Problems exporting from Photos

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Problems exporting from Photos

Sigh, once again it didn't "just work"... and once again it's Photos purgatory... :(

I'm trying to merge an old photo album into another album. I'm having trouble with the "export as original" function. First I tried exporting all ~36k photos in one go (silly me). Of course a simple copy and rename function went rainbow windmill and then -promptly- ran out of virtual memory.

So I tried exporting in chunks which worked for the first 20k photos and videos (although some are missing .xmp info -- maybe that'e expected?). However the next 5k chunk did the same thing and ran out of virtual memory and died.

So I'm wondering if anyone has any bright ideas? Please don't say to use the cloud (I do), I'm looking for any help with this export function :)

Thanks!

MacBook Pro 13″, macOS 11.1

Posted on Jan 13, 2021 2:28 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

square_one Author

Level 1

4 points

Jan 13, 2021 3:55 AM in response to square_one

Some more info on this problem. It seems to occur because there is a jpg and a mov with the same name — it seems like the .xmp files are clashing on export.

If I export to another directory there is no clash and it works fine. Then I have to manually rename the mov, aae, and xmp to something that doesn’t clash and copy back to the export directory.

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Answer 2

léonie

Level 10

200,855 points

Jan 13, 2021 3:04 AM in response to square_one

Where are you exporting to? An external volume, or a local folder on your Mac?

You may have an item in your library that cannot be processed on your current system version, for example a video.

Try to export in much smaller batches, so you can identify problematic items, that are causing the spinning wheel.

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Answer 3

square_one Author

Level 1

4 points

Jan 13, 2021 7:26 AM in response to Matti Haveri

In my export folder (the big one with all of the files) before the export I have:

IMG_8355.JPG

IMG_8355.xmp

IMG_8355 (1).JPG

IMG_8355 (1).xmp

IMG_8355 (2).JPG

IMG_8355 (2).xmp

IMG_8355 (2)O.aae

If i attempt an export to this folder I get the problem. When I attempt an export to another folder which is empty it exports correctly as:

IMG_8355.MOV

IMG_8355.xmp

IMG_8355O.aae

Perhaps I jumped the gun by blaming the .xmp, apologies. But something is problematic in that folder for the export of this one movie file. My guess is a clash of name somehow but I could be wrong.

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Answer 4

square_one Author

Level 1

4 points

Jan 13, 2021 3:19 AM in response to léonie

Thanks — This is what I’m doing right now. Binary chop to find the culprit. I have it hanging on 1000 file export now.

So 9 (10?) more attempts to find the problem file (x2hr for each attempt unless I force quit and potentially corrupt my photo DB?)

Perhaps this is a bit naive of me but wouldn’t a nice little “can’t export this because of reason” error box be better than 2 hours of troll-umbrella, 30Gb of swap space used before an unceremonious crash?

Its not like I’m rewriting the kernel, I’m just trying to export some photos. 😖

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Answer 5

square_one Author

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4 points

Jan 13, 2021 8:54 AM in response to léonie

It’s odd. I have the same behaviour when I either (a) attempt all 36k pictures and videos in a single export to an empty folder and (b) when I attempt just the offending movie file to a folder containing duplicates. Both of these situations cause the problem.

The only way I managed to get it to work was chunk the work in 5k blocks. When it fails make a new empty folder and continue.

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Answer 6

léonie

Level 10

200,855 points

Jan 13, 2021 8:51 AM in response to square_one

The duplicate names are only a problem, if the there are two files with the same name in the same export. Photos will append the number (1) etc, if already a file with the same name exists in the destination folder, but not, when it is trying to export two files with the same name in the same export to the same folder. It seems to be fixed in the current Beta version I am using, but I had the problem continually in the current stable version.

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Answer 7

Jan 13, 2021 6:58 AM in response to square_one

I could not provoke a clash when exporting same file name .jpg, .mp4 and .mov or same Title with original quality & .xmp sidecars: a (1), (2) etc suffix was automatically added to duplicate filenames (macOS 11.1).

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Answer 8

square_one Author

Level 1

4 points

Jan 13, 2021 7:30 AM in response to square_one

Interestingly it seems it did manage to export a IMG_8355 (2).MOV but no .xmp or O.aae. So it has decided to name the mov file (2) which is a clash. Not sure why it wouldn’t choose (3) as it’s the next available.

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Answer 9

square_one Author

Level 1

4 points

Jan 13, 2021 3:21 AM in response to léonie

Sorry — it’s exporting to the local SSD

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Problems exporting from Photos

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