Photos on iOS

There are several iOS apps that allow you to view and edit photo metadata, which includes keywords. The metadata is commonly called EXIF data and most of these apps have that term in their app name. All the apps I’ve tested work directly with the iOS / iPadOS photo library. The apps first require your permission to access the library, then present thumbnail images to pick from. Some apps allow you to edit more than one photo at a time. I’ve found the apps that I’ve tried are pretty simple with fairly crude interfaces. When the metadata (e.g. keywords) is added/edited you have the option of saving a new photo or overwriting the existing one.

The more recent Photos app (I discovered this running v16.1.1 on my iPad) will search for keywords and display a count of matches and allow you to display the resulting photos. I was able to add/edit keywords to photos with the first few apps that I tried but the keywords were not found when I searched for them in Photos. So far I’ve only found one app, EXIF Metadata, that saves the keywords in a way that causes the search in Photos to find them. This app is currently free but with some unpleasant video ads after each edit. You can upgrade to remove the ads and get a few other features such as batch editing.

Another nice feature that at least some apps have is an extension that allows you to view the photo metadata from within the Photos app. You select a photo then select the app’s name within the Share menu.