Inspector

What the Inspector Is#

Most of the time you don't actually want to open a file — you want to glance at it, confirm it's the right one, then move on. The Inspector is a slim panel on the right edge of every Seiz window that shows a live preview and metadata for whatever file you have selected. Click another file and the Inspector updates instantly.

Press ⌘I (or use View ▸ Show Inspector) to toggle it. By default it's 300 pixels wide and you can drag the divider to resize it between 260 and 420 pixels. Whatever width you pick is remembered across sessions.

What You'll See for Each File Type#

• Images — PNG, JPEG, GIF, WebP, SVG, HEIC, and RAW camera files. Pinch to zoom; click the expand button on the preview for full screen.
• Video — common formats (MP4, MOV, MKV, WebM, and most others macOS itself can play). Optional auto-play when you select a video, or click play in the preview.
• Audio — MP3, WAV, FLAC, AAC, M4A, and most other macOS-supported formats. Same auto-play option.
• PDF — full document rendering inline. Page through without opening Preview.
• Markdown — rendered with proper formatting: headings, lists, links, code blocks. Useful for browsing a folder of notes.
• Code — syntax highlighting for Swift, Python, JavaScript, TypeScript, HTML, CSS, JSON, and around 25 other languages (Go, Rust, Ruby, Java, Kotlin, C/C++, PHP, SQL, shell scripts, and more).
• Plain text — full content with optional word wrap.

The Metadata Section#

Below the preview is the metadata section, which always shows:

• File size (both human-readable and exact byte count)
• Created, Modified, Added, and Last Opened dates
• Full file path (with a tooltip for the truncated version)
• File extension and kind
• Default application that opens this file type
• Tags (the macOS color tags) — click to add or remove
• POSIX permissions for owner, group, and others (read/write/execute)

An optional Checksums section computes MD5, SHA-256, and SHA-512 hashes of the selected file — useful when you need to verify a download against a known checksum.

AI Features in the Inspector#

If you've enabled the AI features (off by default), the Inspector also surfaces AI-generated summaries of file contents and offers smart rename suggestions. Both run on your Mac — see Local AI for the full story.

When Multiple Files Are Selected#

Select multiple files and the Inspector switches to a folder dashboard view: total number of files and folders selected, combined size, the parent folder, and the dates of the oldest and newest. The checksums section, if enabled, computes a SHA-256 for each file in the selection (in batches, so it doesn't freeze the UI on big sets).

Next Steps#

• File Browsing — the three view modes that the Inspector pairs with.
• Local AI — smart rename and summaries that appear in the Inspector.
• Multi-Pane Layouts — the Inspector lives at the right edge of the window, alongside however many panes you have open.