How to find out the albums a photo is in: Jacques Rioux's script
This user Tip has been moved to: How to find out the albums a photo is in: Jacques Rioux's Script, version 2019 for Photos 4, Mojave and earlier
In Photos 5.0 on Catalina use this version:
--------------------------------- deprecated -----------------------------------------------------------------
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The code below is no longer valid:
Photo for Mac can show you the "moment" a photo is in, but has no tools to find the albums, that contain the photo.User Jacques Rioux posted an Apple Script, that can list all albums that contain a selected photo. See this link:
Re: Re: How can I identify which albums photos are assigned to in Photos.
Here is a version of Jacques script with a few error checks added by me:This version has been tested on macOS Sierra 10.12.4. Scroll down for a version to be used with El Capitan or earlier.
-- Snip below this line to copy to the script editor.-- ✄ - ✄ - ✄ - ✄ - ✄ - ✄ - ✄ - ✄ - ✄ - ✄ - ✄ - ✄ - ✄ -
-- Version 4, Sierra: Select the photo in Photos, then run this script by pressing the "Run" button in the script editor or from the scripts menu.
tell application "Photos"
activate
-- Add the photo you want to search for to a top level album as the first item in the album
set resultcaption to "Searching for: " try
set sel to selection if sel is {} then error "The selection is empty" -- no selection
on error errTexttwonumbererrNumtwo display dialog "No photos selected " & errNumtwo & return & errTexttwo return end try
set imagename to "unknown filename" try set targettoitem 1 of sel-- the image to seach for tell target set imagename to the filename of target end tell on error errTexttwonumbererrNumtwo display dialog "Cannot get the filename of the first image: " & errNumtwo & return & errTexttwo end try set resultcaption to (resultcaption & imagename)end tell
try
display alertresultcaptionbuttons {"Cancel", "OK"} asinformationalgiving up after 2on error errTextnumbererrNum if (errNum is equal to -128) then
-- User cancelled. return end ifend try-- From Jacques Rioux's script:tell application "Photos"
-- set sel to selection if sel is {} then return -- no selection try set thisId to id of item 1 of sel on error errTextnumbererrNum display dialog "Error: cannot get the image ID" & errNum & return & errText & "Trying again"
try delay 2 set thisId to id of item 1 of sel on error errTexttwonumbererrNumtwo display dialog "Skipping image due to repeated error: " & errNumtwo & return & errTexttwo error "giving up" return end try --second attempt end try
set theseNames to {} try set theseNames to name of (albums whose id of media items contains thisId) on error errTextnumbererrNum display dialog "Error: cannot get the albums" & errNum & return & errText & "Trying again" try delay 2 set theseNames to name of (albums whose id of media items contains thisId) on error errTexttwonumbererrNumtwo display dialog "Skipping image due to repeated error: " & errNumtwo & return & errTexttwo error "giving up" return end try end tryend tell
if theseNames is not {} then set {oTid, text item delimiters} to {text item delimiters, return} set {t, text item delimiters} to {theseNames as string, oTid}
-- return oTidelse set t to "No album"end ifactivate
set resultcaption to resultcaption & ", found it in these albums:" & t as stringset the clipboard toresultcaptiondisplay dialogresultcaptionbuttons {"OK"} default button "OK" -- you can press the Enter key or the return Key to close the dialogreturnresultcaption-- léonie-- end copy to the script editor. -- -- ✄ - ✄ - ✄ - ✄ - ✄ - ✄ - ✄ - ✄ - ✄ - ✄ - ✄ - ✄ - ✄ -
--- Use the version below with an iCloud Photo Library on El Capitan or older system versions.
This script is working well for regular Photos Libraries.
However, AppleScripts may give timeout errors, if used with an iCloud Photo Library, because the "selection" will not work to pass the selected photos to the script.For iCloud Photo Library it will help to use a work around posted by Nic Fletcher and to create a top level album with the selected photos, then pass the name of the album to the script.See this link for a modified version of the script, that uses Nic's work-around:Re: Re: Re: How can I identify which albums photos are assigned to in Photos. https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7413184?answerId=29601611022#29601611022
==========================================Version 3, tested on MacOS X 10.11.2 with Photos 1.3==========================================
The following version of the script is meant to be used with iCloud Photo Library, but will work also on a local library. The photo is passed to the script as the first item in a top level album called "PhotoDropBox". I added some error checks for timeouts , and if the script fails on the first try it will try a second time after a short delay. Following a suggestion by Old Toad the result panel now will display the filename of the photo that has been passed as the photo to the script.The search result will be displayed in a dialog panel and also copied to the clipboard.
Run this script by pressing the "Run" button in the script editor or from the scripts menu.
tell application "Photos"
activate
-- Add the photo you want to search for to a top level album as the first item in the album set theAlbumName to "PhotoDropBox" -- change this to the name of the album you will use set resultcaption to "Searching for: " try
if existscontainertheAlbumName then
set thePhotosBuffer to containertheAlbumName set sel to every media item of thePhotosBuffer if sel is {} then error "Album " & theAlbumName & " is empty" -- no selection else error "Album " & theAlbumName & "does not exist" end if
on error errTexttwonumbererrNumtwo display dialog "Cannot open album: " & errNumtwo & return & errTexttwo return end try
set imagename to "unknown filename" try set target to item 1 of sel-- the image to seach for tell target set imagename to the filename of target end tell on error errTexttwonumbererrNumtwo display dialog "Cannot get the filename of the first image: " & errNumtwo & return & errTexttwo end try set resultcaption to (resultcaption & imagename)end tell
try
display alertresultcaptionbuttons {"Cancel", "OK"} asinformationalgiving up after 2on error errTextnumbererrNum if (errNum is equal to -128) then
-- User cancelled. return end ifend try-- From Jacques Rioux's script:tell application "Photos"
-- set sel to selection if sel is {} then return -- no selection try set thisId to id of item 1 of sel on error errTextnumbererrNum display dialog "Error: cannot get the image ID" & errNum & return & errText & "Trying again"
try delay 2 set thisId to id of item 1 of sel on error errTexttwonumbererrNumtwo display dialog "Skipping image due to repeated error: " & errNumtwo & return & errTexttwo error "giving up" return end try --second attempt end try
set theseNames to {} try set theseNames to name of (albums whose id of media items contains thisId) on error errTextnumbererrNum display dialog "Error: cannot get the albums" & errNum & return & errText & "Trying again" try delay 2 set theseNames to name of (albums whose id of media items contains thisId) on error errTexttwonumbererrNumtwo display dialog "Skipping image due to repeated error: " & errNumtwo & return & errTexttwo error "giving up" return end try end tryend tell
if theseNames is not {} then set {oTid, text item delimiters} to {text item delimiters, return} set {t, text item delimiters} to {theseNames as string, oTid}
-- return oTidelse set t to "No album"end ifactivate
set resultcaption to resultcaption & ", found it in these albums:" & t as stringset the clipboard toresultcaptiondisplay dialogresultcaptionbuttons {"OK"} default button "OK" -- you can press the Enter key or the return Key to close the dialogreturn resultcaption-- léonie
