GeoTag for macOS -- macOS 10.12 or later
GeoTag is a free OS X single window application that allows you to update image metadata with geolocation tags by selecting one or more images then panning and zooming within a a map to the place the image was recorded. Clicking on the map will add the location to the selected photos. Clicking on a new location will change the geolocation for the selected photos. Zoom in on the map and fine tune the location with a click. The built in ExifTool utility is used to write location data to the images when you save your changes. ExifTool only modifies image metadata -- your image pixels are not touched.
See http://www.sno.phy.queensu.ca/~phil/exiftool/ for information about ExifTool. ExifTool is built in to GeoTag.
GeoTag is available as a homebrew cask. Homebrew users
can use the command brew cask install geotag to install.
Version 4.4.x is the latest version. It workes on macOS 10.12 or later. Version 4 uses Apple maps.
GeoTag 4.5
New Features
- center the map (more or less) on a track when the track is opened.
- Add preference to select track color for GPX tracks.
- change GPX file loaded notification to a sheet attached to the GeoTag main window. Dual monitor users would sometimes find the pop-up previously used on the wrong monitor, i.e. no the monitor they were looking at.
- Verify a file can be written by exiftool. If not do not allow attempted updates that will fail during a save. HEIC (iPhone) files are not writable.
- exiftool 11.32
- swift 5
Bug fixes
- fix error that caused a "could not save images" alert even when all image data had been saved.
- fix race condition when checking that all images had been saved
- handle GPX logs that include milliseconds in the location timestamp.
- Fix location interpolition issues related to time zones.
- Fix backup file naming. Examples: foo.bar.jpg would be backed up as foo.bar.jpg the first time. foo.bar.jpg would be backed up as foo-1.bar.jpg the second time. The backup file name should have been foo.bar-1.jpg
Known Bugs
- Setting the date of an image outside of the range of 1970-2034 may result in an incorrect GPS Date Stamp. This is a limitation of how GeoTag, ExifTool, and macOS libraries handle date and time. One hopes that the year 2034 limit will eventually be removed ;)
- You can not re-position a pin by dragging the pin. Instead click on the desired location
Other 4.x Features and bug fixes
- GeoTag can now read GPS track logs in the format of a GPX file and display tracks on the map. This can help locate places where pictures were taken. Use Open (⌘-O) to select GPX files. GPX files can also be dragged onto the table.
- Image location can be updated from a GPS track logs. Select the images to update and use ⌘L, Edit -> Locn from track, or crtl-click -> Locn from track. Note: this can be time consuming depending upon the number of images selected and the number of track log point loaded.
- Images can now be opened with GeoTag. You can select one or more images in finder and then right click and select the "Open With" option. GeoTag will be one of app choices.
- Double clicking on a row in the table will open a window to update the timestamp of the image. Timestamps are not changed during cut/copy/paste operations.
- A time delta can be applied to multiple images. Select the images and use ⌘T, Edit -> Modify Date/Time, or ctrl-click -> Modify Date/Time. Enter the new time for the selected image. A time delta between the new and the existing date/time will be calculated. That delta is then applied to all selected items.
- Images can be selected and the map can be panned/zoomed while saving images. Images locations can not be edited until the save is complete.
- The last 10 map searches are saved across program runs. When Clicking on the search box saved search strings are indicated by a down arrow next to the Q icon. Click on the arrow next to open the menu of saved search strings.
- Add ability to sort the table of images by column. Clicking on a column header will sort the table by the contents of that column. Clicking again will change the sort direction.
- Update GPS Date and Time tags when updating location. GPS timestamps are in GMT. The procedure assumes the date and time the image was taken was correct for the time zone. If your camera was set to the wrong time zone or set to UTC/GMT the GPS timestamp will be incorrect. This feature is only enabled when the 'Update GPS Date/Time stamps' button is checked in program Preferences. This feature is only available on macOS 10.11 or later
- handle the case where the same file name is used for two images located in different folders.
- remove GPS date and time stamps when a location is removed.
- Map searching -- position map by name of city/street/etc.
- Image backup handling (see below)
- Fix display of error reason when a backup folder can not be selected
- pin no longer placed when double clicking on map
- pin no longer placed when dragging map
- GPS info validation
- handle the case where the same file name is used for two images located in different folders.
- undoing a location update on an image that did not have a previous location resulted in a location of lat: 0, lon: 0. This has been fixed to restore the image to its "no location assigned" state.
- undoing all actions did not clear the window modified flag causing a "please save" message when window was closed/application terminated.
- No more beachball when saving large number of images. Multiple images are saved in parallel, but the save process can still be quite slow.
- If GeoTag (or your computer) crashed with files opened and one or more of the opened files was moved to a different folder GeoTag would crash on attempts to re-open the file.
Image Backups
- A "backup folder" location is required. If a backup folder is not configured when GeoTag starts the program will open the preferences window for you to select a location.
- When saving geo location data to an image a copy of the un-edited image is placed in the backup folder. If an image of the same name exists in that folder a numbered suffix will be added to the name. The name with the highest numbered suffix is the most current backup (usually).
- If the image file can not be copied to the backup location Geolocation information will not be saved. Better to be safe than sorry.
General Note
The functions provided by GeoTag exist in current versions of iPhoto, Aperture (RIP), and Lightroom. Some still find the application useful for geolocation tagging photos in the field. Photos (OSX 10.10.3 and later) will let you modify existing location metadata but not add location data to an image. If necessary use GeoTag to add location metadata before importing the images into Photos.
Operating Instructions:
See https://www.snafu.org/GeoTag/NewGeoTagHelp/ for more information.
Run Program. Use the Open command from the menu or ⌘O to select files to modify. You can also drag files from the finder into the table on the left side of the application window. File names shown in a light grey color are not recognized as valid image files. Such files can not be modified. Dragging or opening a folder will add all the files in the folder and any subfolders.
Select one or more images. When selecting multiple images the last image selected is displayed in the image well (upper right portion of the window). Its location (if any) is marked on the map. When multiple rows are selected the latitude and longitude of the image displayed in the image well and marked on the map location will be shown in yellow.
Click on the map to set or change the location of all selected images. Existing location can be changed by clicking on the desired location. Hitting the delete key will remove location information from all selected images. You can Undo/Redo image location changes.
Double click to zoom in. Or use the pinch gestures to zoom in and out.
GeoTag can interpolate positions for images between two images with assigned locations. This might be useful where you know starting and ending locations and would like to approximate where on the straight path between the two other images may have been taken. To use this feature:
- Load a series of images to be tagged into GeoTag
- Assign a location to the first image in your series of images.
- Assign a location to the last image in your series of images.
- Select all images in the series from first to last.
- Use the menu item "Edit -> Interpolate" to assign location to the intermediate images in your series of images.
Three map types --- Standard, Hybrid, and Satellite --- are supported. You can also use street view, but... the latitude and longitude of a map marker in street view do not match the same marker on one of the other three map views.
If you find yourself working in a specific area of a map you can save the map type, location, and zoom level by clicking on the Save Map Location button. When GeoTag is launched the map will load to the last saved location.
You may cut or copy location information from a single image and then paste that information into one or more images. If you make an error you can undo/redo your changes. You can undo all changes to all images by selecting "Discard changes" from the "File" menu. All Undo/Redo information is cleared once changes are discarded or saved.
The original versions of images that have been updated are saved are in a backup folder. The backup folder may be changed using GeoTag Preferences. The first time GeoTag is run it will prompt you to select a backup folder. Images updates can not be saved until a backup folder is selected.
Cut, Copy, Paste, Delete, Interpolate, and Clear Image List can be accessed from a pop up menu by right clicking on an entry in the list.
Build Instructions for developers
- Get current sources from github -- https://github.com/marchyman/GeoTag
- Open the project in Xcode (last built using version 10)
- ⌘R will build and run, ⌘B to build only
Send all comments, bugs, requests, etc. to marc@snafu.org