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I have approx. 500 old scanned photos (pre digital) on a windows computer. How can I organize the 'numbered' photos in the correct sequence when I transfer them into my MacBook? Apple support wasn't any help..
Windows, Windows 10
How are you intending to organise them? In the file system (finder), or in the photos app. I'll assume the photos app.
In the main "all photos" library view in the photos app, images are always sorted by creation date (and that is the image capture date in the exif data, not the file creation date). Do your scanned images have a capture date added by the scanner software? If so, they will be displayed in the order they were scanned in the all photos view.
In an album, and some other views, they can be sorted also by Title (which defaults to file name). So if the filename is numerically sequenced, then this sort will also work. Bear in mind though that this sorting is alphbetical, not numeric. So IMG10.jpg would appear before IMG2.jpg (1 is before 2). If you want title naming to work for sorting, then you'll need at least two preceeding zeros (for 500 images) so that you can use 001, 002 ... 010,011... 499,500 to keep the sequence.
Alternatively you can add date/time to the metadata if it is not already there in the order you need - either within photos using "adjust date and time" or with an external app.
How are you intending to organise them? In the file system (finder), or in the photos app. I'll assume the photos app.
In the main "all photos" library view in the photos app, images are always sorted by creation date (and that is the image capture date in the exif data, not the file creation date). Do your scanned images have a capture date added by the scanner software? If so, they will be displayed in the order they were scanned in the all photos view.
In an album, and some other views, they can be sorted also by Title (which defaults to file name). So if the filename is numerically sequenced, then this sort will also work. Bear in mind though that this sorting is alphbetical, not numeric. So IMG10.jpg would appear before IMG2.jpg (1 is before 2). If you want title naming to work for sorting, then you'll need at least two preceeding zeros (for 500 images) so that you can use 001, 002 ... 010,011... 499,500 to keep the sequence.
Alternatively you can add date/time to the metadata if it is not already there in the order you need - either within photos using "adjust date and time" or with an external app.
Thanks Tony, I'm trying to organize them in a Photo Library (separate from the main library). They are old family photos dating back to the 1930's. When I scanned them in on my old Dell computer with Windows they were scanned several photos to a page and edited into single photos so no date/time stamp. I labelled them in Windows numerically and with names of individuals etc. When I transfer them in a folder from my old computer they stay in the correct order in the desktop file. As soon as I move them to the Mac library they arrive scrambled and adding zeros or alphabetical references as per your suggestion does not help to unscramble them. I was hoping that Apple would have a 'sort' function like windows does, but I'm now resigned to the realization that I will have to add a time 'stamp' on each individual photo to make this work. Thanks for your time and response! Henry
Organizing scanned photos transferred from windows OS to a MacBook
