New
- Full-screen viewing. The image and video viewers, for files and for your Photos library, now enter a native full-screen Space: click the green window button, choose View ▸ Enter Full Screen, or press ⌃⌘F. The picture or video fills the display against black at the zoom you chose, and the toolbar and playback controls float over it, fading out after two seconds and returning when you move the pointer or press a key.
- Escape leaves full screen first and keeps the viewer open, and a second press closes it. A slideshow keeps its pace, a video keeps its position, speed and volume through the switch, and the window returns to its previous size and position when you leave.
Improved
- Toolbar buttons use the system glass style. The icon buttons in the main browser toolbar, the list and thumbnail headers, the Photos toolbar, the Metadata Search and Compare action strips and the viewer window use the macOS 26 and later system glass button, with a real pressed state. On macOS 15 they use the standard bordered button.
Fixed
- Menu shortcuts work in every window. Settings (⌘,), Quit, Hide, Minimize and the other menu shortcuts now work in the Metadata Search window, popout viewers, the Workbench and the other secondary windows, even when no text field is selected. With a secondary window in front, Duplicate and Paste no longer act on the main browser's folder behind it.
- Tools menu commands no longer do nothing while the Launchpad or another secondary window is in front. Commands that open a window of their own open it, and commands that act on your selected files ask you to click a browser window first, so they never change files you can't see. Moving between neighbouring submenus in the menu bar keeps the menu open.
- The Metadata Search window works when it is small. It now shrinks to 760 × 520 and adapts on the way down: the sidebar steps aside when the window is narrow (⌥⌘S still shows it), the filter chips fold into one Filters menu, and list view keeps each result's name, details and buttons visible at every width.
- Every window keeps its full designed minimum size instead of cutting off its top or bottom row, and tool windows open on the display you are working on instead of wherever they were last closed.
- Settings and Workbench content no longer hides behind the toolbar on macOS 27, and Format Options… opens Settings on the right pane.
- Popout viewers show the right details for the item on screen. The camera line, title and dimensions update as you move between images, RAW files show their real pixel and file size, and camera names no longer repeat the maker (Canon EOS R5, not Canon Canon EOS R5). A video that reaches its end shows Play again.
- The Photos info panel reads Photo, Live Photo or Video, names every resource, and shows one consistent file size in the list, the info panel and the viewer. Double-clicking a photo or video opens it in the viewer.
- The metadata editor window has real tab icons, formats dates, apertures and shutter speeds the way the info panel does, explains a failed save in plain words, and moves through its fields in order with Tab.
- Redaction leaves your originals alone. It no longer moves an existing _original file out of its folder (that file could be your own untouched original from an earlier ExifTool edit). Redaction now makes its own recovery copy before it writes, and never deletes a backup it cannot confirm it made. Factory Reset keeps them too, and you can export them under Batch Processing ▸ Metadata Redaction ▸ Recovery Copies.
- Undoing a redaction skips symbolic links and files that changed in the meantime, keeps their backups, and names them. Unchanged files in the same batch still restore.
- Language variants open ready to type: the pencil beside a language puts the cursor straight into its text, and ⌘↩ or ⌘S saves it.
- Cover page template packages exported from MetaScope import again, and the export wizard's review keeps the named theme you chose.
- The three built-in starter templates (Nature & Wildlife, Portrait Photography, Location Focus) name fields but set no values, so applying one changed nothing. They are now offered as starters to Duplicate & Edit instead of templates to apply.
- Metadata Compare (Pro) opens on your selection from the Tools menu, the toolbar and the grid, and its cards show readable dates.
- Back, Forward and breadcrumbs recover when a folder in your history was removed outside MetaScope.
- Photos downloads offer Cancel only when a download can be stopped, and Resume starts it again.
- Folder discovery with Subfolders (Pro) turned on runs in the background again, so large folder trees no longer stall the window.
- Compact toolbar density no longer changes the color of the window's title bar.
- Main browser and Settings polish: a sort arrow on the active list column, N items selected for a multi-selection, whole numbers on the Advanced sliders, and a larger Settings window.
- Workbench polish: the window title stays Workbench on every tab, the Activity Log's search row is always visible, and there is one Auto-Apply switch.
MetaScope 1.6.1 (Build 57)
September 2026, Build 57
A point release built on a top-to-bottom pass over every window MetaScope opens, with 28 user-facing changes (one new feature, one improvement and 26 fixes). The notable ones are grouped in the lists above. Full-screen viewing is the new feature. The rest makes menu shortcuts answer in every window, lets windows lay out properly at any size, and makes sure the details on screen are the right ones.
Requirements
- macOS 15.4 Sequoia or later
- Mac with Apple silicon
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, including Meaning search, Translate Metadata, Detected Events and Run Intelligence.
Requirements
- macOS 15.4 Sequoia or later
- Mac with Apple silicon
