Getting to know the interface
A tour of the main window — every panel and control, plus the special views you'll use to identify people and write captions.
Main window's initial view
idXpresso is organized into four stacked areas, top to bottom. Hover or tap the boxes and controls for details, and click a section name to jump to its explanation.
Main window's special views
Beyond the default layout, the main window has three focused modes. Switch between them below and hover the highlighted controls to see what they do.
Caption editor
Switches the lower pane from the face list to a full caption editor for the current photo, so the people you named flow straight into a finished caption.
Caption field
Type or edit the photo's caption. Names you confirmed can be pulled in as you write.
Write Metadata toggle
When on, the caption is written into the file's standard metadata when you commit. What gets written is configured in Settings ▸ Metadata.
View toggle
The document icon in the status bar switches between the face list and this caption editor ⌘I. Its color and fill tell you the caption's state at a glance:
Watch folder controls
Point idXpresso at a folder and it processes new photos automatically as they land. Open the controls from the folder icon in the status bar.
Status
Shows whether the watch folder is idle or actively processing incoming photos. The folder icon in the status bar changes color to reflect this:
Enabled
Turn automatic watching on or off without losing your configuration.
Configure…
Choose which folder to watch and how newly added files are handled — the full options live in Settings ▸ Watch Folder.
ID picker & adder
Click a face's name dropdown to open the picker. Search your database, apply a suggested match, or add a brand-new person on the spot.
Search or add
Find an existing identity by name, or type a new name to create one.
Suggested matches
Ranked candidates with confidence — press ⌘1 to apply the top pick.
Other known people
Everyone else in your database, each with its own match confidence.
Add a new identity
Type a name that isn't in your database to open the Add Identity dialog (switch to Add identity above). Set the name and a title/caption, add optional photo and bio links, then Create to save it and apply it to the face.
The Identity Manager
The ID Manager is your people database. Browse and search identities, add or merge them, attach photos to build face encodings, and see each person's encoding status at a glance. Hover or tap the controls to explore.
When a dropped photo contains more than one face, idXpresso asks which face(s) belong to this identity. Each candidate shows its detected-face number, match confidence, and image sharpness — pick the right one(s) to add as encodings.
Understanding encoding status
Each identity shows an icon for its encoding state — whether idXpresso has usable face data for that person. The same states are tallied in the bottom-right status bar.
Grey — linked, not processed
The identity has a linked photo (for example a URL) that hasn't been processed yet. Process it to build an encoding.
Green — encoded, not verified
Has an encoding that's used for matching, but you haven't verified it yet — for example an encoding built from a link in an imported CSV.
Blue — encoded & verified
Has an encoding used for matching that you've also verified. The most trusted state.
Red — error
Something needs attention. The specific error is shown in the identity's detail panel — fix it and re-process.
Learning Mode
Learning Mode is a fast way to train idXpresso on people. Feed it captioned photos and it both creates the ID records and builds their face encodings in one pass. Hover or tap the controls to explore.
Drop photos
Drag captioned image files straight into the window.
Use Add
Click the Add button to open and pick photos.
Caption trigger
A metadata caption can start Learning Mode automatically (see below).
Caption format
Learning Mode reads each photo's IPTC caption to know who's in it. Use this pattern:
NAME;NAME & TITLEExample: Jane Doe; Director Jane Doe → creates an identity with Name = Jane Doe and Name with title = Director Jane Doe.
- Name only. A caption with just
Jane Doecreates the entry with only the name (no title). - Force Learning Mode. Prefix the caption with
idxpresso:— e.g.idxpresso: Jane Doe; Director Jane Doe— and idXpresso switches to Learning Mode automatically, whatever mode it's in. You can drop a learning photo into Recognition mode and the app knows to switch.
Import identities from a CSV
Bring in a whole list of people at once. Map your spreadsheet's columns to idXpresso's fields, preview the result, and import — creating ID records in bulk. Hover or tap the controls to explore.
Understanding how idXpresso works
What the colors, statuses, and confidence scores mean — how idXpresso decides who's who behind the scenes.
Understanding bounding boxes & match classes
Every detected face carries a color that signals its match status. The same color appears on the bounding box in the photo and on the accent bar in the face list, so a face reads the same way in both places.
Detected Yellow
A face was found but nothing cleared the auto-match confidence threshold set in Settings ▸ Recognition, so it's left for your review. This class still includes suggestions — sometimes high-confidence ones that just missed the threshold. Open the ID picker to choose: when idXpresso is confident enough it shows a confidence-ranked list, otherwise it falls back to an alphabetical / default sort (set by Sort identity suggestions by).
Auto-matched Green
idXpresso proposed a confident match from your database, shown with its confidence. Confirm it with thumbs-up, or correct it if it's wrong.
Confirmed Blue
You've verified and applied this identity — the face's metadata is complete through facial recognition and ready to commit.
Ignored Grey
You marked this face as ignored. It's skipped and won't be written into the caption or the file's metadata.
Keyboard shortcuts
The full set of shortcuts for driving idXpresso from the keyboard, grouped by context.
Windows & Modes
File
Faces
Photo
View
Edit
Face list · no modifiers
Active only when the face list has focus and no text field is being edited.
Identity picker popover
Identity Manager · list pane
Dialogs & sheets
Blocked while a modal is open
These beep instead of firing while a modal is showing.
Settings
Everything in the Settings window, tab by tab. The tag on each row tells you the control type — toggle, picker, slider, and so on — so you know how to change it.
{query} token where the name goes.{query} token.This tab controls how confidently idXpresso auto-matches faces. Pick a preset in Matching Mode, or choose Advanced controls to tune the individual thresholds yourself.
{ "term": ["synonym1", "synonym2"] }.This tab is for management and maintenance — it shows information and offers actions rather than toggles you set.
Account and plan management rather than settings you toggle.
Understanding custom views
idXpresso's View menu lets you tailor the workspace — strip distractions, zoom in on a face, or hide boxes as you resolve them. Flip the switches below and watch the window respond.
From the View menu
What the sharpest badge looks like
It's a small yellow corner tag — on the face's box in the photo, and on its thumbnail in the list (next to the name when you're in compact mode).
More view options in Settings ▸ Recognition
The Recognition tab has several controls that change what the ID picker and faces show:
Sort identity suggestions by
Order the ID picker list by confidence (highest first) or by name (A–Z).
Show suggestion counts
Show how many candidate matches a face has — as a simple count or a threshold breakdown, with an adjustable confidence cutoff.
Show face match score
Choose whether to display a score on a face, and which: absolute similarity, relative confidence, both, or none.
Hide identities already assigned
Removes people you've already used in this photo from the suggestion list, so you don't pick a duplicate.
Understanding the Watch Folder
Point idXpresso at a folder and it watches for new photos — dropping each supported image straight into your queue, no manual importing.
The watch folder lets you define a folder that idXpresso keeps an eye on. When a new supported photo appears there, the app automatically adds it to the queue. You enable it and tune how it behaves in Settings ▸ Watch Folder — choose the folder, watch subfolders, and gate imports by a metadata color class.
Here's why it matters: if your editing or cataloging app supports color classes (labels), you can effectively "send" a photo into idXpresso just by changing its color class in that app. idXpresso sees the change and pulls the photo in — which is what lets it slot neatly into an existing professional editing workflow instead of replacing it.
You also control it right from the main window. In recognition mode, click the watch-folder icon in the bottom toolbar to enable or disable it and jump to its preferences — the quick controls pop up right there.
Icon status key
The folder icon's color tells you the watch folder's state at a glance:
Off
The watch folder is disabled or no folder is set. Click the icon to turn it on.
Green — on
Set, active, and monitoring the folder for new photos.
Orange — error
Something needs attention — for example the watched folder is missing or unreadable.
Understanding metadata writing
idXpresso finishes captions instead of replacing them — it reads the caption already on a photo, adds the confirmed names, and writes everything back to the standard fields your other photo apps already read.
When you open a photo, idXpresso automatically reads any existing IPTC/XMP caption and loads it into the caption field. This is built for a professional workflow: many teams pre-caption images with a general description the moment they ingest them, then let idXpresso complete the caption by adding the identified names to the front.
Nothing is written until you press Commit. At that point idXpresso writes to the proper IPTC/XMP fields — caption, keywords, and persons in image — all standard fields that leading photo-editing programs can read. You can turn writing on or off at any time with the Write Metadata toggle in caption mode, or set the default in Settings ▸ Metadata.
Existing caption, read in
The general caption was added when the photo was ingested. idXpresso reads it in automatically — faces are detected but not yet confirmed.
Confirm the faces
Confirm each face in the list. The boxes turn blue and the names are now ready to be written into the metadata.
Names written into the caption
On Commit, the confirmed names are added to the front of the existing caption — the original description is kept intact.
What you control
Everything below lives in Settings ▸ Metadata, so idXpresso fits the way your team already works.
Which fields get written
Turn each destination on or off independently. All three are standard fields that professional photo software reads.
How names join the caption
Add names to the beginning of the caption as usual, or separate the added IDs from your existing caption with an em-dash — an extra layer of safety that keeps automated work visibly distinct from your original writing.
Mark processed photos with a color class
idXpresso can stamp a committed photo with a color class — another standard piece of metadata pro software can see — so you can spot which photos are done, or drive a multi-app workflow from that label.
When a file can't be written
If a file's metadata can't be updated, idXpresso falls back to the clipboard — copying either the full caption or just names & titles. Set it to happen every time, or to ask each time.
Workflows
The everyday, start-to-finish flows for captioning at speed — from import to committed metadata.
idXpresso is built to fit into a professional photographer's or editor's workflow. Because it reads and writes standard metadata, it drops into whatever tools you already use — there's no need to change your process. It's deliberately flexible, but it's designed with one job in mind: to finalize captions and metadata with specific identities, right before a photo is archived or submitted.
Where it sits in the pipeline
A typical professional flow — idXpresso steps in near the end, once your selects are captioned and corrected.
Ingest OS or editor
Copy or move images from the camera or memory card onto your working drive.
Batch caption Photo editor
Apply a generalized caption across the shoot — the what, where & when — plus any other standard metadata.
Cull Photo editor
Review the shoot and select the keepers.
Color correct Photo editor
Edit, grade, and retouch the selected images.
Detect, match & caption idXpresso
Detect faces, match identities, and automatically complete the caption — the who — then write it to standard metadata.
Submit, transmit or archive Photo editor
Send the finished, fully-captioned images on to their destination.
First run: build your database as you work
First run is a simple workflow to add identities and their faces as you work. We recommend folding it into your normal captioning routine — it's the easiest way to progressively build your recognition database.
Launch idXpresso
Recognition mode opens by default the first time you start the app.
- Reopen it any time from File ▸ Face Recognition, or press ⇧⌘R.
Open a photo
To process an image, open it into the recognition window.
- Drag an image anywhere into the window, or press ⌘O.
- Drop a supported file onto the app icon and idXpresso opens it automatically.
idXpresso detects the faces
Wait a moment while idXpresso finds every face in the photo.
- Once trained, this step also applies auto-matches and suggestions.
Go to a face
Jump to a face by clicking its bounding box in the photo, or by selecting it in the face list — the two stay in sync.
Click the face's name
Click the name — e.g. “Face 1.” Faces are numbered by position, left to right across the photo.
- After training, auto-matched faces show the person's name instead of a number.
Name the face in the picker
When the picker opens, type the person's name. That opens the Quick Add dialog, where you enter the name and — following your own style — the name with title. (The title field takes the name again, so it reflects your exact formatting.)
- The picker filters as you type once identities exist in the database.
- Pre-loaded an identity with no encodings (via CSV import or the Identity Manager)? Select it here to link the face.
- After training, the picker suggests matches for you.
Check the caption
Open the caption viewer to see how idXpresso has added the names and titles to the beginning of the caption.
Commit — save & learn
Click Commit to write the metadata to the photo — and to commit the new faces to their identities.
- Committing encodings is how idXpresso learns. It weighs each encoding's quality: the first one for an identity is always accepted, and as an identity gathers more, the app curates them to sharpen auto-matching and suggestions.
Researcher: batch-import identities with a spreadsheet
A more advanced way to train idXpresso — ideal before a big event, or whenever you want to build the database around the people you know you'll need. Prepare identities, biographic data, and even face encodings in bulk from a CSV.
Create the CSV
Make a spreadsheet with one to four columns, depending on how much data you want to import.
- Column 1 (required): Name.
- Column 2 (optional): Name with Title.
- Column 3 (optional): Biographic link.
- Column 4 (optional): Photo link — local or hosted, and suitable for recognition (a single, clear, well-lit, head-on face).
Populate & verify
Fill in your data and double-check it before importing — clean rows in mean clean identities out.
Import the CSV
Bring the spreadsheet into idXpresso.
- Drop a CSV onto the app while in recognition mode and idXpresso automatically switches to CSV Import.
- Or start it from the File menu.
Map the columns & import
Use the mapping controls to assign each column to the right field. To build encodings from the photo links, turn on Encode URL(s), then click Import.
Your database is primed
Now when you process a photo, the ID picker and Identity Manager are both populated with your names.
- If you included photo links and enabled Encode URL(s), auto-matching and suggestions become available too.
Learner: batch-train from captioned photos
Another advanced way to train idXpresso — like CSV import, but driven by photos whose metadata already carries the identity. It's an excellent way to train even when you're offline.
Caption the photo
Take an appropriate photo of the subject — head-on, well lit, a single face — and put the biographic data in the caption using this format: NAME; NAME WITH TITLE.
Open Learning Mode
Open Learning Mode to start feeding it captioned photos.
- From the menu, or press ⌘L.
Drop the photos in
Drop your captioned photos into Learning Mode. idXpresso reads the metadata, automatically creates a record, and adds the encoding to it.
- Prefix the caption with idxpresso: (e.g. idxpresso: Jane Doe; Director Jane Doe) and the app recognizes it as a learning photo and enters Learning Mode automatically.
Poweruser: caption at keyboard speed
Once it's trained, idXpresso IDs faces and writes captions faster than any macro — ideal for large groups or the occasional forgotten face, all while it keeps perfecting your database. It's built to be fast: you can process a photo in a few keystrokes and never touch the mouse.
Set it up for speed
The speed comes from preparation. Get these three things in place and the day-to-day becomes almost frictionless.
Train your app
Keep it current and prepare for shoots before they happen.
- Load names in bulk with CSV import — its real strength.
- Train quickly from photos with Learning Mode.
- Master the keyboard shortcuts.
Watch Folder trigger gate
Enable the Watch Folder with a color class as the metadata trigger gate — then "send" a photo straight from a third-party editor to idXpresso just by changing its color class.
Metadata writing
Turn on metadata writing and tune it to your archiving style. Enable post-commit color class to restamp a photo after commit — handing it off cleanly to your other apps.
The fast pass
A trained database turns each photo into a short burst of keystrokes — select, pick, confirm, commit, next.
Select → pick → confirm → commit — boxes turn blue and the photo commits, hands-free.
Open your photo(s)
Open a single image or a whole batch into idXpresso — the queue fills up ready to work.
Fly through the queue
Move between queued photos without reaching for the mouse — previous ⇧⌘← · next ⇧⌘→.
Work each photo — entirely from the keyboard
- Move between faces — previous ⌘← · next ⌘→.
- On a yellow box, open the ID picker with Space, then press ⌘ + the number beside a name to select it instantly.
- On a blue box (auto-match), confirm it with ↩. Or accept everything at once: ⌘↩ commits the photo, and ⇧⌘↩ confirms all pending auto-matches and commits in a single stroke.
- Inspect or edit the caption — ⌘I.
- Commit — ⌘↩ — writes the metadata, learns the faces, and drops you onto the next image.