I have the last three planned updates to my GUI apps, for two apps that complement Metamer in helping you edit metadata, and an app intended to protect your privacy. These improve their code handling extended attributes to help it work better with future versions of macOS. They also no longer check their own signatures on opening, a feature now performed by macOS.

SearchKey and SearchKeyLite versions 1.5 edit a standard suite of metadata stored as extended attributes. SearchKey will do this on both individual files and whole folders, while SearchKeyLite is simpler and works with just individual files.

For example, with SearchKey it’s quick and simple to add author and copyright data to all the images stored in a folder, or to strip them when you want to work on a batch.

SearchKey 1.5 is now available from here: searchkey15
from Downloads above, and from its Product Page.

SearchKeyLite 1.5 is now available from here: searchkeylite15
from Downloads above, and from its Product Page.

As they’re seldom updated, they don’t use my auto-update mechanism. Both apps run on High Sierra and later.

Scrub is designed to strip out a lot of hidden data which could prove damaging if examined by third parties, thereby protecting your privacy. These include:

• extended attributes (xattrs), which often contain download source and time and much more,
• Spotlight metadata, which opens the contents of documents to search,
• versions, which may contain material which was later removed or redacted from a document,
• the QuickLook cache (High Sierra only), which could readily show previews of images and other files you have used,
• system logs, which can contain entries revealing your Mac’s activities over previous days,
• datestamps on files, which reveal when a document was created and last modified.

Removing those is a serious and committing action. By definition, you can’t have an Undo, and used inappropriately, Scrub can cause damage and lose data. To help you avoid that, it works in two phases: you first perform an audit of the volume/folder/document you want to scrub clean, and that lets you know of any particular dangers in doing so. When you’re happy that what you’re intending to do won’t cause damage, you can then run the scrub to clean those files.

This is ideal, for example, when you need to clean a ‘thumb’ drive containing sensitive documents. Used without great care on your Home folder, it will cause severe damage which you may find very difficult to reverse.

Scrub version 1.3 is now available from here: scrub13
from Downloads above, and from its Product Page. This version runs on High Sierra and later.

I regret that I am discontinuing further versions or support for two related utilities: Sandstrip and Pratique. These have now fulfilled their purpose, and have no place in Big Sur or later. I will leave their current versions available from their Product Page if you do still wish to use them.

The remaining updates I have due are both command tools: cintch, part of the Dintch/Fintch integrity checking suite, and cmpxat, for comparing extended attributes.