Everything it does.
In one page, with nothing held back for later.
Reading
- Every field MediaInfo reports, grouped by track
- General, video, audio, subtitle and menu tracks, each collapsible
- Six views: Easy View, Text, Raw Text, HTML, XML and JSON
- Values aligned in a monospaced column, so they can be scanned
- Around seventy fields carry a plain-language explanation
- Search and filter across every field at once
Comparing
- Two files side by side, every differing field marked
- A summary panel listing the differences, click to jump to one
- Hold Option while dragging to open a second file as the comparison
- Swap the two sides from a control on the divider
- Export either file's report, or both together
Verifying
- SHA-256 checksums, included in the exported report
- Real progress, and cancelling stops the work immediately
- Computed on request, because it means reading every byte
- Results cached, so the same file is never hashed twice
Exporting
- Text, Raw Text, HTML, XML, JSON and CSV
- All six at once, as a single archive
- Copy any single value, or a field and its value together
- Share a report online and get a link back, if you choose to
Fitting in
- Right-click any media file in Finder to open it here
- Reveal in Finder, copy path, rename, move to Trash
- Light, dark or system appearance
- Background wash: off, static or animated, in colours you choose
- Zoom in and out of the report
- Full keyboard control, and VoiceOver throughout
Privacy
- Analysis happens on your Mac and nowhere else
- Reading metadata never alters a file
- Sharing is opt-in, and shows exactly what is removed first
- No account, no telemetry, no network calls you did not ask for
- Open source under the MIT licence
Against the official app.
MediaArea, who make MediaInfo itself, also sell a Mac app. It is a reasonable question which to use, so here is the comparison without any thumb on the scale.
| SwiftMediaInfo | MediaInfo for Mac | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | The tool is free; the Mac app is paid, plus an in-app purchase |
| Licence | MIT, open source | The MediaInfo library is BSD; the Mac app is sold |
| Interface | Liquid Glass, written entirely in SwiftUI | Shared across five platforms |
| Side-by-side comparison | Included | Requires the in-app purchase |
| Difference highlighting | Field and line level, with per-track counts | — |
| Field explanations | Around 70 fields | — |
| SHA-256 checksums | Yes | — |
| Search | Global fuzzy search across every field | — |
| Share online | Upload a report and get a link | — |
| Interface zoom | Scales the whole interface | — |
| Keyboard shortcuts | Full, with a reference window | — |
| Finder integration | Context menu, drag-and-drop, and ⌥-drag to compare directly | Context menu and drag-and-drop |
| Export formats | TXT, Raw TXT, CSV, HTML, JSON and XML — one at a time, all six separately, or bundled as a ZIP | Text, XML, JSON, EBUCore and more |
| Appearance | Light, dark or system, with an off, static or animated background in colours you choose | Follows the system |
| Platforms | macOS 26 and later | macOS, Windows, Linux, Android, iOS |
| Languages | English | 37 languages |
| Signed and notarised | No | Yes, via the App Store |
The MediaInfo column reflects what MediaArea documents on the App Store and their own site. A dash means it is not described there, which is not the same as it being absent.
Three of those rows go the other way.
MediaArea's app is on every platform, in 37 languages, and it is
signed and sold through the App Store — so it installs without a
warning and without a Terminal command. If any of that matters to
you, buy theirs. It is a good app by people who have maintained
this work since 2002.
None of this exists without MediaInfo.
SwiftMediaInfo reads your files using MediaArea's tool, and every
field on screen comes from their work. This is a different
front-end for it, not a replacement — and if you find the app
useful, the people who built the engine deserve
supporting.