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How do I migrate my aperture library to Photos? I am using Mojave.

I need to upgrade my OS from Mojave. Before I do, I need to move my Aperture Library to Photos.


When I tried to follow instructions, Step 6, not available. "Press and hold the Option key, then choose Photos > Generate Previews." The option to "Generate Previews" greyed out. Same for "Update previews" (when I don't hold down Option key).


What can I do? Are there other ways to move my Aperture Library to Photos?


Help...Thank you.


Posted on Mar 15, 2021 11:05 AM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Mar 24, 2021 12:36 PM

Follow up for those who want to migrate library from Aperture...


I had an Apple Support call yesterday. The article on migrating library from Aperture to Photos missed a crucial point in Step 6. ( See https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT209594)

After step 5: Choose Edit > Select All to select all of your photos. you have to CLOSE APERTURE


THEN ( with Aperture CLOSED), you do Step 6: Press and hold the Option key, then choose Photos > Generate Previews.


This migrated most 22,000+ of my pictures over. However, be aware that organization won’t be exactly like Aperture. For example I’m trying to find 1000+ Unedited photos from one of my projects, and the smart albums don’t match...a work I. Progress before I feel comfortable enough to upgrade OS.


Hope this helps others...



8 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Mar 24, 2021 12:36 PM in response to TonyCollinet

Follow up for those who want to migrate library from Aperture...


I had an Apple Support call yesterday. The article on migrating library from Aperture to Photos missed a crucial point in Step 6. ( See https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT209594)

After step 5: Choose Edit > Select All to select all of your photos. you have to CLOSE APERTURE


THEN ( with Aperture CLOSED), you do Step 6: Press and hold the Option key, then choose Photos > Generate Previews.


This migrated most 22,000+ of my pictures over. However, be aware that organization won’t be exactly like Aperture. For example I’m trying to find 1000+ Unedited photos from one of my projects, and the smart albums don’t match...a work I. Progress before I feel comfortable enough to upgrade OS.


Hope this helps others...



Mar 24, 2021 1:28 PM in response to AppleuserSeattle

AppleuserSeattle wrote:


After step 5: Choose Edit > Select All to select all of your photos. you have to CLOSE APERTURE

THEN ( with Aperture CLOSED), you do Step 6: Press and hold the Option key, then choose Photos > Generate Previews.

Hope this helps others...


Where did you select "Photos > Generate Previews" if Aperture is closed? I am puzzled, how this is supposed to work. The intention of step 6 is to force Aperture to create High resolution previews of all edited photos, before you open the library in Photos to migrate it. You cannot access the Aperture menu item "Generate Preview" or "Update Preview" with Aperture closed.

Before you migrate the Library you need to run this command from the "Photos" menu in Aperture to save all your Aperture edits. if you did not run this command, you may now have a Photos Library, where the edited version of your Aperture photos are having only a small preview and you should revert them to the originals in Photos and discard your Aperture edits, or you will only have a smaller version with a low resolution. Did you run this command in Aperture, before you migrated the library to Photos? Holding down the options key ⌥ will toggle between "Generate Preview" and "Update Preview".


If you did not run this command for all edited versions in Aperture, check the quality of the versions you are now having in Aperture, if they are are having the full pixel size.


Mar 15, 2021 6:16 PM in response to TonyCollinet

Thank you for your reply. However to clarify, the 2nd half of that article under step 2 states: "If you migrated your library to Photos"...


In my case, I haven't yet migrated my pictures to Photos. So, can I just change the extension of file names and not corrupt the data?


I have >22,000 photos in Aperture so I don't want to lose them.


Thanks for any further help you or anyone else can give me.

Mar 16, 2021 12:27 AM in response to AppleuserSeattle

When you did step 2 "Choose Aperture > Preferences, click the Previews tab, then change the Photo Preview setting to Don't Limit. Close the preferences window." - did you actually change the preferences for the Preview size, or has it been "Full Size" all along? You may also want to check, if the quality of the previews is set at least to "high".


You may want to check the current quality of the previews by dragging the thumbnail of one of your photos to the Desktop. Does it have a very good resolution and quality?

Can Aperture access the original image files at all? You may check this by using "File > Export > Originals".

Mar 24, 2021 2:03 PM in response to léonie

I followed steps 1-5 of article as instructed. This means I opened Aperture, went to Preferences to change preview to unlimited, selected all projects, etc.

After you do all this, when you go to Photo/Generate Previews is grayed out and not available for selection,


Per direction from Apple creative tech, I CLOSED Aperture, and followed Step 6. I pressed Option key, went to Finder/Pictures and chose Photos application. This opens the screen with photo libraries (like screen shot at top of this article) a new library will be designated and you click Generate Previews from here.


The migrated photos are similar size to what is in Aperture. (I checked) There is slight variation probably due to compression factors. For example, a picture that is 5.06MB in Aperture may be 5.12MB in Photos.


For more help, I suggest calling Apple support and schedule under MacBook support. If you describe your issue, you may get 1st tier support and then can ash to be transferred to Creative team.

How do I migrate my aperture library to Photos? I am using Mojave.

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