Windows and Mac systems offer some basic metadata viewing capabilities, but they fall short of providing robust tools for efficient metadata management. In this guide, we’ll cover how to search metadata in photos on Windows and Mac systems using their built-in tools. But if you’re looking for a way to add searchable tags and descriptions and make collections for your images and videos automatically, I suggest you stop here and go download Shade. It’s free.

Finding Metadata on Windows

Step 1: Use File Explorer

1. Open File Explorer.
2. Navigate to the folder containing your photos.
3. Select a photo.
4. Right-click and choose “Properties.”
5. In the Properties window, switch to the “Details” tab.
6. Here, you can see basic metadata such as Camera, F-Stop, Focal Length, and more.

Step 2: Enriching Metadata (Limited)

Unfortunately, Windows doesn’t offer built-in tools to enrich metadata. You can only view existing metadata here.

Finding Metadata on a Mac

Step 1: Use Finder

1. Open Finder.
2. Navigate to the folder containing your photos.
3. Select a photo.
4. Right-click and choose “Get Info.”
5. In the Get Info window, you’ll find various tabs, including “General,” “Name & Extension,” and “More Info.”
6. The “More Info” tab provides basic metadata like Camera, F-Stop, Focal Length, and more.

Step 2: Enriching Metadata (Limited)

Just like Windows, Mac’s Finder doesn’t offer robust tools for metadata enrichment. You can only view and edit basic metadata here. Use Shade for this.

Shade: EXIF Data Viewer

While Windows and Mac systems provide basic metadata viewing capabilities, they lack intuitive search and metadata enrichment features. Shade doesn’t just allow you to search your photos and add metadata descriptions, but its privacy-first visual neural search engine automatically indexes, tags, and generates data for you. Go check it out here.