Apple has a great feature in Finder under the preview panel that shows information about documents & videos such as "where from" which tells you where the document or video was downloaded from.
Trouble is, it doesn't work with images. I really need this feature for images so I'm wondering if there is a way to be able to add this to images to recall where they were downloaded from? Is there somewhere I can add this in?
I have downloaded .svg, .png, .pdf, and .jpg images, or received them as Mail attachments and the Where from Spotlight metadata attribute was automatically placed on them. I also have the Spotlight Search Result category for Images set, though I am uncertain if that does or does not matter when the image is downloaded.
In the Terminal, you can assign a URL or any other string to a file's Where from metadata attribute:
xattr -w com.apple.metadata:kMDItemWhereFroms "https://www.apple.com" ./foo.png
This now displays in the Finder Get Info panel with the Apple URL.
As you can see from your screen shot, you can't make Where from show up in the Preview Pane for an Image file.
Just Get Info on the file and open the More Info section of the Get Info window.
Use cmd-opt-i for Get Info and it will open a panel that changes with the selection in Finder. Put the panel over to the side of the Preview pane.
In addition to the answers you’ve already got: select an image in the Finder and go to View->Show Preview Options, and make sure that the information you want is checked (and also uncheck any that is not relevant)
Note: that is “Show Preview Options”, not to be confused with “Show View Options” from the same menu.
Get Info in the file and see if it shows up there. They may just not show it in the Preview pane as there is a lot of other info to show for an image.
Thanks Barney, I can see that it does show there (sometimes) but I was wondering if it were possible to somehow get it to also list on the preview pane as this what I have as a default view and easier than opening the info for every file.
You posted the capabilities for image files. I don't know why that doesn't seem to be enough information for you to understand that what you want is not possible.
Thank you Luis, I did that but shows no option for "where from" information. The files/PDF/videos screenshot (2) shows that it gives different options than the screenshot (1) for what can be selected/shown for images.
Thanks Barney, I can see that it does show there (sometimes) but I was wondering if it were possible to somehow get it to also list on the preview pane as this what I have as a default view and easier than opening the info for every file.
Thanks VikingOSX, I understand the arbitrary selection of the apple url but I didn't understand why you needed to specify a URL. I mean I am asking it to show me where the image came from ie. it's original URL so I don't understand why I need to specify a URL. Pardon my ignorance here .. it sounds really helpful I just don't understand it.
Because there are often workarounds and command lines to change default on things so I was hoping maybe there was a way to show it in the preview pane instead in lieu of the extra step clicking the information. I access it so frequently it would be much easier and quicker to just have it showing in the preview panel. Ce la vie!
This sounds so helpful but I'm a little lost. I don't understand the 'apple URL' scenario. I have no problem with using Terminal I just don't understand the statement.
The text string that I assigned to the Spotlight kMDItemWhereFroms metadata was arbitrarily chosen as a URL to Apple. It could be any URL string or just a text string.
Finder Preview Panel - "Where from" feature
