Universal File Metadata Manager — read, edit, delete and compare metadata across all major file formats, entirely offline.
Tip
💡 No account, no cloud, no setup. Download a binary, double-click, and start browsing — MetaLens never touches the network.
| 📄 Document | 📝 Purpose |
|---|---|
| 📋 REQUIREMENTS.md | System requirements and prerequisites |
| 🚀 INSTALLATION.md | Step-by-step installation & build-from-source |
| 📖 USAGE.md | How to use the application |
| 📡 API.md | Sidecar REST API reference for developers |
- Grab the latest installer for your platform from Releases
- Run it — Windows SmartScreen may warn since the build is unsigned; click "More info" → "Run anyway"
- MetaLens opens with a folder tree on the left — click a folder, then a file, to see its metadata
⏱️ No install wait, no dependency download. Python and Node.js are bundled into the binary — nothing to set up.
Important
✅ For full details, see INSTALLATION.md
File (image / audio / video / document / anything)
│
▼
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ 🖼️ Images → EXIF, IPTC, XMP (+ RAW read) │
│ 🎵 Audio → ID3, Vorbis comments, tags │
│ 🎬 Video → container metadata │
│ 📄 PDF → document info dictionary │
│ 📊 Office → DOCX/XLSX/PPTX properties │
│ 📁 Any file → filesystem timestamps, │
│ permissions, xattr │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────┘
│
▼
👁️ View · ✏️ Edit · 🗑️ Delete · ⚖️ Diff · 🔑 Hash
- 🗂️ File-manager UI — folder tree + file list + metadata detail panel
- 🖼️ All major formats — images (JPEG/PNG/TIFF/WebP/RAW), audio (MP3/FLAC/OGG/M4A/WAV), video (MP4/MKV/MOV), documents (PDF/DOCX/XLSX/PPTX/DOC/XLS), and any other file via filesystem metadata
- ✏️ Full operations — read, edit, delete individual fields, compare/diff two files
- 🔒 Atomic writes — temp-file + rename, no file corruption on failure
- ↩️ Undo stack — 50 operations per session
- 🔑 File integrity hashes — on-demand MD5 / SHA-1 / SHA-256 / SHA-512 / BLAKE2b with one-click copy
- 🎨 Cyber dark theme — professional dark UI with cyan/blue accents
- 📦 Compiled binaries — no Python or Node.js required to run
- 💾 Offline-first — zero network calls, zero telemetry
- 🆓 Free & open-source — MIT license
v0.2.5 — Maintenance and security update for Electron/frontend dependencies, including the upstream fast-uri security fixes. No changes to application behavior or the API.
📖 See full version history → CHANGELOG.md
- Windows 10/11 (64-bit) or a modern Linux distro (
.deb/.rpm/.tar.gz) - RAM 512 MB free
- Disk ~300 MB installed
- No Python or Node.js needed to run the app — only to build it from source
Important
✅ For complete requirements, see REQUIREMENTS.md
Follow INSTALLATION.md for Windows/Linux binaries or building from source.
Learn the interface in USAGE.md.
Explore the sidecar API in API.md.
| Category | Formats | Read | Write |
|---|---|---|---|
| Images | JPEG, PNG, TIFF, BMP, GIF, WebP | ✅ | ✅ |
| Images (RAW) | CR2, NEF, ARW, DNG | ✅ | — |
| Audio | MP3, FLAC, OGG, M4A, WAV, AIFF, WMA, APE, Opus | ✅ | ✅ |
| Video | MP4, MOV | ✅ | ✅ |
| Video | MKV, AVI | ✅ | — |
| Documents | ✅ | ✅ | |
| Office | DOCX, XLSX, PPTX | ✅ | ✅ |
| Office (legacy) | DOC, XLS, PPT | ✅ | — |
| Any file | Filesystem timestamps, permissions, xattr | ✅ | ✅ |
| Other | Hundreds of formats via hachoir | ✅ | — |
Compute cryptographic hashes on demand from the Metadata panel — no impact on browsing performance:
| Algorithm | Notes |
|---|---|
| MD5 | Legacy, widely used for checksums |
| SHA-1 | Legacy, used by Git and many tools |
| SHA-256 | Modern standard, recommended |
| SHA-512 | High-security workloads |
| BLAKE2b | Fast modern algorithm, built into Python |
| Layer | Technology | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Desktop shell | Electron (Node.js main process) | Spawns the Python sidecar, native menus & dialogs |
| Renderer UI | React 19, Vite, TailwindCSS v4 | Folder tree, file list, metadata detail panel |
| Sidecar | Python 3.11–3.13, FastAPI, uvicorn | Metadata extraction/write engine, 127.0.0.1 only |
Electron Main (Node.js)
├── Spawns Python sidecar (FastAPI, localhost only)
├── Manages window, native menus, file dialogs
└── IPC bridge (contextBridge) ↔ React renderer
Python Sidecar (FastAPI)
├── /list — directory listing with handler detection
├── /read — full metadata extraction
├── /write — atomic metadata write-back
├── /delete — field removal
├── /diff — metadata comparison
└── /hash — on-demand file hashing
React Frontend (Vite + TailwindCSS)
├── FolderPanel — folder tree navigation
├── FilePanel — file list with metadata summary
└── DetailPanel — View / Edit / Diff tabs
📖 Full endpoint reference → API.md
✅ 48 automated tests covering handlers, the handler registry, and path-security validation.
pytest python/tests/ -v- 🛡️ No cloud dependencies — everything runs locally
- 🔒 No telemetry — zero data collection
- 📁 Localhost-only sidecar — the Python API never binds beyond
127.0.0.1 - 🔓 Open source — fully auditable code
- ⚡ Fully offline — no internet connection required, ever
📖 See SECURITY.md for the full security model.
Contributions are welcome! Please:
- Fork the repository
- Create a feature branch (
git checkout -b feature/your-feature) - Commit changes with clear messages
- Push to your fork
- Open a Pull Request to
developbranch
📖 See CONTRIBUTING.md for the full guide.
Note
📖 All PRs should target the develop branch, not main.
Distributed under the MIT License. See LICENSE for details.
- 📖 Documentation: See docs/ folder
- 🐛 Report issues: GitHub Issues
- 💬 Questions: Open a GitHub Discussion
Developed by Graziano Mariella
Distributed with MIT License · View License
Last updated: 2026-07-25 ← Requirements | Docs →