Adding same comment to multiple file in Finder

Question

Adding same comment to multiple file in Finder

Relatively new Mac user here, with a Mac mini which I mainly use to edit and store photos that I have taken. I would like to be able to add the same comment(s) to multiple files at the same time (eg photo location, subject etc) but Apple support say it's not possible directly in Finder. This surprised me as I could do it easily in Windows. I see a question in the community from around 2017 about this (using automator/service) but I can't make the suggested answer work. Is it still valid or does new OS mean there's a new way or that it can't be done? Thanks.

Mac mini, macOS 15.0

Posted on Oct 11, 2024 8:21 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Matti Haveri

Level 6

16,351 points

Oct 11, 2024 9:08 AM in response to Harvey_Parker

You could do it with 3rd party tools like exiftool. But Finder comments are proprietary and fragile if they are routed through foreign filesystems.

So I'd advice you to write metadata (dates, locations, captions, keywords etc) to cross-platform more robust metadata like EXIF and XMP (maybe also IPTC although it is being phased out) with tools like GraphicConverter or exiftool.

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Answer 2

Niel

Level 10

731,171 points

Oct 12, 2024 7:25 AM in response to Harvey_Parker

Choose Utilities from the Finder's Go menu, open the Script Editor, and run one such as:

tell application "Finder"

repeat with this_item in (get selection)

set comment of this_item to "comment"

end repeat

end tell

(255902)

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Answer 3

Oct 12, 2024 3:26 AM in response to Matti Haveri

Thank you for replying Matti. Although I don't follow some of your suggestion I will investigate further. Presumably though you are saying it isn't possible to do what I want directly in Finder?

I have found that I can do it using Automator and a service but it seems that I need to create this every time I want to add a comment (ie each comment/batch of comments needs its own service) so if it's only a few files it's easier to do it manually. I had thought/hoped I would be able to create a service that I could run whenever I wanted to and it would allow me then to add the specific comments each time I ran it but that doesn't seem to be the case.

Thanks again anyway.

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Answer 4

Oct 14, 2024 3:52 AM in response to Niel

Thanks Niel - I'll try this.

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