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
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.
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
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
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.
Automatic geocoding in HoudahGeo matches photos to a GPS track log. A track log is a record of where you have been. A GPS app or track logger records your current position and the current time. It does so every few seconds and thus creates a breadcrumb trail of your travels.
HoudahGeo figures out where you took a photo by matching the timestamp on the photo with the times in the GPS track log. While the GPS device gets accurate time information from satellites, your camera clock is probably not accurate. Most cameras also do not record time zone information: the photo coming out of the camera may say it was taken at 12 PM, but there is no telling if that is to be understood as 12 PM east coast or west coast – a 3-hour difference.
Timestamps in HoudahGeo
HoudahGeo needs to know the exact time a photo was taken. That is why HoudahGeo asks about camera clock settings when you import images.
There are 4 ways you can tell HoudahGeo about your camera clock settings. The first 3 are found in the Load > Camera Setup… panel. This panel pops up automatically when you import photos that lack time zone information.
This year’s macOS upgrade focusses on improvements to Apple’s own applications. macOS Monterey 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
HoudahSpot: Powerful File Search for Mac
HoudahSpot 6 was updated last year to adopt the new design introduced in macOS 11 Big Sur.
HoudahSpot 6.1.7 has been updated to look and work great on macOS 12 Monterey.
HoudahGeo
Photo Geocoding and Geotagging for Mac
HoudahGeo 6.1.1 has been tested to work with macOS 12.
An upcoming update will address a few minor bugs discovered during testing.
Tembo
Tembo: Easy and Efficient File Search for Mac
Tembo 2.6 has been verified to work with macOS 12.
Tembo relies on the Spotlight index to find files. On macOS Catalina or later, Apple Mail messages are no longer accessible through the Spotlight index.
CustomShortcuts
Easy user-defined keyboard shortcuts
CustomShortcuts 1.1 has been updated to look and work great on macOS 12 Monterey.
CustomShortcuts is a free download from our web site.
Type2Phone
Use your Mac as a keyboard for your iPhone
Type2Phone 3.1.2 has been tested to work with macOS 12 to connect to devices running iOS 15.
HoudahGeo can help with the migration process. Before moving away from Aperture you will want to safeguard geotags and other metadata currently stored with Aperture. HoudahGeo can copy these to industry-standard EXIF / XMP tags embedded within your JPEG or RAW image files. These geotags will be available for other photo management and editing tools to pick up.
Starting with macOS 10.15 Catalina, Aperture is no longer compatible with macOS. For many, this was a major reason not to upgrade their systems past macOS 10.14 Mojave.
Sticking with a dated version of macOS however, is not always practicable. Fortunately, there is another solution. The open-source Retroactive tool allows you to run Aperture and other discontinued applications on macOS Catalina and Big Sur. Thanks to Retroactive you can continue to use your favorite photo organizer. You can also use Retroactive Aperture to check your Aperture library after having migrated to a different tool. There may be an edit you would like to refine rather than start over elsewhere.
HoudahGeo 6.1 builds upon last year’s HoudahGeo 6 release to bring you the most comprehensive photo geocoding and geotagging solution for Mac.
KESTREL Weather Log Files
HoudahGeo 6 can add weather information – ambient temperature, air pressure, and humidity – to your photos. Such data can be recorded using KESTREL Drop devices. HoudahGeo 6.1 adds support for more variants of the KESTREL CSV log file format.
Weather Data From GPX Files
Some GPS devices can record weather information along with tracklogs. HoudahGeo 6.1 can now read weather data from GPX files that use the Garmin TrackPointExtension format to store such data.
Scuba Dive Data From GPX Files
HoudahGeo 6 can add scuba diving information like depth below water to your photos. Typically this information is obtained from UDDF dive log files.
Some dive computers and dive logging software can create GPX tracklog files. HoudahGeo 6.1 can now dive log data from GPX files that use the Garmin TrackPointExtension format to store such data.
Apple Aperture on macOS Catalina and Big Sur
HoudahGeo now works with Aperture versions modified by Retroactive to run on recent versions of macOS. Read more…
Further Enhancements
Adobe Lightroom: HoudahGeo now supports Lightroom libraries set up with symbolic links to preview files.
Apple Photos: HoudahGeo now reads malformed XMP sidecar files created by the Export Originals function of the Apple Photos application.
Performance: HoudahGeo 6.1 improves performance when working with large projects.
Window Layout: HoudahGeo now remembers the width of the media browser and inspector panes when switching between processing steps.
macOS Big Sur introduces the biggest design update to macOS since the introduction of Mac OS X. Still HoudahSpot, HoudahGeo, Tembo and Type2Phone look quite at home on the new version of macOS.
As always, we recommend you hold off upgrading for at least a couple of weeks and give Apple a chance to fix the most glaring bugs.
HoudahSpot will soon get a major upgrade. HoudahSpot 6.0 will fully adopt the new appearance of macOS Big Sur. First and foremost, the upgrade will bring a host of new features and enhancements. You can check out the latest beta by signing up for the HoudahSpot beta newsletter.
HoudahSpot
HoudahSpot: Powerful File Search for Mac
HoudahSpot 5.1.6 has been updated to work with macOS 11.
With the release of macOS 10.15 last year, Apple no longer allows third-party applications access to the search index for Apple Mail messages. The situation has not improved with the release of macOS 11.
The upcoming HoudahSpot 6.0 upgrade will include a plug-in for the Apple Mail application. This will again allow HoudahSpot to search Mail messages.
HoudahGeo
Photo Geocoding and Geotagging for Mac
HoudahGeo 6.0.8 has been updated to work with macOS 11.
HoudahGeo has also been verified to work with the latest version of Apple Photos and Adobe Lightroom Classic CC.
Like HoudahSpot, Tembo relies on the Spotlight index to find files. When run on macOS Catalina or Big Sur, Tembo will not be able to search Apple Mail messages.
Type2Phone
Type2Phone: Use your Mac as a Bluetooth Keyboard
Type2Phone 3.1.2 has been tested to work with macOS 11 to connect to iOS 14.
Geocoding using GPS data is arguably the quickest method of adding location information to photos. The GPS data comes in the form of a tracklog file recorded by a GPS device or smartphone app. Every few seconds a record of the current time and location is added to the tracklog.
Besides location coordinates, the GPS device can record additional information like altitude, heading, or speed. When HoudahGeo matches photos to the tracklog it can copy both location coordinates and such additional information to photo metadata.
At the same time, some cameras have sensors that can provide such additional information even when not using a GPS receiver to add location coordinates to a photo.
A compass built into the camera body can, for example, provide viewing direction information. This would be more accurate than a view direction computed from the direction of travel between to locations recorded in the tracklog.
When the same information is available from two sources – the GPS tracklog and photo metadata – you are left with the choice of which to trust.
Summer is here. Summer holidays are just around the corner. This is the time of year when many of us usually plan to travel and explore the world. Not so this year.
Explore. Reminisce. Show
This year we can reminisce about past travels and adventures. This summer we can dig into our well-organized photo collections. Photos organized by location now allow us to virtually jump around the globe and through time. We can explore photos in Google Earth to feel teleported to places we had the luck to visit. With photos pinned to precise map locations, we can retrace our steps in Google Maps. Nothing refreshes the memory like photos combined with the aerial views that reveal how the individual pictures connect.
