothing.
- A filename whose extension segment carries a trailing space survives every rename path intact.
MetaScope 1.5.4 (Build 55)
August 2026, Build 55
A release about scale and about trust. Drafting a title was always a one-file act, fine for the shot in front of you and useless for the folder you just imported, so both drafting commands gain a batch counterpart with a full review step. Drafting also learns to use the location already written into a file. Batch Rename’s preview now shows exactly the name it will write. And a folder with subfolders finally stays true to what is actually on disk.
Drafting at Folder Scale
Suggest Titles and Suggest Headlines now cover a whole folder at once. Both sit in Tools → Intelligence, on a folder’s right-click Intelligence submenu, and on a multi-file selection’s. Select two or more files and the run covers exactly those, otherwise it covers the current folder, top level only, with no subfolders, even when Include Subfolders is on.
Each proposal is composed from the file’s description, keywords, and written location, and shown beside the file’s name and its existing value, so a folder’s worth of proposals is something you read and approve rather than something that simply happens. Files that already carry a value start unchecked and stay protected until you turn on Overwrite existing titles (or Overwrite existing headlines in the headline window).
Nothing is written until you press Write, which reports how many were written and how many failed, and keeps the failures checked so a second Write retries only those. Composing shows live progress and can be stopped, or the window closed, at any point without losing the proposals already made.
Batch suggestions are a Pro feature. The single-file Suggest Title and Suggest Headline stay free.
Drafting Uses the Location You Already Wrote
Suggest Title, Suggest Headline, Draft Description, and AI descriptions now read the location written into the file: City, State/Province, and Country, plus Sublocation for descriptions.
A photo with a written city can finally get a title naming the real place, where before there was nothing to draft from. The place name becomes a fact the draft can be checked against rather than an open-ended guess.
Drafting never geocodes and never touches the network. It reads only what is already written to the file.
Batch Rename You Can Trust (Pro)
The rename preview used to show names with the extension stripped, check conflicts against a different name, and let the write produce a third. The preview, the conflict check, and the write now all produce the same name.
The preview shows the full filename, extension included, on both sides of every row, and that is the name that gets written and the name conflicts are checked against. The list scrolls the whole batch instead of stopping at ten rows.
Presets become yours to manage. Your own presets can be renamed, duplicated, exported, and deleted, with a confirmation before a delete, and saving under the name of an existing preset asks before replacing it. The built-in presets stay apply-only.
Two rules gain range: Add Date takes a Custom date format of your own, with a caption listing the common tokens, and Insert Text keeps what you typed, always shows the position it will use, and gains a Before Position option that Add Date and Add Metadata now share.
A Folder That Stays True to the Disk
With Include Subfolders on (a Pro feature), files deleted or added outside MetaScope, in the Finder, by another app, even while MetaScope was not running, now appear and disappear on their own at any depth, instead of lingering as stale thumbnails until a Force Full Refresh. Stale entries left behind by an earlier version heal on the first completed scan after upgrading.
The update is surgical: only the affected cells change, your scroll position stays put, and the grid no longer flashes. The refresh actions in the toolbar, the banner, Settings, and Help now describe what each one actually does, so it is clear which one rescans and which one rebuilds.
Keywords, Refined
The vocabulary panel works at any width
In the Batch Keyword Editor, the vocabulary side panel’s controls collapse to icons when the panel gets narrow, and each vocabulary’s header reflows, badges to their own line and actions into a single menu, so the term list keeps the space. The panel stays usable at its narrowest, which brings the editor’s window minimum back down too. Its two halves no longer draw on top of each other at narrow widths, and Option-Command-0 now resets the divider along with the window.
Suggestions come back after you stage one
The suggestion list that appears when you click into an empty keyword field used to vanish for good the moment you picked something from it. It now re-opens on its own after each staged keyword, minus the one you just took, so three suggestions land in three clicks. A single click into the already-focused field brings it back after an Escape.
Rules worth switching on
Keyword Rules now ships with six examples a working photographer could enable as-is: city from Places keywords, genre from Genre keywords, editorial usage terms, event names, project filing, and job identifiers. They still ship switched off, never apply on their own, and never overwrite a value you already have. Applying keyword rules is a Pro feature.
Also in This Release
- The upgrade screen says why it opened. A Pro feature now opens the upgrade screen with a headline naming that feature, and the daily free-edit limit shows your live usage instead of a fixed number. If a multi-file edit needs more edits than you have left today, it says exactly that, and how many remain.
- Launchpad badges are honest. The Pro capsule on a tile disappears the moment you subscribe, with no relaunch needed, and the badge on Import to Photos is gone, because importing to Photos has never required a subscription.
- Enrich from Descriptions and Add Location from GPS now require a Pro subscription, matching how they have always been presented. With a subscription, both work exactly as before.
- The keyword-rule log records what really happened. After a batch where some files could not be written, the activity log no longer lists those files as applied, and a partly failed batch no longer charges your daily edit budget for the failures.
- Suggest Title no longer drafts from camera junk. Some cameras write the on-card file path into the description field, and drafting treated it as real text and could invent a place from it. That kind of path is now ignored, and drafting says when a file has nothing to draft from instead of doing nothing.
- Locked menu rows all look locked the same way, with one full-size lock glyph wherever a command needs a subscription.
- Renaming no longer damages an unusual filename. A file whose extension segment carries a trailing space keeps it intact through every rename path.
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
