GeoTag is a free macOS application that allows you to update image metadata with geolocation tags by panning and zooming in a map window and then clicking on the location where a photo was taken. It is a good way to add location information to photos or fine tune existing location information.

Image file updates are performed using Phil Harvey’s ExifTool. This allows geolocation data to be modified an unlimited number of times with no image degradation as ExifTool modifies metadata without changing the image data. See http://www.sno.phy.queensu.ca/~phil/exiftool/ for information regarding ExifTool.

GeoTag Version 4.6

2019-06-05 — GeoTag 4.6 is now available in the Mac App Store
2019-06-03 — Geotag 4.6 released with new features. See below.

GeoTag Information and Help pages have been updated.

App Store Link

The same (free) app that is available via the following download link. Get the app the way you like.

Download link

Version 4.6 download Requires macOS 10.12 (Sierra) or later. The file is about 12.5 MB in size. Open the dmg file. Drag the GeoTag application into your Applications folder.

New Features in version 4.6

• Sidecar file support: If a sidecar file exists metadata may be read from and updated metadata written to the sidecar file instead of the image file. This is controlled by a new preference item. Files in the same folder as the image file with the same name but with an extension of “.xmp” are assumed to be sidecar files. The presence of a sidecar file is indicated by a ‘*’ following the image name in the table of images to be edited.

• heic (iPhone) and CR3 file support: GeoTag is using a version of ExifTool that now supports writing heic and CR3 files.

• Coordinate display option: There is a new preference item that controls coordinate display format. Latitude and longitude can be displayed in one of three forms:

  • dd.ddddd
  • dd° mm.mmmm’ N (or S, E, W depending upon coordinate)
  • dd° mm’ ss.ss” N (or S, E, W depending upon coordinate)

• Preferences Window Change: The Preferences window has been re-organized with the addition of the new preference items.

• Coordinate entry from keyboard: Location coordinates can be entered by double clicking on either the latitude or longitude of an entry. Coordinates can be entered in degrees, degrees and minutes, or degrees, minutes, and seconds. Use of °, ‘, and ” indicators are optional.

• Slight performance improvement: Reading image metadata has been moved from the main queue. As a result opening a large number of images should be slightly faster.

• ExifTool update: ExifTool has been updated to version 11.44

Bug fixes

• Dragging an existing pin to change a location is working again.

• Updated image locations could sometimes be written with the wrong longitude reference.

• fix crash that occured in the app was launched by dragging images onto the app icon.

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 ;)

GeoTag changes and bug fixes from earlier versions

• center the map (more or less) on a track when the track file 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.
• 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 points 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.
• Verify a file can be written by exiftool. If exiftool can not write the file do not allow attempted updates.
• fix race condition when checking that all images had been saved
• Fix location interpolition issues related to time zones.
• handle GPX logs that include milliseconds the location timestamp.
• fix error that caused a “could not save images” alert even when all image data had been saved.
• 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.

GeoTag source code is available on github [link]

Don’t see a feature you want? Know how to code? Grab the code and dig in.

Notes:

• Aperture 3 and iPhoto '09 used “places” to set geolocations. GeoTag was not needed. However, some found GeoTag easier to use.
• Due to the way Aperture, iPhoto, and Photos handle metadata geolocation changes using GeoTag must be made before the photos are imported into those applications.
• Please send bug reports, feature requests, or other comments to marc@snafu.org