I used Aperture to store secondary photos so I was not tracking that Apple was stopping support of Aperture with OS Mojave. I am now on Big Sur.
Is there any way that I can convert my Aperture library to another app?
Thanks
Bill
Mac mini 2018 or later
It is a pity, that you did not do the migration, while still running Mojave. It would have made it easier, because you could have compered the Aperture Libraries in Aperture to the migrated version in another application, to fix missing metadata, wrong dates, recreate albums, create high resolution previews of the edited versions. Or repair the Aperture Libraries in Aperture, if Photos cannot open them directly. Without being able to run Aperture the migration may be a bit lossy.
Here is Apple's support document on how to migrate to Photos or Lightroom: Migrate your Aperture library to the Photos app or Adobe Lightroom Classic - Apple Support
I'd first try to open the Aperture Library in Photos. This will at least allow you to see the titles, captions, keywords, albums, projects as albums and give you a away to access the photos at all, while you are exploring alternative applications. if you did not create high resolution previews of your edited versions, you will have to revert the photos to the originals, because the edited versions are migrated as previews. If there should be a problem to open your Aperture libraries in Photos, check if they are on a correctly formatted volume: Move your Photos library to save space on your Mac - Apple Support
It is a pity, that you did not do the migration, while still running Mojave. It would have made it easier, because you could have compered the Aperture Libraries in Aperture to the migrated version in another application, to fix missing metadata, wrong dates, recreate albums, create high resolution previews of the edited versions. Or repair the Aperture Libraries in Aperture, if Photos cannot open them directly. Without being able to run Aperture the migration may be a bit lossy.
Here is Apple's support document on how to migrate to Photos or Lightroom: Migrate your Aperture library to the Photos app or Adobe Lightroom Classic - Apple Support
I'd first try to open the Aperture Library in Photos. This will at least allow you to see the titles, captions, keywords, albums, projects as albums and give you a away to access the photos at all, while you are exploring alternative applications. if you did not create high resolution previews of your edited versions, you will have to revert the photos to the originals, because the edited versions are migrated as previews. If there should be a problem to open your Aperture libraries in Photos, check if they are on a correctly formatted volume: Move your Photos library to save space on your Mac - Apple Support
You can open the Aperture library with Photos.
You can migrate an Aperture Library to Lightroom Classic, CaptureOne and On1 PhotoRaw (at least).
Each of these processes have limitations and you should check out exactly what you get before committing to it. Work on a copy of the Library for safety.
Finally, you can also recover the masters from the Library package and start over form scratch.
Thanks for the info!
I tried to open the library in photos without success.
But your answer sent me in another direction. I have an app called Luminar Ai and I imported my "pictures" folder when I set the app up initially. And the aperture library was in that folder.
So when I looked at the contents of the aperture library in Luminar Ai, there were thousands of pictures there! Unfortunately there were many, many duplicates (15,091 to be exact). However, in the Masters sub- folder, there are only 3274. I am not sure what metadata might be present.
So from your comment above, I should be able to do some recovery work from the Masters folder. There is also a Previews folder and a thumbnails folder with images as well.
Any guidance on how to work with these folders to recover as much as possible, would be appreciated.
Thanks for all of your help.
Bill
Okay. I exported a small number images from the Masters Folder and that worked okay. However, when I checked the metadata (command-I), the date that I took the picture changed to the export date. That's a bummer.
But I can create a folder with a title of the date range being exported and get reasonably close. I little extra work but for me that should be close enough.
Thanks again for your help.
As Luminar has only a vary basic library function, you're effectively only getting the masters there. Dump everything else.
Okay. And the Maters are separated by year so that will be helpful.
Thanks again.
One last thing. I imported one of those images that I exported from Luminar AI into photos and the original date was present. That is very cool.
Thanks again
Converting aperture library
