Designer builds native Mac photo tagging app with Claude Code and local vision model

A designer and street photographer built a native Mac app called Loupe using Claude Code without prior Xcode experience. The app solves the problem of searching untagged photos across folders and drives by analyzing images and generating descriptions and keywords.

Technical implementation

Loupe is a SwiftUI Mac app that uses a local vision model (minicpm-v via Ollama) to analyze photos and generate descriptions and keywords. After reviewing and correcting tags, the app writes standard IPTC/XMP metadata into the files, making them compatible with Lightroom, Capture One, and Finder.

Development process with Claude Code

The developer wrote PRDs, designed screens in Figma, connected the Figma MCP, and had Claude Code build the app screen by screen. Claude Code handled setting up the Xcode project, code signing, and TestFlight upload despite the developer having never opened Xcode before starting the project.

App features

• Parallel processing with hardware auto-detection
• Tag editor with keyboard shortcuts
• Vocabulary system with trigger words
• Learning system that adapts to your tagging style
• Full onboarding flow

The app is currently in beta and available at tagwithloupe.com.