Find & Replace
Fix one wrong value everywhere.
A wrong jersey number does not stay in one caption. It spreads across every photo you already wrote. Find & Replace substitutes text across any writable metadata field, or the filename, for the selection or the whole folder.
Full walkthrough
Correct a value across a folder
Narrow the grid to the photos involved, preview the match count, then write the correction into the files.
- Start by finding the photos. Edit ▸ Find in This Folder, or ⌥⌘F (Ctrl+Alt+F on Windows), searches filenames and any metadata field and narrows the grid in place. It composes with the facet filters. This is separate from ⌘F Search, which spans the whole archive.Press and hold to enlarge
- Confirm what is actually wrong before you replace anything. Here the caption reads number three while the jersey and the roster card both say number two. One wrong digit, already embedded in every caption in the set.Press and hold to enlarge
- Open Edit ▸ Find & Replace in Metadata, ⌥⌘R (Ctrl+Alt+R on Windows), or right-click the selection. Set the scope to Selection or Entire gallery — each shows its photo count. Choose Exact phrase, which matches anywhere in the value, or Whole words only, so “Cal” never hits “Calvin”. Case sensitivity is its own toggle. Tick the fields to search; Description is on by default.Press and hold to enlarge
- A live per-field match count updates as you type, so you see exactly how many values will change before anything is written. Press Replace and the correction goes into the files themselves. RAW and JPEG pairs both update, RAW edits route to the
.xmpsidecar, and the search index and catalog refresh behind it.Press and hold to enlarge
Before you run it
There is no undo
Metadata writes are not reversible from inside the app. The per-field match counts are the safety net, so read them before pressing Replace. Two behaviors worth knowing: list fields such as Keywords and Persons match and replace per item rather than across the whole string, and leaving the replace box empty clears that tag rather than writing an empty value.
Also covered
Filenames and field limits
Filename replaces run on the stem only. The extension is protected and re-appended, and because both halves of a RAW+JPEG pair share a stem, one replace keeps them matched. Fields with fixed values or dates are deliberately left out of the list, since a substring replace inside a timestamp or a PLUS URI writes garbage. EXIF text fields are included and carry a badge.