How to move stationary pictures without all the added MOV and AAE files?

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Level 1

4 points

How to move stationary pictures without all the added MOV and AAE files?

I have an Iphone and MacBook Air. I always put my holiday pictures/movies in a holiday folder.

I have never moved my pictures since I had an Iphone. Now I tried doing that and I find it quite complicated. I was told to transfer via Image Capture. Took me a while to select them all, but now for every picture there is a movie file as well as an AAE file. It just feels like a lot of 'junk' files that I do not need.

I just want to transfer the stationary pictures and that is it. Now I am going through it all and deleting these extra files, it's taking me ages.

Is there a more simple way to only transfer the stationary picture to a folder, without getting all these extra files? I tried working via Photos but I do not understand how I can transfer files to a folder within my Mac there.

I hope you all can help me out!

iPhone 11, iOS 15

Posted on Nov 21, 2021 5:33 AM

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Answer 1

Old Toad

Level 10

215,244 points

Nov 21, 2021 10:39 AM in response to Isaura01

You can export the live photos out of the Library as JPEGs and that will leave the movie portion of the live photo behind.

Or you can use any one of the many HEIC to JPG converter apps from the App Store. Just search for "heir to jpg converter".

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Answer 2

léonie

Level 10

200,519 points

Nov 21, 2021 7:32 AM in response to Isaura01

The .AAE files are describing the effects you added to the photos, the .MOV files are the animated part of a Live Photo. If you do not want these additional files, you may turn off the Live Photos in the Camera on your iPhone and do not add filters, when taking a photos.

It would not hurt to import all files into the Photos.app. Photos will pair them on import and combine them into a Live Photo, and you will only see the Live Photo in Photos. The other files will be hidden and managed by Photos. This way, you can use Photos to change the filters or Live effects.

If you are not importing to Photos, sort the folder with the imported photos in the Finder by the file type; then you can easily select all :MOV and .AAE sidecar files together and delete them in one go.

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Answer 3

léonie

Level 10

200,519 points

Nov 21, 2021 10:48 AM in response to Isaura01

When you export from Photos to convert HEIC go JPEG, use "File > Export > Export ... photos", and select a high quality and the original size. This requires at laest macOS 10.13 High Sierra or later with Photos 3 or later.

If the system version on your Mac is older, you can use this page to convert HEIC to JPEG: http://heictojpg.com/

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Answer 4

Isaura01 Author

Level 1

4 points

Nov 21, 2021 8:30 AM in response to léonie

I want the photos live as I like having them on my phone. However, when I transfer them to a folder on my Mac I would not like to have those, just the stationary pictures so to say.

I do not completely understand the photo app, as it says the photos are synched within the app, but I want them in an actual folder on my Mac and there just does not seem to be an option to do that within the photo app (or if there is one can you explain how to do that, cause I cannot seem to find out).

Yeah only thing with the last option you gave is that there are some films/movies in there as well that I have imported. So selecting on MOV will essentially also remove my videos. So I need to select those files by hand to not remove the wrong ones.

Also, is there an easy way to convert from Heic to JPG?

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How to move stationary pictures without all the added MOV and AAE files?

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