Want to highlight a helpful answer? Upvote!
Did someone help you, or did an answer or User Tip resolve your issue? Upvote by selecting the upvote arrow. Your feedback helps others! Learn more about when to upvote >
Did someone help you, or did an answer or User Tip resolve your issue? Upvote by selecting the upvote arrow. Your feedback helps others! Learn more about when to upvote >
I can't sort my photos with sequentially numbered filenames (such as EV 123) in Photos Albums, and I understand that I can't sort shared albums. I just want to sort in a standard album and nothing happens.
MacBook, macOS 10.13
To be able to sort the photos in an album by the filenames you need to upgrade to macOS 10.14 Mojave. In Photos 4 on Mojave the photos will be sorted by the filenames, if you sort an album by the title and a photo has no title. Then the filename will be used as a default title. Photos 4 is the only version of Photos where this is working. To sort an album, ctrl-click or right-click it in the sidebar in Photos, then select one from the sort options from the many that will appear.
On a Mac with Photos 3 and macOS 10.13 High Sierra you can sort the photo in the albums you create yourself only by the titles or the date, but not by the filenames. You would have to copy the filenames to the title of a photo to be able to sort by the title.
You could use an AppleScript to batch copy the filename to the title of a photo, for example:
Script: Batch Changing the Titles to the Filenames with Extension (Dec 19,2018
Script: Batch Change the Title of a Photo to the Filename Followed by the Existing Title
Sorting Albums by Title in Photos - Changes in Photos 5.0 Yo could try to use on Catalina
To be able to sort the photos in an album by the filenames you need to upgrade to macOS 10.14 Mojave. In Photos 4 on Mojave the photos will be sorted by the filenames, if you sort an album by the title and a photo has no title. Then the filename will be used as a default title. Photos 4 is the only version of Photos where this is working. To sort an album, ctrl-click or right-click it in the sidebar in Photos, then select one from the sort options from the many that will appear.
On a Mac with Photos 3 and macOS 10.13 High Sierra you can sort the photo in the albums you create yourself only by the titles or the date, but not by the filenames. You would have to copy the filenames to the title of a photo to be able to sort by the title.
You could use an AppleScript to batch copy the filename to the title of a photo, for example:
Script: Batch Changing the Titles to the Filenames with Extension (Dec 19,2018
Script: Batch Change the Title of a Photo to the Filename Followed by the Existing Title
Sorting Albums by Title in Photos - Changes in Photos 5.0 Yo could try to use on Catalina
Thanks for getting back to me.
I didn't know that Photos was looking for a title. I assumed Photos was sorting on filename. It's easy to generate sequential filenames but titles don't come so easy.
I'm not sure I'm sufficiently tech savy to use your batch changing procedure. which means this is something I'll have to add to each photo one at a time for the time being.
My os is Catalina 10.15.6 and my Photos is version 5.0 so your comments make me think what I have now should be sorting.
macOS 10.14 Mojave is the only version where Photos used the filenames when sorting the photos by the titles. It has been a short joy. The Catalina upgrade killed this nice feature again. Since Catalina Photos is a very different application. It has intriguing new features, but for my purposes the Mojave version has been the best version of Photos so far.
Also scripting does not work as well as it did in the previous system versions. To run the scripts I posted, you have to select the photos in a top level album. My scripts do no longer work, when the album is enclosed in a subfolder. Old Toad has provided a page with compiled version of some of our scripts. http://www.oldtoad.net/TT/No.P01.html
You can simply run them like any other application from the Dock or the Desktop after selecting the photos you want to change in Photos in a top level album:
07 - Batch Change Titles to the File Name with Extension
08 - Change Title to the File Name without the Extension
I prefer to open the script in Script editor, so I can see any error messages.
Before you try any scripts someone posted here, these them on a small test library, and make sure you have a backup, before you run a script on your main library. It is not possible to undo any changes created by scripts.
Can't Sort in Mac Photos Albums
