Does anyone know of a way to transfer Photos library AND albums to another platform, app., etc.? I've done this with Google Photos, but upon transfer the photos in my albums were no longer in the order I had put them in.
[Re-Titled by Moderator]
Original Title: Transferring Photos Library AND Albums
MacBook Pro 14″, macOS 15.5
The thing is that pictures in Photos are not files, so a Photos Library doesn't make sense without Photos to interpret the database. Edits, comments, album structure, and the like are all stored in the database, and the albums and folders and even the pictures you see in Photos are not actual things, they are created for you as you look at them. So to transfer edited pictures as files means that each one has to be created before it can be transferred. Photos is a non-destructive editor, and this is the way that Lightroom and all other modern Image Managers work. There is nothing stupid here.
It would be easier to use a program like the trusted 3rd party app PowerPhotos ($35) to export albums for you-- it can export entire folders and keep the album structure. (This will take time; you'd want to do it in smaller sections.) It works like this:
You can select an album in the sidebar of your Photos library and drag it to the Desktop. The photos in the album will be in a folder with the same name as the Album. Any edits to the photos will be included. However any metadata added, i.e. title, keywords and location, will not be included. The only metadata included will be the Description if one was added in the library.
Dp3jDW9hgn842b8pH wrote: … We can build AI that know what I'll have for breakfast in 30 years, but I can't transfer my Photos library and album as-is to another platform?
Only if the other platform can read Photos' database-- which really isn't Apple's concern. Again, PowerPhotos can export the pictures, but you would need to make choices, like this:
because the edited versions don't exist until they are exported.
If you want the unmodified originals and also the edited and commented versions, then you will need to export all the pictures twice. Of course, this will take twice the storage space as the Photos Library.
Hello Dp3jDW9hgn842b8pH,
Unfortunately, this is not possible to do unless done manually. Uploading photos is usually easy to do, but you’ll have to recreate the albums manually.
Sincerely,
Captain
When you transfer photos to another app, and do it by exporting the photos from Photos,
you could use the file naming preset "Album name with number" to save the name of the album in the filename.
Or export each album separately from Photos to a different folder, named like the album.
This will make it easier to recreate your albums.
I see what you're getting at, but unfortunately that doesn't address my concern. I want to transfer the entire library and the corresponding albums because I don't want to recreate the albums, one of which is very large and arranged in a specific order that would take literally days to recreate.
Thanks for the input Richard. To be clear, I don't think how Photos functions is stupid; I think it's stupid that I can't transfer my library and albums out of Photos as-is. I mean, if someone had a library of 100,000 photos that were organized in 100 albums and they wanted to transfer their library and albums as-is, Apple would say "that's not possible, you'll need to export the library and manually recreate all 100 albums"? I can understand that it might not currently be technologically feasible, but if that's true, it's stupid to me that that's the case. We can build AI that know what I'll have for breakfast in 30 years, but I can't transfer my Photos library and album as-is to another platform?
"Only if the other platform can read Photos' database--which really isn't Apple's concern." That might be, but I still think it's stupid that it's literally impossible to transfer my library and albums as-is from Photos to another platform. Apple's cost/benefit analysis might conclude that this isn't a feature worth prioritizing, but that doesn't mean it's not immensely inconvenient, something I'd wager many Apple customers would like rectified, and ultimately a deeply frustrating answer to what I think is honestly a very modest request.
Well, I described a way to get all of the photos that were in albums to folders with the same name as the albums. You will have to export the photos, as originals or as jpegs, out of the Photos library to get them into another system.
You'll have to decide if you must have the originals with XML files containing the metadata if the new app can read XML files or as jpegs with the options I mentioned giving you Description, Date Created and Location (confirmed using Preview).
If you export as Originals with XML files the XML file will contain Capture Date, Location, Keywords, Description and Title. The key is if the new app can read XML files.
What platform are you migrating to and what app will you be managing the image files with?
"What platform are you migrating to and what app will you be managing the image files with?" Whatever platform and/or app that would allow me to transfer my Photos library and albums as-is. That's literally all I want. Do you know of any such platform and/or app?
Hello -Captain-,
Thank you for letting me know. I love it when something is just as stupid as I am.
Sincerely,
Dp3********8pH
[Edited by Moderator]
Thank you for your input, but I don't think it addresses my concern.
How do I transfer photos library and albums to another platform/app?
