photo library confusion

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Level 1

20 points

photo library confusion

I used Photos.app to transfer the photos from my iPhone to my MacBook running Monterey (12.1). I was told to "view package contents" of the iPhoto library to find my files. They are there but I was confused by two issues:

First, a single download of 33 images produced 14 subfolders with no logic behind the organization. Photos taken at the same time and place are divided across multiple folders while photos taken at different location are in the same folder.

Second, images transferred over email have logical and sequential names such as "IMG_9101.JPG" where the same image transferred with photos.app has a meaningless alphanumeric name over 40 characters that is not sequential to other images or seem to serve any purpose.

My old MacBook running El Capitan (10.11.6) did not have these problems. How can I return to a simple file transfer that places the images in a folder of my choosing without altering the file names.

Thank you.

MacBook Pro 16″, macOS 12.1

Posted on Dec 22, 2021 2:29 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Yer_Man

Level 10

163,842 points

Dec 22, 2021 3:28 PM in response to rick_de

I was told to "view package contents" of the iPhoto library to find my files.

You were told wrong. Want to get your images?

Select them in the Photos window and go File -> Export -> Unmodified Original

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Answer 2

Dec 22, 2021 3:13 PM in response to rick_de

I was told to "view package contents" of the iPhoto library to find my files

What was the purpose of this advice?

First, a single download of 33 images produced 14 subfolders with no logic behind the organization

The "logic" is there is just isn't apparent. Computers don't behave in a random fashion. Without further description a guess would be that they are divided by a common reason - the photos were taken in different places or a different time, for example. The batch you had was of 33 images but otherwise what do they have in common?

If you are using Photos why are you poking about in the back-end? Photos is a database and your image files are organised for you behind the user interface. If you want to organise your photos into folders do it in Photos user interface. Let it put the files where it will.

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Answer 3

rick_de Author

Level 1

20 points

Dec 27, 2021 1:35 PM in response to Yer_Man

Thank you this is EXACTLY what I was looking for. The version I was using on my old MacBook also included a checkbox to "delete after import". I did not see that here. Using the delete function from within the app failed to delete them from the phone. I ended up returning to the phone to delete them. Is this normal or am I missing something about how to delete them from the app? Thank you very much!

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photo library confusion

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