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No GPS Track? Create a Visual Journey from Geotagged Photos with HoudahGeo

HoudahGeo geocodes and geotags your photos and videos, embedding location information directly into the EXIF or XMP metadata—just like a GPS-enabled camera. If you’ve recorded a GPS track using a dedicated device or a smartphone app, HoudahGeo can precisely match your photos to locations along your route.

This makes it easy to see where each photo was taken and even export a Google Earth (KML) file to view your images placed along the recorded track.

But what if you didn’t record a GPS track?

These days, most of us rely on smartphones for photography. Fortunately, most modern phones automatically geotag your photos with location data. Even without a separate GPS track log, this metadata allows HoudahGeo to reconstruct a visual path of your journey.

Turn Geotagged Photos Into a Track Log

HoudahGeo can generate a track log from geotagged photos, linking them in the order they were taken. This creates a path that approximates your travels and places each photo at its location—perfect for viewing in Google Earth or mapping your trip retrospectively.

Create a GPS track log from photos
Create a GPS track log from photos

Continue reading No GPS Track? Create a Visual Journey from Geotagged Photos with HoudahGeo

Master Quick Metadata Editing in HoudahGeo

HoudahGeo and Photos Workbench share a smart little feature that often goes unnoticed—until it magically saves you dozens of clicks and a lot of time.

If you manage large collections of geotagged photos, you know that adding titles, descriptions, and keywords can quickly become a tedious chore:
Click on a photo. Click on the field. Type. Click the next photo. Click the field again… repeat hundreds of times.

But what if you could cut that process in half—and dramatically speed up your workflow?

HoudahGeo’s streamlined quick editing feature transforms this repetitive task into a smooth, efficient process that could save you hours of work.

Streamlined quick title editing with consistent naming
Streamlined quick title editing with consistent naming

Continue reading Master Quick Metadata Editing in HoudahGeo

Introducing HoudahGeo 7.0: Geotagging Photos and Videos Has Never Been Easier

We’re thrilled to announce the launch of HoudahGeo 7.0 — the biggest update ever to our flagship geotagging solution for Mac.

Since its debut in 2007, HoudahGeo has helped photographers and travelers document their journeys by adding precise GPS location data to their photos. With version 7.0, HoudahGeo steps into a new era: it’s now also your go-to tool for video geotagging.

Whether you’re a photographer, filmmaker, or digital storyteller, HoudahGeo 7.0 gives you powerful tools to build a location-aware media library that goes beyond still images.

🎥 Geotag Videos Alongside Photos

This is the #1 feature request we’ve received — and it’s finally here: video geotagging.

You can now tag your travel videos with GPS coordinates just as easily as photos. Whether you’re working with drone footage, action cams, or smartphone videos, HoudahGeo 7.0 helps you enrich your entire collection with meaningful location data.

HoudahGeo 7 main window
Documenting a Kilimanjaro trek with HoudahGeo 7

Continue reading Introducing HoudahGeo 7.0: Geotagging Photos and Videos Has Never Been Easier

Rate Your Photos with Ease

Photos Workbench seamlessly integrates with Apple Photos to help you organize, name, and compare your photos.

The Importance of Star Ratings

Star ratings are a powerful tool for organizing and culling your photos and videos. They help you identify your best images and categorize them by quality or relevance.

With Photos Workbench, you can assign star ratings to your photos and videos, ranging from 1 to 5 stars. While the interpretation of each rating is personal, here’s a suggested guide:

  • No star – Unrated. Still needs reviewing
  • ★ (1 Star) – Rejected. Marked for deletion
  • ★★ (2 Stars) – Keep without adjustments. May have emotional value
  • ★★★ (3 stars) – Okay. Worth investing time into adjustments
  • ★★★★ (4 stars) – Good. Worth sharing
  • ★★★★★ (5 Stars) – Fantastic. Worth printing

For tips on developing a workflow for star ratings, check out our previous blog post.

How to Assign Star Ratings

No matter how you choose to interpret star ratings or structure your workflow, Photos Workbench offers several efficient ways to assign ratings to your photos and videos.

Continue reading Rate Your Photos with Ease

macOS 15 Sequoia Compatibility

Excited for the latest macOS 15 Sequoia? Before you dive into the upgrade, check if your software is fully supported!

This year’s macOS upgrade paves the way for Apple Intelligence. macOS Sequoia does not bring major design or technical changes likely to cause problems for existing applications.

It should nonetheless be wise to hold off upgrading for at least a couple of weeks and give Apple a chance to fix remaining bugs.

 

HoudahSpot

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HoudahSpot: Powerful File Search for Mac

HoudahSpot 6.5.5 has been updated to work great on macOS 15 Sequoia.

Apple Mail on macOS has stopped supporting plug-in with the release of macOS 14 Sonoma. Thus HoudahSpot can no longer search Apple Mail messages.

 

HoudahGeo

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HoudahGeo: Photo Geocoding and Geotagging for Mac

HoudahGeo 6.4.5 has been tested to work with macOS 15.

We are putting the finishing touches to HoudahGeo 7.0. Expect a beta to become available soon.

Sign up for our newsletter to get the latest news.

 

Photos Workbench

Photos Workbench icon
Photos Workbench: Organize, Rate, and Compare your Photos

Photos Workbench 1.3 has been updated to look and work great with macOS 15 Sequoia.

Update to the latest version of Photos Workbench before upgrading to macOS Sequoia.

 

Tembo

Tembo icon
Tembo: Easy and Efficient File Search for Mac

Tembo 3.2.1 has been updated to work great on macOS 15 Sequoia.

Apple Mail on macOS has stopped supporting plug-in with the release of macOS 14 Sonoma. Thus HoudahSpot can no longer search Apple Mail messages.

 

CustomShortcuts

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Easy user-defined keyboard shortcuts

CustomShortcuts 1.2.1 has been updated for macOS 15.

CustomShortcuts is a free download from our web site.

Quickly Assess Photos Using Star Ratings

Photos Workbench seamlessly integrates with Apple Photos, providing powerful tools to help you organize, name, and compare your photos. The star rating system is one of the most effective tools in this suite.

The Importance of Star Ratings

Star ratings are invaluable for organizing and culling your photos and videos. They help you identify your best shots and classify images by relative quality or relevance, with ratings ranging from 1 star (worst) to 5 stars (best).

By rating your photos, you can streamline your library by removing the poor shots. This process makes deciding which pictures to share, publish, or print easier. Once your photos are classified, finding specific images becomes a breeze. Browsing your library to rekindle memories is also much more enjoyable when you can focus on the ★★★★ and ★★★★★ images.

Making the Process Enjoyable

While rating photos is an excellent opportunity to revisit memories, it can also be tedious work.

Assuming a 5-star rating is reserved for your best shots—those worthy of National Geographic—it should be relatively easy to identify them at first sight.

That would leave the 4-star rating for the best shots in the current album. However, determining the best photos without constantly comparing them can be challenging. The same holds for the 3-star rating for the best shots in a series of similar photos.

Assigning a rating can feel arbitrary. Would you give the same photo the same rating if you rechecked it the next day?

A structured workflow can simplify the process of assessing the relative quality of your photos.

Continue reading Quickly Assess Photos Using Star Ratings

Find Photos by Star Rating

Photos Workbench helps you easily rate, find, and cull your photos and videos, making your Apple Photos library more organized and manageable.

Rate Your Photos with Ease

Photos Workbench allows you to rate your photos and videos on a scale from 1 to 5 stars. While the exact meaning of each rating is up to personal preference, here is one suggested interpretation:

  • No star – Unrated. Still needs reviewing
  • ★ (1 Star) – Rejected. Marked for deletion
  • ★★ (2 Stars) – Keep without adjustments. May have emotional value
  • ★★★ (3 stars) – Okay. Invest time into adjustments
  • ★★★★ (4 stars) – Good. Worth sharing
  • ★★★★★ (5 Stars) – Fantastic. Worth printing

Regardless of how you choose to use the star ratings, the better photos always get the higher rating. Thus, Photos Workbench offers filters allowing you to see items above a particular rating. For example, to see the standout shots of a given album, you can filter to show items rated “★★★★ or better.”

Filter Photos by Star Rating: 4-Star or Better
Filter Photos by Star Rating: 4-Star or Better

What if you wanted to see only photos with a specific rating?

Continue reading Find Photos by Star Rating

Filter Photos by Keywords

In Photos Workbench, keyword palettes and keyboard shortcuts make it particularly easy to assign keywords to your photos. Photos Workbench can filter albums by keywords, allowing you to find or focus on a specific set of images.

Along with albums, keywords help you organize your images. Typically, albums group photos by event. Keywords are labels that describe the subject of a photo or properties of the photo. Examples: “Family”, “Landscape”, …, “Still-Life”, “Action”, …

Keywords can also be used to flag images you intend to work with or export. For instance, you can assign the keyword “Share” to all the photos you plan to add to the family’s shared album.

Favorite Keywords Palette
Favorite Keywords: Organize your pictures and flag those that you intend to share

Continue reading Filter Photos by Keywords

Find and Fix PDF Files That Lack Searchable Text

Archiving paper documents as PDF files is a great way to save shelf space and preserve essential records.

However, more than simply scanning the documents is required. It would be best if you also used Optical Character Recognition (OCR) to process the scans. Once OCR has processed a PDF scan, the file contains an invisible text version in addition to the scanned image of the document. macOS Spotlight can now index the content, and you can use HoudahSpot to search your document archive.

But what if some of your PDF files lack OCR text?

Continue reading Find and Fix PDF Files That Lack Searchable Text

Video Tour of Photos Workbench

This 5-minute guided tour of Photos Workbench rushes you past all the landmarks and leaves you wanting. The tour guide encourages you to download Photos Workbench to satisfy your curiosity.

Continue reading Video Tour of Photos Workbench