Bug: Exporting Images with "Filename: Use Title" Exports the Files as Invisible if the Title has Been Deleted

User bikedaveca reported this bug today:

See the discussion: Exported photos don't show up in Finder

Usually exporting photos with "File > Export > Export ...files > Filename: Use Title" is working as expected.

• If the photo has a title, the title is used as the filename.
• If the photo has not yet a title assigned, the filename will be used as the filename on export.

But if you first add a title to an image and then delete the title text again, the photo will be in a weird state: Photos will treat it as having a title, but the title string is empty. The filename of the exported file will just be ".jpg", and the Finder will hide this photo and treat it like an invisible system file.

As a precaution, keep at least one printable character in the title field, when when you remove a title from a photo, so you can see, that it had a title assigned.

As a test, Imported three new photos, for example:

The first one, has a title, the second one had a title, but deleted, the third one never had a title and is showing "untitled".

When I select and export them with "Filename: Use Title", only two photos will show in the Finder,

The problem is, that deleting a title does not remove the title but adds an empty title. So the photos will be exported with the filename ".jpg".

As a work-around, do not erase the title completely, but use an underscore character as the empty title "_" or similar. It needs to be a visible character, a space will not suffice.

If you accidentally created invisible files on export and need to remove them, use the Terminal.

A Terminal command to make the invisible files visible in the Finder is

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE

killall Finder

And to hide them again:

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles FALSE

killall Finder