PhotoView

What is PhotoView

PhotoView is a focused viewer for the photos and videos in your Photo Library, whether or not they are synced via iCloud. It is designed to make every image easy to inspect, including the technical metadata.

You can also play videos and Live Photos, run a slideshow, and mirror what you are viewing to a TV over AirPlay. A few features are part of PhotoView Pro; the app offers the upgrade when you reach one.

PhotoView leaves editing and importing to Apple's Photos app. It does, however, let you tidy up: create albums and folders, add or remove photos, and delete items. Use Photos to edit and import; use PhotoView to inspect what is there in detail.

Key features

• Browse the full library, smart albums, your own albums and shared albums.
• Tap a thumbnail to view photos, Live Photos and videos full screen.
• Swipe between photos, pinch to zoom, double-tap to switch between fit and fill, or to reset a zoom.
• Show or hide a metadata overlay with EXIF, IPTC, TIFF and GPS data, and choose which fields it shows in Settings.
• Move the overlay to any corner by holding and dragging it, or pinch it to resize.
• Open the photo's GPS location on a map (a Pro feature).
• Create a new album or folder while browsing your own albums.
• Select multiple items to delete them, add or remove them from your own albums, or play them as a slideshow.
• Mark photos and videos as favorites, one at a time or a whole selection at once.
• Play a full-screen slideshow with transition effects, a per-slide duration, and play, pause and step controls.
• Mirror on iPhone or iPad the current photo, video or Live Photo, and running slideshows with their transitions, to a TV via AirPlay; only the media is shown on the TV, never the toolbar or metadata.
• Choose light, dark or system appearance.
• Open a folder or files dropped from the Finder, and open any photo in a window of its own.

The welcome tour

The first time you open PhotoView, a short tour introduces what the app does: full-screen viewing, the metadata overlay and how to shape it, and PhotoView Pro with its free 7-day trial. It has five pages, moved through with “Continue” and “Back” or by swiping, and “Skip” leaves it from any of them.

The tour appears before PhotoView asks for access to your photo library, so you know what the app is for before you decide.

It is shown once per device. To see it again, open Settings, go to General and tap “Show welcome again”.

Two details worth knowing

• Finishing the tour also retires the card that explains what a tap does, since the tour has already explained it. Skipping leaves that card in place, so you still get the explanation the first time you open a photo.
• Starting the free trial from the last page starts the same trial offered in Settings. There is one per Apple ID.

Photos library access

On first launch PhotoView asks for access to your Photos library. Choose “Allow Full Access” so it can show every photo, video, smart album and shared album.

If you choose “Limit Access”, PhotoView shows only the photos and videos you select, and albums and collections appear empty. If you grant limited access at the very first prompt, you may need to reopen PhotoView once before your selected items appear.

You can change this at any time: iOS Settings ▸ PhotoView ▸ Photos (on a Mac, System Settings ▸ Privacy & Security ▸ Photos). The same screen lets you switch between full and limited access. If access is switched off altogether, PhotoView replaces the grid with a short explanation and an “Open Settings” button that takes you straight there.

PhotoView only modifies your library when you ask it to: Delete, Add to album, Remove from album, or creating a new album or folder. Anything you create here is written straight into your Photos library, so it also shows up in Apple's Photos app.

Browsing your library: grid and albums

When the app launches, PhotoView shows a thumbnail grid of your library. Tap a thumbnail to open a photo full screen; on iPhone the bar at the bottom takes you to your album lists, and on iPad the sidebar does. Turn on “Show oldest photos first” in Settings ▸ General to flip the grid's sort order.

There are three album sections, shown as buttons below the grid on iPhone and as rows in the sidebar on iPad. On a narrow screen the buttons use the shorter labels User, Shared and Smart, and a section with nothing in it is left out:

• My Albums — the albums you created yourself in the Photos app. Folders open to show the albums inside them.
• Shared Albums — shared iCloud albums you have joined.
• Smart Albums — system-curated albums such as Recents, Favorites, Selfies or Videos.

The iPad sidebar also carries a “Library” row that brings back the full grid. It sits beside the grid in landscape; in portrait, tap the sidebar button in the top-left corner to show it.

Tap an album to see its contents as a thumbnail grid; tap a folder to see the albums it holds. Each album card shows its first photo as a cover and a photo count; folder cards show a folder symbol and the number of items inside. Each section button counts the items it holds in the same way.

In My Albums, both the main list and any folder you open, the plus button in the top-right corner opens a menu where you choose New Album or New Folder. You are then asked for a name, and the item is created when you tap Create, inside the folder you are currently viewing. Creating is not available in Shared Albums or Smart Albums. New albums and folders are written to your Photos library, so they also appear in Apple's Photos app, and anything you make in Photos appears here too.

Viewing a photo, Live Photo or video

Tap a thumbnail to open the photo, Live Photo or video full screen. Swipe left or right to move to the next or previous photo. When the toolbar is showing, the arrow buttons do the same and also wrap around: the forward arrow jumps from the last photo back to the first, and the back arrow from the first to the last. Whether “next” means a newer or older photo depends on “Show oldest photos first” in Settings ▸ General.

Display modes

A single tap anywhere on the photo moves through the display modes. With the default “In steps” setting it shows the toolbar, then the toolbar with the metadata overlay, then the photo alone. Set “A tap shows” to “Everything” in Settings ▸ Metadata ▸ More to instead toggle between the photo alone and the photo with toolbar and metadata; the viewer then opens on the bare photo.

Gestures

Pinch with two fingers to zoom. While you pinch, a small pill at the top shows the current zoom factor, and the image zooms around the midpoint of your fingers, so the spot you pinch stays put. Drag with one finger while zoomed to pan, and double-tap to reset zoom and pan. When the image is at the fitted size, double-tap to zoom it just enough to fill the screen, cropping the edges; double-tap again to return to fit. Pinching back below the fitted size snaps the image back to fit. At the fitted size, slide the image down with one finger to return to the thumbnail grid. These gestures work on photos, Live Photos and videos alike.

Live Photos

A Live Photo is marked with the live indicator on its thumbnail. When you open one, its motion plays automatically as a short preview, then it settles on the still frame. When the toolbar is showing, tap the LIVE badge in the upper-left corner to choose a mode: “Live” plays that preview on opening and lets you touch and hold to replay the full motion, “Loop” plays continuously, “Bounce” runs forward then backward, and “Off” shows only the still frame. Loop and Bounce start on their own as soon as the photo opens, and run without sound: a Live Photo's audio plays only in Live, when you touch and hold to replay the full motion. Your choice applies to every Live Photo and changes the “Live Photos” picker in Settings ▸ General. Choosing a mode from the badge sets that default for every Live Photo. If the badge isn't visible, tap the image once to bring the toolbar back.

Favorites

The heart in the toolbar marks the open photo as a favorite, and fills once it is one. Favorites show up in the Favorites smart album, alongside the ones you set in the Photos app.

Videos

A video opens with a small capsule of playback controls, a rewind button that returns to the start and a play/pause button. A single tap anywhere cycles the display modes just as it does for photos, and the controls are hidden in the image-only mode. Playback pauses automatically at the end; tap play to resume or rewind to start again.

Sharing

The toolbar’s share button (iPhone and iPad) sends the current photo, Live Photo or video to another app or person. On the Mac, right-click the image to Share, or press ⌘⇧S.

Closing the view returns you to the thumbnail grid of the current album.

Toolbar and actions

In the thumbnail grid

• Select (leading) — enters multi-selection mode, where you tap thumbnails to mark or unmark them.
• Help and Settings (trailing) — open this help and the Settings screen.
• Thumbnail size (trailing, last) — five sizes, XS to XL, stepped with − and +. XS is the smallest thumbnail that stays comfortable to tap and still has room for its badges; XL is the largest this screen has room for, which in portrait is one photo per row. Each press moves to the next size that changes the layout, and stops at either end. Shown as a stepper when the bar has room and as a button that brings one up when it does not; it is also the first item to give way when the bar runs short. The choice stays on this device.

While selecting

• Select All / Deselect All — marks every item in the album at once, or clears the selection.
• Favorite — marks the selection as favorites. When every selected item already is one, it removes them instead, so a mixed selection is completed rather than flipped. Favorites appear in the Favorites smart album.
• Add to album — adds the selected items to one of your albums.
• Share — opens the system share sheet for the selected items, so you can send the originals to another app, AirDrop, or person.
• Remove from album — shown only when you are inside an album; removes the selection from that album without deleting it from your library.
• Slideshow — plays the selected items as a slideshow. It becomes available once at least two items are selected.
• Delete — moves the selection to Recently Deleted, after a confirmation. When more than 100 items are selected the confirmation names the exact count, so an accidental Select All is easy to catch.
• Cancel — leaves selection mode.

In the viewer

• Arrows — go to the previous or next photo, wrapping around at the ends.
• Favorite — marks this photo as a favorite; the heart fills once it is one.
• Settings — opens Settings.
• Share — shares the current photo. On iPhone and iPad it’s in the toolbar; on the Mac, right-click the image or press ⌘⇧S.
• Delete — asks you to confirm, then moves the photo to Recently Deleted. The next photo is shown automatically; if you delete the last one in the collection the previous photo is shown instead, and you return to the grid only when the photo you delete was the only one left.

A single tap on the image hides or shows this top bar (see “Viewing a photo, Live Photo or video”).

Selecting multiple photos

Marking several photos at once lets you delete them, add or remove them from an album, mark them as favorites, share them, or play them as a slideshow. As soon as anything is selected, the selection toolbar appears (see “Toolbar and actions”). Selecting is free. You don’t need Pro.

Ways to select

• Tap Select, then tap photos — iPhone, iPad and Mac. The Select button (top left of the grid) turns on selection mode; each tap marks or unmarks a photo.
• ⌘-click (Command-click) — Mac. Hold Command and click photos to add or remove them one at a time, straight from browsing. No need to press Select first.
• ⇧-click (Shift-click) — Mac. Click one photo, then Shift-click another to select the whole range between the two.
• Select All / Deselect All — iPhone, iPad and Mac, from the selection toolbar.

On the Mac a plain click with no key held still opens the photo in the viewer, so it’s Command or Shift that builds a selection. Use Cancel in the toolbar to leave selection mode.

For a single photo you don’t need selection mode at all: touch and hold a thumbnail for a quick menu that acts on that one photo — “Add to Favorites”, Share, “Add to album” and Delete. On the Mac it is a right-click, and the menu carries the desktop extras too (see “On the Mac”).

The metadata overlay

Choosing fields

Tap “Customize metadata fields” in Settings ▸ Metadata to open Metadata Fields. It has one section per metadata group: Description, Date & time, Location, Camera, Lens, Exposure, Image, File, Video, IPTC, DNG, XMP, IPTC Extension, the Apple, Canon and Nikon maker-note groups, and Apple features; on Mac a Finder section also appears for files opened from disk. All groups start collapsed so you can scan the list quickly; tap a group title to expand it, then switch on the fields you want. Each group header carries a master toggle that turns its whole group on or off at once, even while collapsed. Three buttons at the top act on every editable field together: “Select all fields”, “Deselect all fields”, and “Reset fields to defaults”, which restores the out-of-the-box visibility. With more than two hundred fields on the screen, the search box at the top is often quicker than the groups: type part of a field's name and the list narrows to what matches, in every group at once. The three buttons step aside while a search is running, because they act on the whole list rather than on what you are looking at.

Even when a field is switched on, it appears in the overlay only if the photo actually contains that data; rows for missing values are hidden rather than left blank. The Apple-features rows (HDR gain map, depth, disparity, portrait and segmentation mattes, plus the Spatial, Cinematic, Time-lapse and High-frame-rate flags) read “Present” when the data is in the file and are omitted otherwise, so the overlay never reports a feature as “Absent”. Each maker-note group is filled in only by the matching camera, so for any one photo you usually see values in just one of Apple, Canon or Nikon. Many technical fields, such as raw latitude and longitude, serial numbers, time-zone and sub-second times, and most maker-note and matte fields, start switched off, so you see them only after turning them on.

The exposure line

At the top of the overlay, aperture, shutter speed and ISO sit together on one line, so the three values you most often reach for stay in view while the rest of the panel scrolls. The line follows your field choices — switch one of the three off and it leaves the line too — and a photo that carries none of them, such as a screenshot, a scan or a video, shows the word “Metadata” there instead.

The Description, Location, IPTC, DNG, XMP, IPTC Extension, Canon and Nikon groups are part of PhotoView Pro (as is Finder on Mac). Without Pro they appear as a read-only preview marked with a “Pro” badge and an “Unlock to use these fields” button; the Select-all, Deselect-all and Reset buttons then act only on the free groups and never switch on a locked one.

Position and size

“Position” places the overlay in one of four corners: Top left, Top right, Bottom left or Bottom right (Bottom right by default). “Size” sets how large the panel is: Small, Medium (the default) or Large. A panel that ends up big enough also carries a top row, which holds the exposure line — or the word “Metadata” for a photo that has none of those three values. Whether there is room is judged on the size the panel actually resolves to rather than on the step you picked, so a medium panel in a large window can carry that row while a large one on a phone does not. Turn on “Large font” to render the overlay's fields in a substantially larger typeface. It applies at the Medium and Large sizes only (the Small overlay keeps the compact font) and is off by default. Turn on “Minimal width” to let the panel narrow to the widest field it is actually showing instead of filling the width its size allows. It narrows in fixed steps, so paging from one photo to the next moves the edge only when the content really is wider, not by a few points each time. Group headings name the fields under them: with several groups on screen each one is headed, and a single remaining group keeps its heading too — except at the Small size, where the row is better spent on data. You can also adjust both directly on the overlay: touch and hold the panel and drag it. It snaps to a corner the moment your finger nears one, confirmed by a light haptic tap and a brief highlight, and stays there when you let go. Pinch the panel out to grow it to the next size or in to shrink it, each step confirmed the same way. Your changes are saved automatically, so the next photo opens with the position and size you just chose. The three sizes are relative to the window rather than fixed, so the panel keeps its proportions on a phone and on a large desktop display alike: it grows with the window, but never past a comfortable maximum. When more fields are switched on than fit, the panel scrolls. A slim scroll bar sits along its right edge for as long as there is more to see, and whichever edge still has content behind it fades softly.

Background

“Style” chooses what sits behind the text. “Solid” is the default and keeps the metadata readable over any photo; “Liquid Glass” uses the translucent system material instead, for a less obtrusive look. With Solid you can also pick a “Color” (Automatic, Dark, Light or Custom) and an “Opacity” between 60 % and 100 %, with a live sample shown below them in Settings. Automatic follows the app's appearance and switches to contrast with the photo behind the panel, so a bright photo gets a dark panel and a dark photo a light one. Custom opens a color picker; whichever color you choose, PhotoView picks the text color that stays legible on it. If Reduce Transparency or Increase Contrast is switched on in your device's accessibility settings, the panel is always solid and fully opaque.

On Mac, pinching needs a trackpad, so the overlay offers two more ways to resize with a mouse: move the pointer over the panel and a small grip appears in the corner facing the middle of the window. Drag it away from the panel's own corner to grow it, back to shrink it. Right-clicking the panel opens a menu with the three sizes and the four corners.

On Mac

If you'd rather keep the photo unobstructed, turn on “Show metadata in a separate window” in Settings ▸ Metadata. Press ⌘I (or View ▸ Show Metadata) to open a separate window that lists the same fields and updates as you move between photos; press ⌘I again to hide it. The overlay's position and size don't apply in this mode.

Location on a map

With Pro, when a photo has GPS data a small Map link appears on the panel (in the header at Large size, or as a top-right button at Small and Medium). Tapping it opens a map with a photo marker at the capture location, where you can pinch to zoom, drag to pan, and tap Done to return. The layers button in the map's top-right corner opens a menu of map styles: Standard, Satellite and Hybrid (satellite imagery with roads and place names on top), with a checkmark on the one you are viewing. Your choice is remembered, so the next map opens in the style you last picked, and it syncs to your other devices when iCloud sync is on. The button is controlled by “Map link” in the Location section of that screen: Map link is on by default and replaces the Latitude and Longitude rows with the Map link. Turn it off if you prefer the raw coordinates, then switch the Latitude and Longitude rows back on separately.

Metadata reference

Every field PhotoView can show, group by group — the same reference the app carries under Help ▸ Metadata reference. Groups marked Pro are part of PhotoView Pro.

Understanding metadata types

Different pieces of camera and editing information live in different standards. PhotoView reads the ones Apple exposes directly and presents them grouped by topic rather than by source.

• EXIF (Exchangeable Image File Format) records the technical settings at the moment of capture: aperture, shutter, ISO, focal length, flash, metering mode, and date/time. Most of the Exposure, Lens, Camera, and Date & time rows come from here. (Location coordinates live in the separate GPS block below.)
• IPTC (International Press Telecommunications Council) adds the editorial layer: title, caption, keywords, creator, copyright, city, country. Photo editors such as Lightroom or Photos use it for tagging and captioning.
• TIFF tags carry the camera make and model, the software that wrote the file, and an image description. This is often duplicated in EXIF or IPTC.
• GPS tags store where and when the photo was taken: latitude, longitude, altitude, and sometimes speed or the direction the camera was pointing.
• MakerNote is the camera manufacturer's private block. PhotoView surfaces the documented fields Apple parses for Canon and Nikon, plus Apple's own fields for iPhone photos (Live Photo / burst identifier, capture type and focus distance).
• Apple features reflects computational capabilities Apple attaches as auxiliary data: HDR gain map, depth, disparity, portrait and segmentation mattes, plus video traits such as spatial, cinematic, time-lapse and high frame rate. PhotoView shows whether these are present; it does not render them.

Description (Pro)

IPTC and XMP fields used by editorial workflows and asset managers.

• Headline — Short title for the photo.
• Caption — A description of the scene.
• Description — Long-form description; sometimes duplicates the caption.
• Title — Title given to the photo.
• Keywords — Comma-separated tags or topics.
• Rating — Star rating from 0 to 5, set by Photos, Lightroom, and similar apps.
• Label — A color label used by editorial workflows.
• Copyright — Copyright notice.
• Creator — The photographer's name.
• Credit — Who to credit when republishing.
• Source — Original source, such as an agency or archive.
• User comment — Free-text note embedded in the EXIF UserComment field.

Date & time

Capture timestamps and time-zone information.

• Date — When the photo was taken.
• Digitized — When the file was created (often identical to Date for born-digital photos).
• Time zone — Offset from UTC at capture.
• Sub-second — Fractional seconds beyond the main timestamp.
• Sub-second (digitized) — Fractional seconds of the digitized timestamp.
• GPS time — Timestamp recorded by the GPS receiver, always in UTC.

Location (Pro)

Geographic information from the GPS receiver and from Photos.

• City, Region, Country, Sublocation, Country code — Text location stamps written by Photos, the camera, or third-party editors.
• Latitude, Longitude — Raw GPS coordinates.
• Altitude — Height above sea level.
• Speed — Speed of motion at capture.
• Direction — Heading the camera was pointing.
• Movement direction — Bearing the camera was moving in (GPS track).
• Destination — Bearing toward a recorded destination, in degrees (rarely populated).
• GPS precision — Horizontal positioning error in meters.
• GPS fix — Receiver fix quality at capture (2D fix, 3D fix, or no fix).
• GPS DOP — Dilution of precision; smaller numbers mean a more reliable position.
• Satellites — Number of satellites used for the fix.
• Map datum — Coordinate-system reference (almost always WGS-84).
• Map link — Replaces latitude and longitude with a single tap-to-open Maps button. Turning it on hides the raw coordinates automatically.

Camera

Identity of the camera body and the software that wrote the file.

• Make — Camera manufacturer.
• Model — Camera model.
• Software — Firmware or processing software used to write the file.
• Body serial — Camera body serial number.
• Owner — Registered owner's name (where the camera supports owner registration).
• Artist — TIFF “Artist” tag (an older image-file metadata field for the photographer); often duplicates Creator.
• Host computer — Computer that processed the file (rare on modern phones).

Lens

Lens identity and capability range.

• Lens — Lens make and model.
• Lens specification — Focal-length range and aperture range engraved on the lens.
• Lens serial — Lens serial number.
• Max aperture — Widest aperture (smallest f-number) the lens supports at the current focal length.

Exposure

Capture settings used to expose the photo.

• Aperture — f-number used (the lens-opening size: smaller number = more light and shallower focus).
• Shutter speed — Exposure time (how long the sensor was exposed to light).
• ISO — Sensor sensitivity setting (higher = brighter in dim light, but more noise).
• Focal length — Actual lens focal length in mm (longer = more zoomed-in, narrower angle of view).
• Focal length (35 mm) — Equivalent focal length on a 35 mm full-frame camera. See the FAQ for the difference between this and the raw focal length.
• Program — Capture mode (Auto, Manual, Aperture priority, Shutter priority, …).
• Mode — Auto-exposure (AE) result (Auto, Manual, Auto bracket).
• Bias — Manual exposure compensation in EV (stops; positive = brighter, negative = darker than the meter chose).
• Brightness — Measured scene brightness (the EXIF APEX brightness value; higher = brighter scene).
• Metering — Metering pattern used (Matrix, Center-weighted, Spot, …).
• Flash — Decoded flash status (fired / did not fire / red-eye reduction / suppressed).
• White balance — Auto or manual white-balance setting.
• Light source — Detected or chosen light type (Daylight, Fluorescent, Tungsten, …).
• Scene type — Programmed scene (Standard, Landscape, Portrait, Night).
• Custom rendered — Whether the camera applied a custom rendering pipeline (special in-camera processing such as HDR or panorama stitching rather than a straight capture).
• Digital zoom — Digital-zoom factor at capture.
• Subject distance — Distance to the focused subject.
• Flash comp — Flash power adjustment in EV (stops), read from Canon or Nikon MakerNote fields.
• Contrast — In-camera contrast processing (normal, soft, hard).
• Saturation — In-camera saturation processing (normal, low, high).
• Sharpness — In-camera sharpening (normal, soft, hard).
• Gain control — Sensor gain adjustment applied (e.g. high gain in low light).
• Distance range — Approximate subject distance class (macro, near, distant).
• Sensitivity type — Which ISO metric the value represents (ISO speed, recommended exposure index, …).

Image

Pixel-level properties of the image.

• Size — Pixel dimensions.
• Color space — Color space (sRGB, Display P3, …).
• Color model — Underlying color model (RGB, CMYK, Gray).
• Color profile — ICC profile name.
• Bit depth — Bits per color channel (higher = finer tonal gradations).
• Has alpha — Whether the image carries an alpha channel (a per-pixel transparency layer).
• Orientation — How the image should be rotated or flipped when shown (the EXIF orientation code, 1–8).
• DPI — Reported pixels per inch (rarely meaningful for photos taken on phones).
• Composite — Whether the file is a multi-frame composite (e.g. iPhone HDR / Deep Fusion).
• Composite images — How many source frames went into the composite.
• Sensing method — Sensor type that captured the image (e.g. one-chip color area).
• Image ID — Unique identifier the camera assigned to this exposure.
• Subject area — Where the in-focus subject sits in the frame (the camera's AF subject-area coordinates).
• File source — The kind of device that produced the image (e.g. digital camera).
• Focal plane resolution — Sensor-plane pixel density the camera reported.
• Frames — Number of frames in an animated image (GIF, APNG, WebP, animated HEIC).
• Loop count — How often the animation repeats (∞ = forever).
• Animation duration — Total play time of one animation cycle.

File

File-level properties from PhotoKit and the container.

• Filename — Original filename.
• UTI — Apple's Uniform Type Identifier (e.g. public.heic).
• Format — Human-readable container label (HEIC, JPEG, RAW, …).
• File size — Size of the loaded image data.
• Media type — PhotoKit subtype flags (Live Photo, HDR, Panorama, Screenshot, Portrait, High frame rate, Time-lapse, Cinematic, Streamed, Spatial).
• Favorite — Marked as a favorite in your photo library.
• Edited — The photo carries edits or adjustments made in Photos.
• Source type — Where the photo came from (iCloud Shared Album or synced).

Video

Audio and video stream properties from AVFoundation.

• Duration — Length of the video.
• Codec — Video codec identifier (a four-character code, e.g. hvc1 for HEVC or avc1 for H.264).
• Frame rate — Frames per second.
• Bit rate — Bits per second.
• Dynamic range — SDR or HDR flavor of the video (HLG or PQ transfer function).
• Audio codec — Audio codec identifier (four-character code, e.g. mp4a for AAC).
• Audio sample rate — Audio samples per second.
• Audio channels — Mono / Stereo / multi-channel.
• Video orientation — Display rotation of the video track (horizontal, vertical).

Videos recorded on recent iPhones also fill camera rows from the Exposure and Lens sections: lens model, aperture, 35 mm focal length, ISO, white balance (in Kelvin) and shutter speed. The video's color space and bit depth appear in the Image section.

IPTC (Pro)

IPTC photo-metadata

The descriptive and administrative standard used by photographers, agencies and editing tools. The full IPTC vocabulary PhotoView reads is listed here. For convenience, some IPTC fields are shown in other sections (noted below); toggle each field wherever it is listed.

Also shown under Description

• Headline — Short, publishable headline.
• Caption — Caption or abstract describing the image.
• Title — Short object name / title.
• Keywords — Search keywords and tags.
• Rating — Star rating (0–5).
• Creator — Photographer or creator (by-line).
• Copyright — Copyright notice.
• Credit — Provider credit line.
• Source — Original owner of the rights.

Also shown under Location

• City — City of the content.
• Region — Province or state.
• Country — Country name.
• Sublocation — Location within the city.
• Country code — ISO country code of the content.

Shown in this IPTC section

• Creator's title — Job title of the creator.
• Caption writer — Person who wrote the caption.
• Instructions — Editorial or usage instructions.
• Usage terms — Rights usage terms for the image.
• Category — Legacy IPTC category code.
• Supplemental categories — Additional category terms.
• Subject code — Structured IPTC subject reference.
• Scene code — IPTC scene code.
• Language — Language of the caption and metadata.
• Contact — Contact information for the provider.
• Fixture ID — Identifier for recurring content.
• Originating program — Software that created the IPTC record.
• Transmission reference — Original transmission reference.
• Object type — IPTC object type reference.
• Object attribute — IPTC object attribute reference.
• Content location — Place shown in the image.
• Content location code — ISO country code of the content location.
• Urgency — Editorial urgency (1 = most, 8 = least).
• Object cycle — Time of day the item is for (morning / evening / both).
• IPTC orientation — Orientation recorded in IPTC (horizontal / vertical / square).
• Edit status — Editorial status of the object.
• Editorial update — Type of editorial update.
• Action advised — Advised action for a prior version.
• IPTC image type — IPTC image type code.
• Created (IPTC) — Creation date recorded in IPTC.
• Digitized (IPTC) — Digitization date recorded in IPTC.
• Release date — Earliest intended use date.
• Expiration date — Latest intended use date.
• Reference date — Date of a referenced prior record.

DNG (Pro)

DNG / raw-negative tags

Camera-calibration and raw-pipeline data found in DNG and Apple ProRAW files. The full readable DNG vocabulary PhotoView reads is listed here; each field also appears in its logical section (noted below). Color matrices, calibration tables and opcode lists are part of DNG but omitted because they have no readable form.

Also shown under Camera

• Unique camera model — Manufacturer's unique camera model name.
• Localized camera model — Human-readable camera model name.
• Camera serial (DNG) — Camera body serial number from the DNG.

Also shown under Lens

• Lens info (DNG) — Lens focal-length and aperture range.

Also shown under File

• Original raw file — File name of the original raw file.

Also shown under Image

• DNG version — DNG specification version of the file.
• DNG backward version — Oldest reader version that can open the file.
• Black level — Sensor black level.
• White level — Sensor saturation (white) level.
• Baseline exposure — Default exposure offset applied by the converter.
• Baseline sharpness — Default sharpening hint.
• Baseline noise — Relative noise level hint.
• Shadow scale — Shadow scaling hint.
• Camera profile — Embedded camera color profile name.
• Profile copyright — Copyright of the camera profile.
• Calibration illuminant 1 — Reference light source for calibration 1.
• Calibration illuminant 2 — Reference light source for calibration 2.
• Colorimetric reference — Scene- or output-referred color.
• Noise reduction applied — Amount of noise reduction already applied.
• Raw data ID — Unique identifier of the raw image data.
• Profile embed policy — Whether the camera profile may be copied or embedded.
• Preview created with — Application that rendered the embedded preview.

XMP (Pro)

Metadata written by desktop photo editors (Lightroom, Capture One, darktable, Photoshop) into the file's XMP packet, or a sibling .xmp sidecar file next to it. The embedded packet is read on every platform; the .xmp sidecar is read only for files opened on Mac.

• XMP label — Color label or flag the editor applied, e.g. Approved.
• Keyword tree — Hierarchical keywords, shown as a path.
• Created with — The application that wrote the file.
• RAW adjustments — Whether develop / RAW edit settings are stored in the file.
• Digital source — How the image was produced, including AI-generated.
• AI system — The AI system credited with generating the image, including its version when recorded.
• AI prompt — The prompt that was used to generate the image.
• AI prompt writer — Name of the person who wrote the prompt.
• Drone telemetry — Altitude and heading recorded by drone cameras.
• Panorama — Marks 360° and panoramic images.
• Usage terms (XMP) — Licensing and usage instructions.
• Rights URL — Web page describing the rights.
• Rights owner — The legal owner of the image rights.
• Edit history — Number of edit steps recorded in the file.
• XMP sidecar — Name of the .xmp sidecar file read alongside the image, when present.
• Document ID — Identifier the editor assigned to this rendition.
• Original document ID — Identifier of the original source document.
• Instance ID — Identifier of this specific saved instance.
• Original filename — The file's original name before editing.

IPTC Core fields carried in the XMP packet or sidecar (country code, sublocation, scene and subject codes, contact, job title, caption writer, instructions, job ID and creation date) fill the matching rows in the IPTC and Description sections.

IPTC Extension (Pro)

IPTC Extension and PLUS licensing fields written into the file's XMP packet or a .xmp sidecar by professional tools. The embedded packet is read on every platform; a .xmp sidecar is read only for files opened on Mac.

• Event — Name of the event the photo documents.
• People shown / Organizations shown / Products shown — Who and what appears in the picture.
• Location created / Locations shown — Where the photo was taken and which places it depicts.
• Artwork — Title and creator of artwork appearing in the image.
• Genre — Editorial genre of the image.
• Image regions — Named regions defined within the image.
• Registry entry — Image ID in a public registry.
• Image GUID — Globally unique identifier of the digital image.
• Alt text / Extended description — Accessibility descriptions for screen readers.
• Model release / Property release — Whether releases for people or property exist.
• Licensor — Who licenses the image.
• Copyright owner / Image creator / Image supplier — The PLUS licensing chain.
• Data mining — Whether use for data mining or AI training is permitted.

Finder (Pro · Mac only)

Finder and filesystem details macOS stores alongside the file. Shown for files opened on Mac.

• Finder tags — Tags and color labels assigned in the Finder.
• Finder comment — The Finder's Comments field for the file.
• Where from — The web address a downloaded file came from.
• Downloaded by — The app that downloaded the file.
• File created — Filesystem creation date.
• File modified — Filesystem last-modified date.
• Added to folder — When the file was added to its folder.
• Kind — The file's localized type description.

Apple

Fields from Apple's proprietary MakerNote, written by iPhone cameras and parsed by ImageIO.

• Content ID — UUID linking related captures, most commonly the still and the video of a Live Photo.
• Live Photo ID — Same value as Content ID, surfaced under the more familiar name.
• Burst ID — UUID shared by every image taken in one burst.
• Capture type — Capture mode (ProRAW, Portrait, Photo, Manual focus, Scene).
• Focus distance — Focus distance in meters, shown as a single value or a near/far range. It can also be populated by Nikon files.

See the FAQ for practical use of the three IDs and details on what “Focus distance” reports. Tag-number mappings verified against the ExifTool `Apple.pm` module.

Canon (Pro)

Fields Apple's ImageIO parses out of Canon's MakerNote, using the constants documented in `CGImageProperties.h`.

• Image serial — Camera frame-counter value.
• Firmware — Camera firmware version.
• Continuous drive — Drive-mode setting (single, continuous, …).
• Aspect ratio — In-camera aspect-ratio crop selection.

The Canon dictionary also supplies the owner name, body serial, and lens model. Those surface in the Camera and Lens groups.

Nikon (Pro)

Fields Apple's ImageIO parses out of Nikon's MakerNote, using the constants documented in `CGImageProperties.h`.

• Focus mode — AF/MF mode at capture.
• Flash setting — Flash configuration string.
• Shooting mode — Single / continuous / timer flags.
• Lens info — Lens focal-length range and aperture range (Nikon's equivalent of Lens specification).
• Lens adapter — Mounted lens adapter (e.g. FTZ).
• Shutter count — Lifetime shutter-release count. Useful when buying or selling a Nikon body.
• ISO setting / ISO selection — Nikon-internal ISO records.
• Color mode — COLOR or MONO.
• Quality — RAW / FINE / NORMAL preset.
• Sharpening — In-camera sharpening setting.
• Image adjustment — In-camera processing preset.
• WB mode — Nikon-specific white-balance code.
• Camera digital zoom — Digital-zoom factor at capture.

Camera body serial and lens type surface in the Camera and Lens groups. Focus distance, when a Nikon file records it, appears under Apple.

Apple features

Computational fields Apple adds outside the EXIF block: either as auxiliary image buffers attached to the file, or as PhotoKit asset-subtype flags.

• HDR Gain Map — Brightness-boost layer for HDR displays.
• Depth Map — Per-pixel distance to the scene; used by Portrait mode.
• Disparity Map — Pre-depth-conversion left/right shift from dual-camera systems.
• Portrait matte — Cut-out mask separating subject from background.
• Skin / Hair / Glasses / Teeth matte — Semantic-segmentation masks Photos uses for editing.
• Spatial video — Stereoscopic video for Apple Vision Pro.
• Cinematic video — Cinematic-mode video with adjustable depth of field.
• Time-lapse — Video recorded in the Camera app's Time-lapse mode.
• High frame rate — Slow-motion video.

PhotoView reports presence only. It does not display the maps themselves. See the FAQ for a longer explanation of HDR / Depth / Disparity maps.

Sources and attribution

Field descriptions on this page are written by PhotoView and based on the following public references.

Public standards (no commercial-use restrictions on the documented field semantics):

• EXIF 2.32 — CIPA / JEITA, the camera-industry standard for image metadata.
• IPTC Photo Metadata Standard — the editorial / news-photo standard.
• XMP — Adobe's open metadata framework.
• ICC v4 — the ICC profile specification.

Apple developer documentation (paraphrased, never quoted verbatim):

• ImageIO — `CGImageProperties.h` and the `kCGImagePropertyMakerCanon*` / `kCGImagePropertyMakerNikon*` constants.
• PhotoKit — `PHAsset.mediaSubtypes` for the asset-level flags surfaced under “Apple features”.

ExifTool (`https://exiftool.org/TagNames/Apple.html` and the `Image::ExifTool::Apple` module):

• Tag-number mappings for the Apple MakerNote (BurstUUID 0x0B, FocusDistanceRange 0x0C, ContentIdentifier 0x11, ImageCaptureType 0x14, etc.) and the documented value list for ImageCaptureType.

ExifTool is open source under the same license as Perl (GPL or Artistic License). The factual tag information cited from it (numeric tag IDs and their documented meanings) is also recorded in publicly indexed ExifTool forum threads. Tag numbers and value lists are facts. No copyrighted prose from ExifTool's documentation has been copied; descriptions are written independently.

If you spot an inaccuracy, please open an issue.

Slideshow

In an album tap “Select,” mark at least two items, then tap the slideshow icon in the top toolbar. PhotoView plays the selection full-screen, in the order it appears in the album.

Tap once on the screen to show or hide the controls. The bottom buttons step manually forward and back, the middle one pauses and resumes, and the X in the top-right corner ends the slideshow. A ring around the pause button fills as the slide runs, so you can see how much of it is left. On a video it follows the video's own length rather than the slide duration, so it reaches the end exactly when the video does. A Live Photo plays its motion once and then holds the still for the rest of the slide, so its ring runs on the slide duration like a photo's. The controls fade out again after a short idle period. The slideshow stops after the last item; it does not loop, and Back on the very first slide does nothing.

Per-item behavior

Photos stay on screen for the configured duration. Videos play their audio by default (turn off “Play video audio” in Settings ▸ Slideshow to mute them), play to their natural end, and then advance. Live Photos honor the Live Photos mode you set elsewhere: in Live the motion plays once and then the still frame is held for the rest of the slide, in Loop or Bounce it keeps playing, and with Off the still frame is shown for the whole slide. A Live Photo's motion always plays without sound.

While the slideshow runs, a settings button next to the X opens a popover where you can change the transition effect, the slide duration, whether videos play their audio, and whether each slide's metadata is shown. The duration offers Short, Medium, Long, plus your last custom value as a ready-made choice. A new transition takes effect on the next slide, while a duration change applies to the current slide right away. Effects are Ken Burns, Crossfade, Slide, Push, Zoom, Cut, and Shuffle; Shuffle varies the transition from slide to slide, choosing between Crossfade, Slide, Push, Zoom and Ken Burns. The same options live under Settings ▸ Slideshow, where you set a custom duration from 3 seconds up to 30 minutes with separate minutes and seconds pickers; PhotoView remembers it, so switching to a preset and back keeps your custom duration.

Turn on Show metadata, in Settings ▸ Slideshow or in the in-slideshow settings, to overlay the current slide's details, the same panel as the media viewer, for the whole show. It is off by default. The overlay follows the metadata position, size, and fields you chose for the viewer. Touch and hold the panel and drag it to move it to another corner, which keeps it clear of the playback controls; the corner you drop it in is saved as your metadata position.

AirPlay

When an external display is connected the whole slideshow plays on the external screen, photos with the chosen effect and videos and Live Photos played there too. The device window becomes a control surface: tap once to hide the playback controls and tap again to bring them back. There is no auto-hide while AirPlay is active. When Show metadata is on, the metadata for the photo currently on the external screen is shown on the device.

On the Mac

PhotoView opens the slideshow in a window of its own and takes it full screen. Start it from the slideshow button in the toolbar, or from View ▸ Slideshow.

A second display

The slideshow is an ordinary window until it goes full screen, so drag it to whichever display you want before you start, or leave full screen, move it, and go full screen again. Mirroring a slideshow to a TV over AirPlay is an iPhone and iPad feature.

AirPlay and external displays

When you mirror your iPhone or iPad to an Apple TV or a compatible television via AirPlay, the TV shows only the photo, Live Photo or video, with no toolbar, no controls and no metadata. The shared screen stays uncluttered, while you keep full controls on your device. Until you open something, the TV shows a brief prompt asking you to open a photo or video.

Swipe to the next photo or change the selection on the device, and the picture on the TV follows immediately. Zooming into a photo affects only your device; the TV keeps showing the whole picture. For a video, the play, pause and rewind controls on your device drive playback on the external display.

If you start a slideshow, the TV mirrors it with the same transition effects, slide for slide (see “Slideshow”).

On the Mac

On the Mac, PhotoView works like a proper desktop app.

Sidebar and windows

The sidebar on the left switches between your Library, albums (My Albums, Shared Albums, Smart Albums), Files, and Folder. Rest the pointer on a sidebar entry for a moment and a short explanation pops up. Hide or show the sidebar with ⌃⌘S. Right-click a photo ▸ “Open in New Window” to view it in its own resizable window; ⌘ + / − zoom there, ⌘9 fits the photo to the window and ⌘0 shows it at actual size, and Esc or ⌘W closes it.

Keyboard

In the full-screen viewer, the arrow keys (← →) move between photos, ⌘↑ / ⌘↓ jump to the first/last, ⌘ + / − zoom, ⌘9 fits the photo and ⌘0 shows it at actual size, . adds it to Favorites, ⌘I toggles the metadata, ⌘⇧S shares the photo, Space opens Quick Look, ⌘⌫ deletes it after a confirmation, and Esc closes the viewer. In the grid, ⌘A selects every item once you are in selection mode. See the full list under Help ▸ Keyboard Shortcuts.

Pointer and Quick Look

Hover a thumbnail to highlight it, then press Space to Quick Look the original; Space or Esc closes it again. A single click opens the photo in the viewer. ⌘-click adds a photo to the selection (or removes it), and ⇧-click selects a range. See “Selecting multiple photos”.

Files in and out

Drag images or videos (or whole folders) from the Finder onto the window to collect them under “Files”. They stay there across launches until you remove them (right-click ▸ Remove, or the Remove button in selection mode; the files themselves stay on disk, unlike Delete, which moves them to the Trash). File ▸ Open… (⌘O) takes files and folders alike: pick a folder and it becomes “Folder”, pick photos and they join “Files”. “Folder” shows the most recently opened folder; opening another replaces it. File ▸ Open Recent lists the last ten files and folders you opened, so you can pick one up again without going hunting; “Clear Menu” empties that list without touching anything on disk. Going the other way, drag a photo from the grid to the Finder or Mail to export the original; several selected photos drag together. Right-click also offers Quick Look, Share, Copy, “Show in Finder”, “Add to Favorites”, “Add to album” and Delete — plus Remove for an entry under “Files”.

Metadata window

Turn on “Show metadata in a separate window” in Settings to see metadata in its own window, which floats above the gallery and updates as you browse, instead of the corner overlay (⌘I opens/closes it).

AirPlay

Mirroring a photo or slideshow to a TV over AirPlay is an iPhone and iPad feature; the Mac app doesn't drive an external display.

Settings

Settings is organized into three panes: General, Metadata and Slideshow. On iPhone each one opens from its own row; on iPad they sit in a segmented control at the top of the screen. Each pane is divided into headed sections.

PhotoView Pro sits above the panes, and what it shows depends on where you stand:

• Without Pro, you can start a free 7-day trial (no card, no auto-renew, one trial per Apple ID), or buy Pro outright at the shown price.
• During a trial it shows how many days are left, and opens the upgrade screen when tapped.
• After a trial ends, the purchase button is all that is left.
• Once you own Pro it reads “PhotoView Pro, Active”, with nothing to buy.

General

• “Display and playback” holds “Show oldest photos first”, which flips the order of the thumbnail grid; “Appearance”, which chooses Follow system, Light or Dark; and “Live Photos”, which picks how they play (Live, Loop, Bounce or Off) when you open a photo and during a slideshow. See “Viewing a photo, Live Photo or video”.
• “Getting started” holds “Show welcome again”, which replays the five-page tour you saw on first launch. See “The welcome tour”.
• “iCloud” holds “Sync settings”, which is off until you turn it on. Once enabled, PhotoView keeps your settings in step across your devices and shows when they last synced. The first time you enable it on a device whose settings differ from the copy already in iCloud, you choose which set to keep.
• “Data” holds “Backup & Restore”, which exports all your settings and field choices to a single JSON file through the share sheet, and imports one back to replace your current settings. It is separate from iCloud sync. Once you own Pro, “Support PhotoView” appears here too: an optional tip jar that unlocks nothing extra.

Metadata

• “Fields” holds “Customize metadata fields”, which opens the Metadata Fields screen where you choose which fields appear. The row shows how many of the fields available to you are switched on. See “The metadata overlay”.
• “Overlay” holds “Position”, which places the overlay in one of four corners, “Size” chooses Small, Medium or Large, “Minimal width” narrows the overlay to the widest field it is showing instead of the full width its size allows, and “Large font” renders the fields in a bigger typeface at the Medium and Large sizes. A panel with room for it also shows the exposure line — aperture, shutter speed and ISO — or, for a photo without them, a “Metadata” heading. Position and size can also be changed by dragging or pinching the overlay itself.
• “Background” holds “Style” (Solid or Liquid Glass) and, with Solid, “Color” (Automatic, Dark, Light or Custom) and “Opacity”.
• “More” holds “Show seconds”, which adds seconds to the time shown in the metadata, and “A tap shows”, which chooses what a tap on the open photo brings up. “In steps” (the default) adds the toolbar, then the metadata, then clears both; “Everything” alternates between the bare photo and the photo with the toolbar and the metadata together.

Slideshow

• “Playback” holds “Effect”, which sets the transition, and “Duration”, which sets how long each slide stays (Short, Medium, Long or a custom value). Videos always play to their natural end, however long a slide lasts.
• “During a slideshow” holds “Play video audio”, which mutes or unmutes videos, and “Show metadata”, which overlays each slide's details. See “Slideshow”.

While viewing a photo, a single tap moves through the display modes, without a trip to Settings.

PhotoView Pro

PhotoView Pro is a one-time purchase, with no subscription and no auto-renew, that unlocks the app's advanced features:

• Professional metadata: the Description, Location, IPTC, DNG, XMP, IPTC Extension, Canon and Nikon groups in the overlay (plus Finder on Mac).
• The Map link that opens a photo's location on a map.

Everything else is free: browsing your whole library, viewing photos, Live Photos and videos, selecting items to add, remove, delete across albums or play as a slideshow, and the Date & time, Camera, Lens, Exposure, Image, File, Video, Apple and Apple features metadata groups. You can try every Pro feature free for 7 days before deciding.

How does the free 7-day trial work?

From the paywall you can try PhotoView Pro free for 7 days. No card, no auto-renew. Every Pro feature is unlocked for the duration. When the trial ends, the features re-lock until you buy Pro with the one-time payment. One trial per Apple ID. The day before the trial ends, PhotoView can send a single reminder so it doesn't lapse by surprise; you can allow or decline that notification.

I already bought Pro. How do I get it back on a new device?

Open the Pro screen and tap “Restore purchase.” Because Pro is a one-time purchase tied to your Apple ID, this re-unlocks it on a new device or after reinstalling, at no extra cost. If no purchase is found, you'll see “Nothing to restore.”

The Pro screen says the App Store isn't reachable. What now?

PhotoView asks the App Store for the Pro price when that screen opens, and the request needs a working connection. Tap “Try again” once you are back online. The 7-day trial does not go through the App Store at all, so you can start it and use every Pro feature even while the price is unavailable — and “Restore purchase” still recovers Pro if you have bought it before.

FAQ

What is “Support PhotoView”?

Once you own Pro, a “Support PhotoView” entry appears in Settings ▸ General. It's an optional tip jar with a few one-time tips, purely a way to support development. Tipping unlocks nothing extra; Pro already includes every feature.

Why is iCloud sync paused?

Sync pauses when iCloud isn't reachable. To get it going again:

• Turn on “Sync settings” in Settings ▸ General. It's off until you enable it.
• Sign in to iCloud and turn on iCloud Drive in Settings ▸ [your name] ▸ iCloud.

PhotoView uses iCloud to keep your settings in sync across devices, and sync resumes automatically once iCloud is reachable again.

Why can't I add photos to a shared album?

iOS does not let third-party apps such as PhotoView write to shared iCloud albums. This restriction comes from the operating system and the app cannot work around it.

You can add photos and videos to your own albums and remove them again. To add to or remove from a shared album, open Apple's Photos app and perform the action there.

Why is GPS or other metadata missing for a photo in a shared album?

When you add a photo or video to a shared iCloud album in the Photos app, iCloud strips some metadata for privacy and compatibility. As a result, the same photo viewed from the shared album is often missing:

• GPS coordinates and altitude — the Map link stays empty.
• Title, caption and description.
• Keywords / tags.
• People and faces information.
• Star rating.
• Album and Smart Album membership.
• Depth and portrait data, and spatial photo / video information.

The usual capture information is preserved: date and time, camera make and model, lens, exposure time, ISO, focal length and aperture.

If you want to keep this extra data, use iCloud Shared Photo Library (requires iCloud+) instead of a shared album.

Why does a photo look blurry or appear slowly the first time I open it?

PhotoView reads directly from your iCloud Photo Library. If the original image isn't on the device yet, iOS downloads it from iCloud the first time you view it. A lower-resolution preview is shown while that happens. Once the full image arrives, the display switches to it automatically.

On a slow connection or while offline, this step can take a while or not finish at all. As soon as you are back online, iOS fetches the image the next time you open it.

Why can't I edit photos here?

That's intentional. PhotoView is designed as a pure viewer so you can focus on the image and its metadata without changing anything by accident.

Edit photos in Apple's Photos app. Once you save your changes there, iCloud syncs them and PhotoView reflects the result immediately.

Why doesn't a particular album appear in PhotoView?

A few common reasons

• PhotoView has only Limited Access to the library. Open iOS Settings ▸ PhotoView ▸ Photos and choose Full Access.
• The album is new and iCloud is still syncing. Wait a moment; the album list updates on its own once syncing finishes.
• The album is a type iOS does not expose to third-party apps, for example Apple's own Memories. Those appear in the Photos app only.
• For shared albums, the invitation must have been accepted in the Photos app first.

What does Focal length (35 mm) mean?

It's the camera's focal length converted to what a 35 mm full-frame camera would need to capture the same field of view.

Different cameras use different sensor sizes, so the lens's actual focal length on its own doesn't tell you how wide or tight the shot looks. The 35 mm equivalent normalizes the value so a 28 mm shot on a phone, a compact, and a full-frame camera all read as 28 mm and look comparably wide.

PhotoView shows two fields: “Focal length” is the raw value engraved on the lens, and “Focal length (35 mm)” is the normalized one. Use the 35 mm value when comparing photos from different cameras.

What are HDR Gain Map, Depth Map, and Disparity Map?

These are extra image layers that modern Apple cameras embed alongside the main photo.

• HDR Gain Map — a side image that tells the display how much extra brightness to add to highlights. It's what makes HDR photos sparkle on a compatible screen while still looking right on an SDR one.
• Depth Map — a per-pixel distance map showing how far each part of the scene was from the lens. Portrait Mode uses it to separate the subject from the background.
• Disparity Map — the raw left/right shift between the two lenses on a dual-camera system, before it's converted into a depth map. It's the source data Apple's pipeline turns into the depth map above.

PhotoView only reports whether each map is present: a map that exists is shown as “Present”, and one that isn't there is left out. It doesn't render the map itself. The original photo on your device stays exactly as Apple stored it.

What are Content ID, Live Photo ID, and Burst ID?

Three identifiers iPhone cameras write into the photo file when the picture was taken. They live in the Maker notes group because Apple stores them inside the EXIF MakerNote block, alongside other camera-internal fields.

• Content ID — a UUID Apple stamps on related captures so the system can later recognize that they belong together. For Live Photos the still and its companion video share the same Content ID; Apple sometimes also reuses it for bracketed shots the camera merges into one HDR result.
• Live Photo ID — the same value as Content ID, surfaced under the more familiar Live Photo name. If this field is empty, the photo isn't half of a Live Photo. If it carries a UUID and you have another photo or video with the same value, those two are the still and the video of one Live Photo.
• Burst ID — a UUID shared by every photo taken in one burst sequence. If two photos show the same Burst ID, they were captured back-to-back in burst mode.

Practical use

Open a photo's metadata, copy a Content ID or Burst ID, then look for it on another photo to confirm the two were captured together. Both fields are empty on photos that weren't part of a Live Photo or a burst.

Why does the Mac app show more metadata than iPhone or iPad?

Embedded XMP from desktop editors (ratings, labels, keyword trees, edit history, AI and drone data) is read on iPhone, iPad and Mac alike, straight from the photo's original file. The Mac shows a little more because you can open files from any folder: it additionally reads a .xmp sidecar sitting next to the file and Finder details such as tags, comments and where a file came from, neither of which the Photo Library exposes on iPhone and iPad.

Still have a question? Get in touch — I'm happy to help.