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Media Location Tagger macOS · v1.00b01

Troubleshooting

Answers to the most common questions and problems.

This page covers the questions and problems that come up most often with Media Location Tagger. If your problem isn't covered here, please get in touch — a short description of what you did, what you expected and what happened instead is usually all we need.

Looking for how-to instructions instead? The help pages walk through installation and the five most common tagging scenarios step by step.

“Some files could not be modified” — what the error messages mean

First, the good news: when a write fails, your original file is left untouched. Media Location Tagger never modifies a file in place — it writes a new copy next to the original and only replaces the original once the new copy is complete. A failed write means the replacement never happened, not that your file was half-changed.

When one or more files can't be written, the app shows a summary alert. Click Show Details… to see exactly which files failed and why, and Copy to Clipboard if you want to paste the list into an email to us. Here is what the individual messages mean:

“The file could not be replaced — it may be locked or in a read-only location”

  • Locked file: select the file in the Finder, press ⌘I (Get Info) and untick “Locked”.
  • SD card: most SD cards have a small physical lock slider on the side. Slide it away from the “LOCK” position.
  • Read-only volume: you cannot write to a mounted disk image, a Windows NTFS drive (without third-party drivers), or a folder you only have read access to. Copy the files to your Mac first, tag them there, then copy them back.
  • Network share: check that your account has write permission on the server, and try tagging a local copy if the share keeps failing.

“The file could not be opened — it may have been moved, deleted or not yet downloaded”

The file was there when it was scanned, but it isn't at that location any more — usually because it was moved, renamed or deleted in the Finder in the meantime, or because it is a cloud placeholder that hasn't actually been downloaded to your Mac (see below). Choose View ▸ Reload (⌘R) to rescan.

“This file format cannot be written”

The file's format has no defined place to store GPS or IPTC location data, or is one that can only be read. See which formats can be written below.

“A leftover temporary file is blocking the write”

If a write is interrupted at exactly the wrong moment (a crash, a force-quit, a disk being yanked out), a temporary file named like photo.jpg_exiftool_tmp can be left behind next to the original. Current versions of Media Location Tagger detect and remove these automatically before writing. If you ever find _exiftool_tmp files in your folders, they are safe to delete — they are incomplete working copies; your originals are intact.

Permission errors

If the message mentions permissions, macOS is most likely blocking the app's access to that folder — see the permissions section below.

Files in iCloud Drive or Dropbox that are “online only”

iCloud Drive (with “Optimise Mac Storage” switched on), Dropbox, OneDrive and similar services can keep files in the cloud and leave only a small placeholder on your Mac. These placeholders look like normal files in the Finder, but their actual content isn't on your disk.

Media Location Tagger needs the real file to read and write metadata. A placeholder file will either fail with a “could not be opened” error or make the app wait a long time while the cloud service downloads it in the background.

The fix: download the files before tagging them.

  • iCloud Drive: right-click the folder in the Finder and choose Download Now, or switch off “Optimise Mac Storage” in System Settings ▸ Apple ID ▸ iCloud.
  • Dropbox / OneDrive: right-click the folder and choose Make Available Offline (or your service's equivalent).

macOS permission prompts — and what happens if you denied one

Modern versions of macOS ask for your consent the first time an application touches your Desktop, Documents or Downloads folders, removable drives, network volumes or iCloud Drive. When Media Location Tagger first accesses files in one of these locations, macOS shows a permission dialog on our behalf.

If that dialog was ever dismissed with Don't Allow — easily done by accident — macOS silently blocks access from then on, and reads or writes in that location will fail with permission errors.

To check and fix this:

  • Open System Settings ▸ Privacy & Security ▸ Files and Folders, find Media Location Tagger and make sure the relevant locations are switched on.
  • If the problem persists, granting the app Full Disk Access (in the same Privacy & Security pane) removes all per-folder restrictions in one go.
  • Restart Media Location Tagger after changing these settings.

A file refuses to save because it is damaged

Some files have internally damaged or non-standard metadata structures — the result of buggy camera firmware, over-aggressive “metadata cleaner” tools, interrupted downloads or bit rot. When Media Location Tagger encounters one of these, it deliberately refuses to write to it rather than risk making the damage worse. The original file is left exactly as it was, and the error message reports what the metadata engine found (for example “Not a valid JPG”).

If you need to tag such a file anyway, re-exporting it from an image editor usually rebuilds a clean metadata structure that can then be written normally.

Which file formats can be written?

Media Location Tagger writes GPS and IPTC location metadata to all common photo and video formats: JPEG, HEIC/HEIF, TIFF, PNG, DNG and camera RAW formats (CR2, CR3, NEF, ARW, RAF, ORF, RW2, PEF and others), as well as MOV, MP4, M4V and the wider QuickTime family of video formats.

It can read metadata from a far larger set of formats. Files in a format that can be read but not written will show their metadata normally and report “This file format cannot be written” if you try to change them. Files in formats the app doesn't know at all simply show blank metadata columns.

A few related things that are easy to trip over:

  • Hidden files are skipped. Files whose names start with a dot are invisible in the Finder and are deliberately not scanned. A folder containing only hidden files will appear empty.
  • Packages appear as a single item. Things like an Apple Photos library (.photoslibrary) are folders dressed up as single files. They show up as one row and cannot be written to. Media Location Tagger edits files, not photo libraries — export the pictures from Photos first, tag the exported files, then re-import them if you wish.

XMP: sidecar files and the orange “out of sync” indicator

Many files carry their metadata twice: once in the classic legacy form (EXIF for photos, QuickTime tags for videos, IPTC-IIM for editorial fields) and once in a modern embedded XMP packet. Different applications read different copies, so when the two disagree, your photos can show one location in one program and another location — or none at all — in the next.

Media Location Tagger shows an orange indicator in the table when a file's legacy and XMP metadata disagree. Hover over it for details. You don't need to do anything special about it: the next time you apply or save location data to that file, both copies are written and brought back in sync, following the industry-standard MWG guidelines.

One current limitation: Media Location Tagger works with metadata embedded in the media files themselves. Separate XMP sidecar files (photo.xmp next to photo.nef, as used by some RAW workflows) are not paired with their RAW files. If your workflow relies on sidecars, tag the RAW file itself and let your RAW converter re-read it, or update the sidecar in your RAW software.

Dropping a pin does nothing, or the place-name fields stay blank

When you drop a pin, Media Location Tagger asks Apple's online geocoding service for the place names (sub-location, city, province, country) at that spot. This requires two things:

  • An internet connection. Without one, the lookup cannot run.
  • Location Services permission. Check System Settings ▸ Privacy & Security ▸ Location Services and make sure Location Services is on and Media Location Tagger is allowed.

Apple also rate-limits these lookups: if you drop many pins in rapid succession, later requests may be temporarily rejected. Wait a few seconds and try again.

Note that this only affects pins and place-name lookups on the map. Applying GPS coordinates to your files, and the automatic city/country suggestions derived from coordinates already in your files, work entirely offline — see the next section.

Media Location Tagger uses two different location databases, and it helps to know which is which:

  • The map search field (place names, addresses, points of interest) uses the same online Apple Maps service as the Maps app. It needs an internet connection; without one, no suggestions appear.
  • The city/province/country suggestions for files that already have GPS coordinates come from a built-in offline database. These work with no internet connection at all and have no rate limits — ideal for tagging thousands of files in one go.

The offline database is a city-level gazetteer: it names the nearest populated place, region and country. It does not know street addresses or individual buildings — for those, use the online map search, or simply type what you want into the IPTC fields yourself.

The file list is empty when I relaunch the app

This is by design. Media Location Tagger starts each session with a clean slate rather than re-scanning (and potentially re-touching) the files from your last session. Metadata editing changes files permanently, so the app prefers that every session begins with you deliberately choosing what to work on. Just drag your folder back in — scanning is fast.

Nothing happens when I click Apply

A few things to check, in order of likelihood:

  • Is anything selected? Apply operates on the files selected in the table. With no selection, there is nothing to apply to.
  • Are both coordinates filled in? GPS needs a latitude and a longitude. With either field empty, nothing is written.
  • Are you in trial mode with more than 5 files selected? The trial writes at most 5 files per session, and it is all-or-nothing: if your selection would exceed the limit, no files are changed and the trial dialog explains why. Select 5 or fewer files, or unlock the app.

How the free trial works

  • You can add as many files as you like and use every feature of the app.
  • The trial saves changes to up to 5 distinct files per session. Quitting and relaunching the app starts a fresh session with a fresh count.
  • Changing the same file several times only counts it once.
  • If a single Apply would take you past the limit, nothing is written at all (rather than an unpredictable subset of your selection), and a dialog explains the situation.

There is no time limit — take as long as you need to decide. Purchasing removes the file limit; the trial download is the full version, unlocked by your code.

My unlock code isn't accepted

The easy way first: your purchase confirmation email contains an unlock link. Clicking it opens a page on our website, which hands your code straight to Media Location Tagger: the app opens with the unlock dialog already filled in — just confirm. (macOS may ask whether to allow the website to open Media Location Tagger; click Allow.) No copying, no typing, no typos.

If you'd rather enter the code by hand, choose Enter Unlock Code… from the Media Location Tagger application menu and paste the code from your email. Some tips:

  • Your code starts with MLT-. Codes for our other products (ABFR-, ABFA-, …) won't unlock Media Location Tagger.
  • Paste the whole line — stray spaces, quotes and surrounding text are cleaned up automatically.
  • If the code passed through a word processor or PDF, the dashes may have been silently converted into “smart” dashes. Retype them as plain hyphens.

A correct code that is still rejected almost always means the app couldn't save the registration to disk. The code is stored in a small file in ~/Library/Preferences — if that folder isn't writable by your account (rare, but it happens after migrations or permission repairs), the unlock fails even with a valid code. Check the folder's permissions via Get Info in the Finder, or contact us and we'll sort it out.

Lost your code? Get in touch with the email address or name you ordered under and we'll look it up.

Resetting the app to factory settings

Before anything drastic: if the app is merely showing stale or wrong metadata, choose View ▸ Reload (⌘R). This clears the metadata cache and re-reads every file from disk — it fixes the vast majority of “the display looks wrong” situations.

For a full reset, quit Media Location Tagger, then remove these items:

  • ~/Library/Preferences/net.publicspace.medialocationtagger.plist — all settings: window layout, columns, update-check state. Deleting this does not remove your license.
  • ~/Library/Caches/net.publicspace.medialocationtagger — caches, including partially downloaded updates.

To open these locations, use Go ▸ Go to Folder… in the Finder and paste the path. Your registration is kept separately in ~/Library/Preferences/Media Location Tagger Registration — leave that file alone unless you want to de-register the app (and keep your unlock code somewhere safe either way).

Updates aren't offered, or an update fails

  • Run the app from your Applications folder, not from inside the downloaded disk image. An app launched from a mounted DMG lives on a read-only volume and cannot update itself. Drag Media Location Tagger to Applications first, then eject the disk image.
  • Did you click “Skip This Version” at some point? macOS remembers that choice and won't offer that particular version again. To undo it, quit the app and run this in Terminal: defaults delete net.publicspace.medialocationtagger SUSkippedVersion
  • A stuck or corrupt download can block updating. Quit the app and delete ~/Library/Caches/net.publicspace.medialocationtagger, then check for updates again.
  • And when all else fails: download the latest version directly and replace the copy in your Applications folder. Your license and settings are kept.