James, The 3rd Earl of Coast

Q: Merge Photos (including edits and folders)?

Hi

 

My main computer is a big 15" MB Pro. 

 

I went travelling for 6 months so I bought a small 11" MB Air to take with me and left the big MB Pro at home.Before I left, I used the migration assistant to clone the big MB Pro to the small MB Air.

 

When on the road, I added about 10,000 pictures I took to the MB Air in the Photos program.  I edited heaps of these and also put them in many many folders.

 

I'm now back home and I want to get those pictures (including edits and folders) from the MB Air onto the MB Pro.    Both running latest version of El Capitan. 

 

Any ideas?

Posted on Aug 30, 2016 5:04 AM

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Q: Merge Photos (including edits and folders)?

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  • by Winston Churchill,

    Winston Churchill Winston Churchill Aug 30, 2016 5:47 AM in response to James, The 3rd Earl of Coast
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    Aug 30, 2016 5:47 AM in response to James, The 3rd Earl of Coast

    You have a couple of options, both (may) have some drawbacks.

     

    Firstly, you could export the modified versions from photos, album/folder by album/folder, but this may take some work. Secondly you could use iCloud photo library to help you merge libraries, how you do this may depend on whether you already use it or not, unfortunately I'm conscious that there have been reports that not all types of edits are transferred by iCloud photo and I'm not sure which are and which aren't.

  • by léonie,

    léonie léonie Aug 30, 2016 6:29 AM in response to Winston Churchill
    Level 10 (105,533 points)
    iLife
    Aug 30, 2016 6:29 AM in response to Winston Churchill

    unfortunately I'm conscious that there have been reports that not all types of edits are transferred by iCloud photo and I'm not sure which are and which aren't.

    Do you have a link to such reports, Winston Churchill? It would be good to know more, in case that there are questions about missing edits. I have not yet seen any questions about this problem.

     

    I am syncing several macs with iCloud Photo Library,  and all edits are transferred between the Macs, even the edits with Photo Editing extensions, as long as I am having the same Photos version running on all Macs.  Just the Faces albums do not transfer, which is annoying, but not yet supported.

    But the syncing between the Macs supports more metadata than syncing to iOS devices. It supports albums, and smart albums, titles and captions as described here:  Use Photos and iCloud Photo Library on multiple Mac computers - Apple Support

    https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204486

     

     

    BTW, I posted a user tip on merging libraries in Photos for Mac:  Notes on Merging Photos Libraries

    Other than iCLoud Photo Library there is no good option, if we want a lossless merge.

    If we do not mind to lose the ability to revert to the original, then PowerPhotos is a really good tool for moving photos between libraries, but it cannot move the originals and the edited versions as a pair.  But it can move albums and metadata with the photos between libraries.

  • by Winston Churchill,

    Winston Churchill Winston Churchill Aug 30, 2016 6:34 AM in response to léonie
    Level 10 (103,346 points)
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    Aug 30, 2016 6:34 AM in response to léonie

    Do you have a link to such reports, Winston Churchill?

    No, i've seen it mentioned a couple of times but if you've been through all the edits and not had any problems I guess thats a pretty good indication there may have been other factors involve in the cases I've seen mentioned.

  • by léonie,

    léonie léonie Aug 30, 2016 6:48 AM in response to Winston Churchill
    Level 10 (105,533 points)
    iLife
    Aug 30, 2016 6:48 AM in response to Winston Churchill

    Thank you, Winston Churchill. I hope there is not really an issue with syncing edits between Macs; maybe there have been problems with a delayed sync or conflicts, when the same photos have been modified simultaniously on two machines while offline.

  • by James, The 3rd Earl of Coast,

    James, The 3rd Earl of Coast James, The 3rd Earl of Coast Aug 30, 2016 7:21 AM in response to James, The 3rd Earl of Coast
    Level 1 (10 points)
    Photos for Mac
    Aug 30, 2016 7:21 AM in response to James, The 3rd Earl of Coast

    Thanks guys.  I'm not using iCloud Photo Library.

     

    From the guide Leonie wrote, it seems I just need to enable iCloud Photo Library on both computers?

     

    Does it matter in which order I do it?  Which MB should I do first? 

     

    If I enable iCloud Photo Library, will the full resolution edited pics download from MB Air to my MB Pro?  I'd like to have an offline copy rather than just rely on the cloud.  I'm running out of space so it would be good to go for the reduced resolution offline version, but before doing this I'd want to save an offline copy of the fully merged library (with edits) on an external HDD.

     

    have a fast FTTP connection so hopefully shouldn't take too long!

  • by James, The 3rd Earl of Coast,

    James, The 3rd Earl of Coast James, The 3rd Earl of Coast Aug 30, 2016 7:23 AM in response to James, The 3rd Earl of Coast
    Level 1 (10 points)
    Photos for Mac
    Aug 30, 2016 7:23 AM in response to James, The 3rd Earl of Coast

    Also I note that I don't use Faces.

  • by Winston Churchill,

    Winston Churchill Winston Churchill Aug 30, 2016 7:31 AM in response to James, The 3rd Earl of Coast
    Level 10 (103,346 points)
    Apple TV
    Aug 30, 2016 7:31 AM in response to James, The 3rd Earl of Coast

    Does it matter in which order I do it?  Which MB should I do first?

    You can't transfer faces or projects over the library in the cloud, so if you aren't worried about either it doesn't really matter except that if you enabled it in your main library first, all those photos would need to go to the lesser library so that the lesser library could put it's photos up there too, so you may wish to do your lesser library first.