Tag photos with species and Darwin Core

Overview

Species Tagging applies a species you choose to your selected files. It makes no guesses — you search for the species by name, select it, and Archyv records it on every file you have selected.

The species catalogue is the GBIF Backbone Taxonomy, a comprehensive list of the world's described species, bundled inside Archyv. Searching and tagging work entirely offline; no internet connection is required. A small set of hand-curated entries supplements the catalogue with common names and well-known subspecies that the underlying data omits or names differently.

Archyv records the species in two complementary ways, and you control how much of each is written. It can add searchable, keyword-style tags to text fields, and it can write structured Darwin Core taxonomy — the standardised scientific hierarchy from Kingdom down to the individual species, together with the common name, naming authorship, and rank. Because you pick the species yourself, the result is exact and identical across the whole selection, which makes it well suited to labelling many photos of the same subject in a single pass.

When to Use

Reach for Species Tagging whenever you already know what the subject is and simply want it recorded — for example, a folder of photos from a single outing, all of the same animal or plant. Searching once and applying the result to the whole selection is faster and more dependable than reviewing automated guesses.

Requirements

One or more files selected in the main window — the species you choose is written to all of them.
Files in a supported image, RAW, or video format. Files whose format cannot hold the metadata, and files that are protected or locked, are skipped and reported.
No internet connection. The species catalogue and all name matching are built into Archyv and run offline.
An unlocked app — a paid license or an active trial.

How to Use

Select the files you want to tag in the main window.
Choose Species Tagging from the process list. A tagging window opens; nothing is written yet.
In the search box, type a scientific name or a common name. Matches appear as you type, including hand-curated entries, which are shown with a small badge.
Use the display toggle above the results to show either the scientific name or the common name first. This changes only how results are listed, not what is searched.
Click the species you want. Its full taxonomic hierarchy appears on the right, with your selection highlighted.
Choose which text fields receive the keyword tags — Keywords, Caption, Title, and Headline. For Keywords you can add to the existing tags (Append) or overwrite them (Replace); the other fields are always overwritten. If you tag the Title, choose whether it shows the scientific name, the common name, or both.
Choose which Darwin Core taxonomy fields to write using the individual checkboxes, or use Select All and Select None. Turn the master Darwin Core switch off to skip taxonomy fields entirely. Your choices are remembered for next time.
Click Start to write the tags to every selected file. The window closes when the run finishes.

Tips & Important Notes

Turn on Simulation Mode in Settings before a run to preview exactly what would be written without changing any files — handy the first time you set up your field choices.
Picking a subspecies, variety, or form automatically records its finer (infra-species) name alongside the main species name, so the more precise identification is not lost.
Hand-curated entries (shown with a badge) take precedence over the catalogue's values for that species, so well-known common names and subspecies come out the way photographers expect.
Most RAW files cannot be edited directly, so their tags are saved in a small companion file (an XMP sidecar) kept alongside the photo; DNG files, which can hold metadata internally, are written directly. Archyv chooses the correct place for each file type automatically.
Append is the default for Keywords, so you can add a species tag on top of existing keywords without losing them; switch to Replace only when you want to clear the old ones.
Every selected file receives the same species. To tag different subjects, run the process once for each group of files.
If a run encounters several write failures in a row it pauses and asks whether to stop or carry on, so a systemic problem such as a permissions issue does not quietly affect the whole batch.
The first search after launching the app may take a few seconds while the catalogue is prepared; later searches are immediate.