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User Guide

Summary

Jade GT is a photo metadata editor that runs entirely in your browser. Drop in photos, edit GPS, keywords, captions, and capture times across six tabs, then commit the batch to disk. Your photos never leave your device. Nothing uploads to a server.

  • New to Jade GT?

    Start with Getting Started for a 5-minute tour of the workspace, then come back to this page to pick a tab.

  • Privacy first

    Every edit runs in your browser. The only data Jade GT pulls from the cloud is a shared trademark list. The list is read-only and holds no information about you or your files.

  • Going Pro?

    Pro Features covers RAW support, Direct Save, unlimited batches, and the Mobile GPS Logger.

The Jade GT workspace on first load, with the "Open Photos" call-to-action centered on an empty gallery. The Jade GT workspace on first load, with the "Open Photos" call-to-action centered on an empty gallery.
The empty workspace: drop photos here, or click Open Photos to pick them.

Quick start

Five steps to your first geotagged photo

  1. Open the app and click Open Photos → Select Individual Files. Pick a few JPEGs.
  2. In the Photos panel, click a photo to select it.
  3. Open the Location tab and type an address into the search bar, or paste coordinates.
  4. Click the Commit button in the Details Panel header. Review the summary.
  5. Click Write Changes to Disk. Your files download (Export Mode) or are written in place (Direct Save).

Everything else in this guide expands on those five steps.

Browse the guide

  • Getting Started

    Loading photos, choosing a saving strategy, and the workspace layout.

  • Preview tab

    The photo's identity dashboard: triage, image preview, and staged edits.

  • Location tab

    Smart Paste, address search, location presets, and GPX track sync.

  • Mobile GPS Logger (Pro)

    Field recording, the Sync Ritual, and finding your camera's clock error.

  • Phone Metadata

    Send GPS, capture time, and IPTC fields from your phone to a desktop session with a 6-character code.

  • Tags tab

    Keywords, captions, rights, classification, and Stock Readiness.

  • Compress tab

    AVIF, WebP, and JPEG re-encoding with codecs that run in your browser.

  • Rename tab

    Batch rename with tokens like {date}, {city}, and {index}.

  • EXIF Info tab

    Shift capture times, inspect every EXIF field, run the Privacy Scrub.

  • Review & Commit

    The Review Hub: per-category checkboxes and final write-to-disk.

  • Pro Features

    What Pro unlocks, billing, and restoring on a new device.

  • Troubleshooting

    Common problems and their fixes.

  • Keyboard Shortcuts

    Every keystroke the app recognises, in one table.

System requirements

Jade GT runs entirely in the browser. What you get depends on the browser.

Latest Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Brave, Arc, or Opera. These browsers can write back to a folder on your computer, which Direct Save needs to update your original files.

Apple Safari and Mozilla Firefox handle every editing and address-lookup feature, but stay in Export Mode. Jade GT downloads updated copies instead of writing back to the originals.

Other things to know:

  • Hardware acceleration should stay on in your browser so the map and gallery stay smooth.
  • RAM: batches of 2,000+ photos run more smoothly with more RAM available.
  • Per-file limit: Jade GT accepts files up to 50 MB. Larger files skip the import with a warning.

Supported file formats

Jade GT handles a wide range of photo formats. Each format has its own metadata writer.

  • Fully supported (Free and Pro)

    JPG, JPEG, PNG, WebP, AVIF, and HEIC. View, edit, and save metadata (the captions, keywords, GPS, and camera data inside your photos). Keywords, subject codes, and scene codes land in the same fields Adobe Bridge, Lightroom, and Capture One use.

  • RAW (Pro)

    500+ formats including .CR2, .CR3, .ARW, .NEF, .ORF, and .DNG. Jade GT writes a small sidecar file (the .xmp companion Lightroom and Capture One read) next to the original RAW and writes GPS tags into the RAW header when it can. Your RAW stays untouched.

RAW requires Pro

Free-tier users can't load RAW files. Jade GT skips them at import time. Upgrade to Pro to turn on RAW.

The metadata engine warms up early

The metadata engine loads in the background while you're still picking photos, so your first save doesn't pause to start up.

How Jade GT processes your photos

Jade GT reads many photos at the same time, so a 2,000-photo gallery loads quickly. Saves run one file at a time so each written file matches what you staged.

flowchart LR
  A[Open Photos] --> B[Background readers<br/>parallel]
  B --> C[Photos panel<br/>thumbnails + facts]
  C --> D{Edit in any tab}

↓

flowchart LR
  E[Pending edits] --> F[Commit / Review Hub]
  F -->|in your browser| G[ExifTool engine<br/>writes back]
  G --> H[Direct Save<br/>or Export ZIP]

Looking up a term or a shortcut?

The Glossary defines EXIF, IPTC, XMP, and the other acronyms used across this guide. The Keyboard Shortcuts page lists every keystroke Jade GT recognises in one table.