How to access the Photos in Aperture Libraries on macOS 10.15 or later

by: léonie

Last modified: May 18, 2023 12:06 AM

6 1187 Last modified May 18, 2023 12:06 AM

Apple stopped selling Aperture in 2015, when it released the last compatibility update Aperture 3.6. Since then we could access Aperture Libraries with the Photos.app.

Aperture 3.6 can run on any Mac with OS X 10.10.3 Yosemite to macOS 10.14 Mojave. On this system versions it is relatively easy to create Photos Libraries from Aperture Libraries, as we can open the libraries in Aperture and fix problem or compare the original library to the new Photos Library. The new Photos Library will include the original image files, the current previews of the edited versions, the album, and the projects and smart albums saved as albums, some of the metadata. Notes on Migrating an Aperture Library to Photos for Mac, 2019 version
Aperture can no longer run on macOS 10.15 Catalina or later. But Photos for Mac can still convert Aperture Libraries to Photos Libraries on macOS 10.15 Catalina to macOS 12 Monterey. But we can no longer prepare the Aperture Library for the migration and create previews of the edited versions to save the edits or compare the results to fix problem. An additional problem ist, that macOS Catalina does no longer support all older video codec or image codecs. All items using legacy codecs should have been converted to a compatible format while still running macOS 10.14 Mojave.
Since macOS 13 Ventura Photos can no longer convert Aperture Libraries to Photos Libraries. All we can do is import original image files from an Aperture Library into a Photos Library. Migrating an Aperture Library to Photos as a Library is no longer supported on macOS13 Ventura - Apple Community The third party app Power Photos can create Photos Libraries from Aperture Libraries on Ventura, a very handy new feature os PowerPhotos.

If possible, try to migrate your Aperture Libraries to Photos on a system version that still supports Aperture, before the upgrade to macOS 10.15 Catalina.

For iPhoto see: How to access Media in iPhoto Libraries … - Apple Community