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I'm using the modern Apple iCloud Photos library on my iPhone and Mac.

How can I edit arbitrary EXIF metadata tags for photos in my iCloud Library?

The tags must be edited within the Photos.app / iCloud Photos database. I do NOT want to re-import the images, or be forced to make EXIF edits prior to using Photos to import the images.

A solution using either macOS or iOS to edit the iCloud Photos EXIF data would be acceptable.

The "Get Info" window can be used to edit some EXIF data in Photos.app on the Mac. You can add a Title, Description, Keyword, and Location. You can also Adjust Date & Time.

Other EXIF metadata tags such as "Camera Model" are displayed, but seemingly cannot be edited.

Get Info

As of iOS 15, this camera information EXIF metadata is now also visible in the iOS Photos app:

iOS 15 Photos camera EXIF

No camera information
No lens information

In my case, specifically, I have an old digital camera that does not embed Camera Information EXIF. I want to manually add this data to its photos after importing them to my iCloud Library.

I want to eventually use the Camera Model EXIF tags to create a Smart Album in Photos.app on the Mac containing only the photos taken with this camera.

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  • How good are you with AppleScript and/or she’ll scripting? You can enable the AppleScript system menu, then write a script for the Photos app. You can probably only edit limited fields thru the Photo app’s Dictionary, but you could probably edit all of them thru other command-line tools acting on the files. For the fields you can’t do directly in AppleScript, not sure how Photos will react to EXIF changes on its own data. It might just work, or it might need to be restarted to see the changes, or it might ignore the file-level changes and use data from its own DB. Best to edit before import.
    – jimtut
    Commented Jan 3, 2021 at 5:47

1 Answer 1

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Have you seen this? https://apps.apple.com/us/app/photos-exif-editor/id1202851767?mt=12. I've used it at work and it works well and its 99 cents.

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  • Have you used that app to edit tags on photos that exist in your iCloud Photos library? Or does it only work on images in the Finder?
    – pkamb
    Commented Jul 24, 2019 at 1:35
  • We use it on images we are uploading to the web to strip EXIF info so I'll check and see tomorrow but I don't think it edits within the iCloud Photos library. What if you did the EXIF edits before you import to iCloud? This one apps.apple.com/us/app/metapho/id914457352 works on iPhone and iPad so that will edit the iCloud photo library for sure.
    – Thomas Nelson
    Commented Jul 24, 2019 at 2:06

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