Release
Archyv 1.6.0
The IPTC Extension is now editable.
Archyv’s Metadata Editor now offers every field in the IPTC Photo Metadata Standard 2025.1 that can be typed into a form. Everything you can edit can also be searched for in Scan and Select, used to build a filename, and read in Metadata Review. The only parts left out are the ones the standard says should be set by a drawing or rights tool rather than typed: Image Region and the two Encoded Rights Expression structures.
Every IPTC Extension detail, on every screen
- Locations. Location Created and Location Shown in the Image are edited as records with their own city, state, country, country code, sublocation, world region, location name and identifier. A photo can have several Location Shown records and one Location Created. In Individual mode two buttons copy the photo’s older Location fields, or its GPS position, into a record, filling only what is empty; nothing is written until you press Start.
- People and organisations. Person Shown in the Image with Details holds a name, identifier, description and any number of characteristics. Organisation in Image has a name and a code.
- Rights and supply chain. Licensor and Artwork or Object now offer every one of their details, including a licensor’s address and phone types. Image Registry Entry, Product Identifier, Contributor (now with an identifier and a role) and Genre are new.
- Classification. CV-Term About Image is a record with the Media Topic search built into its card. Event Identifier can hold several identifiers.
- The last six. Additional Model Information, Model Age, Other Constraints, Max Avail Height, Max Avail Width and AI Prompt Writer Name.
- IPTC Core is complete too. Creator’s Job Title, Job Id, and the creator’s city, state or province, postal code and country.
Archyv is careful with what it does not understand. If a photo’s record holds something Archyv cannot save back unchanged, that record is shown read-only with a notice, so nothing is lost. Where the standard requires a detail, such as a contributor’s identifier, a “Required by IPTC” reminder appears under the box.
24 new renaming tokens
Metadata Renaming, Manual Renaming and File Sort can now use {person}, {genre}, {organisation} and {organisationcode}, the six creator tokens {jobtitle}, {jobid}, {creatorcity}, {creatorstate}, {creatorpostalcode} and {creatorcountry}, and seven tokens each for the Created and Shown locations, such as {createdcity} and {showncountry}. Where a field holds several values the first one is used.
The Files list locks while a process is working
Once you have staged something for a process that changes files, and while it runs, the Files list is locked: the ticks, the folder tree and the All, None and Subfolders buttons stay as they are, and a lock symbol explains why when you hover over it. The list unlocks when the run finishes, fails, is cancelled or you press Refresh. Metadata Review, Scan and Select and Folder Generation never lock the list, because they do not change files.
This closes a gap: a photo ticked while a process was checking its files for protection could be written without that check. Start now writes only the photos this run’s protection check approved.
Two related changes:
- The Metadata Editor follows your ticks. Until you stage a change, the editor’s photo list updates as you tick and untick photos in the Files list. It used to take the list once, when it opened, and ignore changes after that.
- A cancelled run says so. The completion screen is titled Cancelled, and the log reads “Cancelled — 134 of 576 files processed”.
Metadata Editor
- Batch mode: Add, Replace and Clear work the same for records as for plain fields. Add writes a record only to photos that have none of that type and skips the rest; Replace sets every photo. You choose the action first, then fill in the card.
- A new Current Values summary in Batch mode lists every distinct value the selected photos hold, most common first, with how many photos hold each. It replaces the first photo’s values.
- One alphabetical field list. The Metadata Field menu is a single A to Z list in both modes. Record-type entries, which open a card with several boxes, are shown in Archyv’s blue with a small card symbol.
- Picking a record field puts the cursor in its first box. Tab and Shift-Tab now move through every box of a record card, then on to the next record, then to Start, in both directions.
- The Batch Add note is accurate. Add used to warn that existing values would be overwritten. It now says that photos with a value are skipped.
- The field-protection alert shows readable values. A file whose rights status was stored as “1” now reads “Copyrighted” in the alert, as it does everywhere else.
- Rights Status lists each choice once. The menu read “Copyrighted, Public Domain, Copyrighted, Public Domain”.
- The Media Topic search leads with entries that begin with what you typed. Typing “o” used to list “Abortion” first.
- A companion file’s Media Topic is shown by name under an empty CV-Term card, not as a web address.
- Country Code shows the stored code too, such as “CA — Canada (CAN)”.
- Counts read correctly everywhere: “1 file”, “1 match”, “1 of 2 photos”, with a thousands separator kept where it belongs.
Fixes to what is written in the file
- Date Created and Time Created now agree. A date saved without a timezone gets your Mac’s timezone in both of the copies the IPTC standard defines, so other software no longer reports the two as out of sync. A date saved with a timezone keeps it in every copy.
- Country Code is stored as the three-letter code in both copies, as the standard specifies. You still pick the two-letter code in the menu.
- The legacy IPTC block is declared as UTF-8 and carries an up-to-date digest whenever Archyv writes it, so accented names survive a round trip through other software and that software can tell the block is current.
- Removing the first contributor or Media Topic record no longer damages the remaining ones.
- A City edit on a RAW photo or a video saved nothing and reported a failure. It now goes into the sidecar file.
- Event Identifier is read from the IPTC field only. It was also picking up a biodiversity field of the same name, and a save could drop a second identifier or overwrite that other field. Scan and Select re-reads each folder once after the update to refresh what it had cached.
- Clicking into an empty box on a record card no longer marks the record as edited.
Other fixes
- Scan and Select keeps each record type’s filters together in the Find Existing and Find Missing menus, and finds a photo by any of its organisations or event identifiers, not only the first.
- File Sort’s spot check no longer reports a false mismatch when a field holds several values.
- The large-batch confirmation keeps your staged change. Choosing Proceed writes it; choosing Cancel returns you to it.
- Long sessions. Each metadata read held open a small system resource that was never released, which over a very long session could make later reads fail. It is now released.
- Token chips in the renaming pickers no longer wrap mid-word.
- Help describes the completed IPTC coverage and the new tokens.