Problem in Photos 5 on Catalina: Gray Filenames in the Media browser

by: léonie

Last modified: May 11, 2020 5:12 AM

2 843 Last modified May 11, 2020 5:12 AM

In Photos 5 on macOS 10.15.4 Catalina you may be seeing gray filenames, when you are trying to access your photos in the Media Browser from a web site. The Media Browser is no longer converting images from the space saving high efficiency format HEIF to JPEGs.

None of my HEIC images are available in the Media Browser, when I am trying to access them using a web browser - all HEIC images in my library are shown with greyed out filenames since the Catalina upgrade. While I have still been using Mojave, the Media Browser created JPEG versions of all HEIC images. This does no longer seem to be the case in the recent Catalina version.

As a work-around export the photos you want to upload from Photos with "File > Export > export .. photos" to convert them to JPEGS. And then use the exported JPEGs.

Or set the iPhone and iPad cameras to take the images in a more compatible format.

See: Using HEIF or HEVC media on Apple devices - Apple Support