Introduction :
MacMetaMod is a droplet that allows Mac OS X users to easily add keywords to the EXIF metadata blocks of image files, and to change the embedded title and other tags.

There are many EXIF tools out there, but I haven't found one that is quick and simple enough that I would actually use it to routinely keyword my photographs. They are generally too clever and complex for my purposes. MacMetaMod is as simple as can be - select and drag one or a bunch of images, then type appropriate keywords into a box. You can find the keyworded files later using Spotlight to search for the keywords.

If you want to see more metadata but do not need to modify it, then take a look at the sister program MacMetaShow.

System requirements :
Mac OS X v10.4 or later. 64-bit compliant for Catalina. There was apparently a problem around Big Sur, but it now runs on Monterey, at least on an M1 Studio.

Download :
The droplet is a single Mac OS X application bundle, which you can download as a compressed archive from the bottom of this page. Simply click on the link and your droplet should appear in your downloads directory, then you can then move it anywhere you want.

Usage :
Drag one or more files or folders on to the application.
You will then be presented with an input dialogue box where you can type in some keywords and other EXIF data that you would like to have embedded in the file(s). If you want to leave the file untouched, click on "Cancel" or hit the "escape" key.

If you only selected one file, you will be shown what the current keywords in the file are, and will have the option to save them for later use, when they will appear in the pull-down menu associated with the keywords input box.

If you select multiple files, there is an option to "Prompt for each file", in which case the program will step through each file and present an individual input screen for each one. Otherwise the same keywords, title and author will be added to each file.

Advanced features :

• You can set a default author name that will initially appear in the input field when you edit multiple files, or a single file that has no author already set. In order to do so, create a file called mmm_preferences.txt containing a line of text of the form : "Author:: Mark Harris".
  Then right-click on the MMM app, choose 'show package contents', navigate down to the directory Contents/Resources and deposit your preferences file there.

Notes :

• You can drop any type of file, but only valid image files will be modified.
• Valid image formats include JPEG, NEF, CRW, amongst many others (see ExifTool). XMP files are ignored.
• GIF format does not support the keyword tag, so these files are not changed.
• If a directory is selected, all the images inside are processed, but subdirectories are ignored.
• Some punctuation characters may cause the program to abort, but you shouldn't really need them in keywords anyway. Ampersands are replaced with plus signs for your convenience.
• It's possible that funny characters in file names or folders may cause problems. For example, asterixes (*) are a no-no.
• The original image files are overwritten with the modified version, so be careful. All use is at your own risk.
• The file modification date is not changed, to avoid confusing other programs.
• The author string is used to set the Author, Creator, Artist, Rights, and By-Line, and copyright tags.
• The title string is used to set the title, description, objectname, imagedescription and caption-abstract tags.
• If the author or title box is set to nothing and you have chosen multiple files, then no change will be made to that field. If you really want to set all title or author fields in a batch to nothing, then enter a "-" in the box.
• If you are an Adobe Bridge user, you can select your files inside Bridge, and drag them from there to MacMetaMod.

Version history :

v3.0 30-Mar-20
Rebuilt to support 64-bit Catalina. Some advanced features simplified.

v2.4 13-June-07
Modified keyword history list function to include only new keywords, and also made the function accessible when operating on multiple files.

v2.3 7-May-07
Trap for ampersands in keywords and titles, and replace them with plus signs, because they cause terrible trouble when left alone.

v2.2 20-Apr-07
Fixed bug that caused program to abort if option 'prompt-for-each-file' was invoked on a directory that included another directory.

v2.1 11-Apr-07
Ameliorated problem with system buffer overflow when too many images are dropped on to the application. More files can now be dropped (up to a total of 4000 characters for all the filenames), and an explicit error message is given when this is exceeded.

v2.0 20-Mar-07
Rewrote interface using Pashua, in order to be able to have more than one field per page.
Allowed for stepping through multiple files, with individual prompts.

Download latest MacMetaMod v3.0 (30-Mar-2020, 4 MB)

For information on the old version, which is simpler and potentially faster on old hardware go to MacMetaMod v1.

MacMetaMod is driven by Phil Harvey's excellent ExifTool, and uses Sveinbjorn Thordarson's Platypus along with CocoaDialog, which are protected by the GNU General Public License, which means this droplet is too. Version 2 also uses Pashua.

The software is free of charge, but I have spent many weekends developing it, so if you use and appreciate it, and feel like making a donation of a few dollars to encourage me to produce more stuff, you can do so here :

What other people are saying about MacMetaMod : "It's almost worth buying a Mac just so you can use it".

If you liked MacMetaMod, you might also like CardUpload or Import_Sony.

Mark Harris

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