Broadband UV-irradiation of methylacetate isolated in argon matrices causes rather strong modifications to appear in the IR spectrum. Evidence was obtained for a photochemical interconversion of the stable Z-conformer into the less stable E-conformer followed by photolytic decomposition of the latter into stable products. Most of these products could be identified from their IR absorptions. The reverse E→Z interconversion is a thermal process with an activation energy of about 10 kJmole−1. A normal coordinate analysis based on a transferable valence force field obtained from the literature allowed to assign approximate IR frequencies of E-methylacetate.