Photos 6.0 app on Big Sur doesn't export keywords in EXIF data

With Photos in macOS 11.2.2, exporting as Unmodified Original for 1 Photo… retains the IPTC keywords in the resulting JPG image. I confirmed this via Preview Inspector, ExifTool, and a standalone application that I wrote.

I cannot understand either that things got worse with Apple BigSur. Many new features of BigSur are just an optica "facelift" but not really adding value. On the other hand, important and helpful functions (e.g. exporting keywords) don't work any longer.

> The TIFF workaround preserves keywords and captions, but bear in mind that you lose EXIF data from your camera.

OK, as a workaround:

Export as .tif (to preserve pixel edits).

Also export originals with IPTC (to preserve edited metadata in sidecar .xmp).

Also export as .jpeg (to preserve camera data).

Then re-export that .tif as .jpg or .heic (to save space with some generation loss...).

Then combine sidecar .xmp to .jpeg (to save metadata edits -- use YA workaround to bypass the GPS reference bug).

Then convert .jpeg suffix to .jpg (to prevent unnecessary duplicates).

Viola!

Hello Matti,

Your proposal might work but it reads as if this is very cumbersome. Some questions regarding your process steps:

"re-export that .tif": does it mean that I first export as .tif and then re-import again. Those re-imported tifs would then be exported as .jpg or .heic?

How do I combine sidecar .xmp to .jpeg? Which software allows me to do that?

"convert .jpeg suffix to .jpg": Is it sufficient to rename the files or does the conversion require anything else?

Many thanks

Stefan

TIFFs also don't have almost all of the Metadata. I've been trying to use an astrophotography app on Big Sur 11.2.3 and the metadata in Photos, AND with exported TIFFs is missing. Very annoying and, frankly, over-stepping the mark. The latest software update seems to have removed the data, which I first noticed when my photos' ISO data was missing. Delving further showed that most of the data was missing. Really needs to be addressed quickly as the usefulness of the Photos app is considerably reduced.

I can't even understand WHY they would hide the data - is it to stop third party use of the data when Apple wants to control it all for financial benefit? If so, that's a data monopoly legal issue waiting to hit them.

No, that was what I was talking about. Perhaps it is just my camera (I have just got a Canon R5), but I have been talking to an app developer who has said the same thing about the data shared by Photos now, i.e. that it is almost non-existent.

Yes - I seriously am. They have completely lost their edge for quality and photo/video preference. I can get superior performance and quality from others' products at a lower price. My next hardware change will reflect that.

I may try that, thanks, but I'm not going to do it every time I use it! My issue presents itself as a failure to show/export various metadata - for my Canon, for example, the ISO is missing, whereas for the Sony RX10mk4, it is there.

If anything, the Photos bugs have worsened for me in 11.3. As well as the metadata failure, the crashes are now more frequent than before! I edit a photo and click "Done", then come out of that photo only to see it go grey in thumbnail form, and white in full screen. Only by starting another edit on the shot can I then see it again. Closing photos completely and/or a full re-boot SOMETIMES cures it, but usually not. The whole thing appears to be very unstable and prone to crashes/glitches. As the photographic credentials of Apple are/were attractive, I went with them, but that benefit has evaporated with this extreme unreliability.

I found that it's not working on some photos I've downloaded from the internet. But those I've taken with my iPhone or from other family member's iPhones it works as it should. I'm not surprised as many photos that are posted to websites are stripped of their IPTC fields for privacy.

Hello,

Quite frankly, I do not understand why the EtreCheck report should help to solve the problem. If Apple Photos does not export keywords, then this is an issue of the app and not an issue of the operating system or the performance. So far, I have not found anybody in this forum (and others) who states that the export works. It just does not work irrespective of the hardware or anything else. To me, it is just a software bug in apple photos. If Apple does not intend to work on this softwar bug (so far Apple does not care about the complaints) it will just continue unchanged.

In case I should be wrong and the EtreCheck or a safe mode start has helped to fix the problem permanently, please let me know.

Best regards

Stefan

It does not work consistently for me with some photos taken on my iPhone and synced to my Mac via iCloud Photo Library. I've restarted Photos and rebooted my machine, to no avail.

This is a completely stock scenario--there are no third-party components in my workflow--and clearly represents a defect in Apple's software.

Thanks for this. I appreciate the work you've done to test it. It represents a total failure of the Apple eco system to do what it says on the box and what we pay a premium for.

For this level of inconvenience and inelegance, I may as well save a lot of $ and swap back to a Windows machine next time.

I hereby resign as an unofficial and unpaid Apple salesman.

As of May 8th 2021, nothing in the Photos app (6.0) under Big Sur (11.3) works. Exporting either as tiff, png or jpeg wipes absolutely all metadata clean: day, year, month, location, etc. and replaces them with the date of export. So the tiff suggestion from this post does not work.

Exporting as "unmodified original" defeats my entire purpose: export edited raw images as smaller files, delete the originals and import the exported files. Now, Apple does not allow me this. I have filed the bug with via the official channel but it might never get solved. This has been present since Photos 5.0 and Catalina since 2019.