09-inspector
The Inspector
The Inspector panel on the right side of the window is where all of Iris's metadata and ML insight surfaces. It has five tabs, each focused on a different way of understanding the selected item.
Toggle the Inspector with ⌘⌥0 or the toolbar button.
Switch tabs with the icons at the top of the panel, or use keyboard shortcuts:
| Shortcut | Tab |
|---|---|
⌘⌥1 |
Summary |
⌘⌥2 |
Details |
⌘⌥3 |
People |
⌘⌥4 |
Magic |
⌘⌥5 |
Metadata |
Summary tab
The Summary tab is the human‑friendly overview — the answer to "what is this photo about?"
It's organized into sections:
| Section | What it shows |
|---|---|
| When | Capture date, time of day, day of week, and a relative phrase ("3 days ago"). A heart button toggles favorite. |
| On This Day | Links to other items captured on this same calendar date. |
| Chapters | Chapters this item belongs to. |
| Where | A small map snippet, the location name, and a link to nearby items. |
| People | Identified people in this photo. Click to jump to the People tab. |
If a section has no data (e.g., a photo with no GPS), that section is hidden.
Details tab
The Details tab is the technical metadata view.
Typical fields:
- Filename
- Filesize
- File Type
- Source
- Folder - click to reveal in Finder
- Camera Maker - click to see all items from this camera maker
- Camera Model - click to see all items from this camera model
- Location - raw latitude / longitude
- Image Size - pixel dimensions
- Date Captured
- Date Added - date added to Iris
All fields are read‑only — Iris doesn't write back to your files. To change the data Iris uses (e.g., a manual date estimate), see Item actions.
People tab
The People tab shows every face Iris has detected in the current item.
It's split into two sections:
Named people
Faces Iris has matched to a named person appear here, with the person's name underneath the face thumbnail. Click a face to navigate to that person's collection.
Unknown faces
Detected faces Iris hasn't matched to anyone yet. Right‑click a thumbnail to:
- Assign to Person… — Pick an existing person, or create a new one.
- Reject — Mark this as a false positive. Iris won't show it as an unknown face anymore.
See People and face recognition for the full workflow.
Magic tab
The Magic tab shows what Iris's ML has learned about the image.
| Section | What it shows |
|---|---|
| OCR Text | Text Iris found in the image — signs, documents, receipts, license plates. You can copy any of it with ⌘⇧C. |
| Tags | Labels the ML assigned to the image, covering objects, scenes, activities, and subjects. |
If the item hasn't been processed yet, the tab shows a "Not yet analyzed" placeholder. Processing happens in the background — see The background pipeline.
For videos, this tab also surfaces the transcript if transcription is enabled in Settings → Library.
Metadata tab
The Metadata tab is the complete structured view — every field Iris has, grouped and labelled. Use this when you're looking for something specific that doesn't appear in Details (camera serial number, software version, color space, focal plane resolution unit, ICC profile name, etc.). It's the "show me everything" tab.
Context‑aware inspectors
When you select something other than a photo in the sidebar — a Person, a Source, a Location — the inspector switches to a contextual view appropriate for that thing:
- Person inspector — Name, birthdate, photo count, recent items, other people they often appear with.
- Source inspector — Path on disk, file count, last scan date.