MetaScope 1.6.0 (Build 56) release notes

New

Meaning search finds photos by describing them (Pro). Type what you remember, such as red bicycle against a brick wall, and MetaScope returns the photos that look like it, whether or not anyone ever typed those words into the file. Visual matches are added alongside keyword and metadata matches, never instead of them, so an exact keyword match still comes first, and it all runs on your Mac.

A description that matches nothing now returns nothing. Each photo is judged by how much better it fits your description than the rest of your library does, so an invented word finds nothing while a one-word search like sunset still finds everything it should. A Meaning search matching level (More results, Balanced, Closer matches) lives in Settings ▸ Intelligence ▸ Enhanced Recognition and applies to your next search with nothing to re-analyze.

Translate Metadata (Tools ▸ Intelligence ▸ Translate Metadata…) translates descriptions and titles with macOS's own on-device translation (Pro). Nothing is uploaded and no account is needed. Every proposal is shown beside the original and written only when you press Apply, and each translation is stored as a language-tagged alternative instead of overwriting what you wrote. Files already in the target language are skipped, and keyword translation is an opt-in with its own settings.

Detected Events groups your library into events from the dates and locations already in your index, with no new scanning (Pro). Events are named for you, a date range first, upgraded to a place and date range where the location is known. Accept, rename or dismiss any event: dismissals stick, your names survive, and re-running detection grows an event you accepted instead of replacing it. Write an event's name to every photo in it in one action to make it findable by name.

Run Intelligence (Tools ▸ Intelligence ▸ Run Intelligence…) covers keywords, description, headline and title in a single pass over a selection or a folder (Pro), where that used to take four separate runs. One review, one Write, each field opt-in. Title and headline are drafted from the description proposed in the same run, so the four fields agree. Every proposal can be unticked cell by cell, and existing values stay protected until you turn on Replace existing values.

See, and edit, every copy of a field your file really holds. Files routinely carry more than one copy of Description, Creator or Keywords across metadata standards. MetaScope now shows every copy, tells you when another application's copy of your keywords disagrees with the one you are editing, and lets you edit one copy without disturbing the others. The view covers video too.

Search, filter and sort on your own custom fields, like any built-in field, and keep those filters in Smart Collections (Pro) and saved filter presets.

Improved

Saved Sets and Smart Collections (Pro) moved into the main window's sidebar, available while you browse.

Search results use the real file grid, with the same thumbnails, masonry layout and full Info Panel as the browser. List view shows search results with match highlights instead of quietly showing the folder's files, and the standalone Metadata Search window's details column is now the full Info Panel.

Five more export typefaces with true italics, plus Light and Medium weights. Font lists offer only typefaces MetaScope is licensed to embed, so the face you choose is the face that prints.

Metadata Profiles gain {folder} and {imageFormat} tokens, so you can stamp a shoot's folder name or write RAW, JPEG or HEIF without listing every camera extension. Tokens can insert the displayed value instead of the stored code.

Export a single template, and hide the standard templates without deleting them.

Transformation rules can run automatically when you save.

Star Finder Tags, the Finder Comment and other Essentials rows to pin them into Favorites. Both Finder fields are readable in MetaScope for the first time.

Essentials is now a genuinely read-only summary, with editing kept in the Favorites and Editor tabs.

Enrich from Descriptions (Pro) recognizes short titles and knows the names your library already uses.

Every third-party component MetaScope ships is credited in the app, with its license readable there.

Photo analysis is 35 to 46% faster on a multi-core Mac, applying a profile or template to many files is over 5× faster, rating a whole selection is over 11× faster, and browser search results appear almost immediately.

Browsing is lighter: clicking through search results no longer makes the toolbar, sidebar and status bar redo their work, the Info Panel updates in place, and list view no longer stutters on the first scroll through a large folder.

Fixed

Your files are safe from MetaScope's own writes. Applying a profile, template or rating to a selection that contained a folder could destroy that folder and everything in it (present since 1.5.2). Every path that writes metadata now refuses a folder, and a symbolic link, before anything is read or written.

Undoing a Duplicate or a Paste moves what it created to the Trash instead of deleting it, and checks the item is still the one MetaScope made. Undo of a redaction refuses a file it no longer recognizes, and a backup is proved restorable before the last copy is discarded.

A file locked in Finder is no longer lost when its lock is cleared while a batch runs. Batch date operations no longer touch the standards you unticked, folders named like media (Album.jpg) stay folders, and deleting the folder you are browsing moves the browser out of it.

Clearing a field no longer reaches into a namespace it does not own. Clearing keywords no longer empties a PDF's subject line, clearing a description no longer erases a Camera Raw preset's note, and clearing a rating or sublocation no longer deletes unrelated data sharing the name.

Remove all keywords now reaches the keywords other applications wrote, photos that showed only some of their keywords no longer lose the rest on save, Copy Metadata (Pro) no longer drops keywords, and accented text is written exactly as typed.

A different drive with the same name, or background housekeeping, no longer empties your index, a different drive no longer overwrites your Library's entries, and two accounts on one network share no longer index over each other.

Undo covers metadata. ⌘Z takes back a metadata edit, including one saved from the Info Panel's Editor tab and a rule that fired on save. Refusals name the real reason, MetaScope's own rename no longer counts as somebody else's edit, and an edit another program made before you renamed or moved a file is no longer written over.

Search finds filenames and partial filenames again, accented places and keywords match in filters, Smart Collections and synonyms, a search the index rejects says so instead of showing No Results, and clearing filters clears all of them.

Move to Trash (⌫), Select All and Deselect All work across the browser, search results and the Photos grid, shortcuts no longer stop responding after you edit a field, arrow keys keep the Info Panel with you, and commands in Photos mode no longer act on a search left running behind it.

Exporting many files to PDF, clicking quickly through Photos assets, and launching with no saved windows no longer crash or freeze.