How do I export ALL movies from 'TV.app' AND 'Photos.app' ?

Question

Level 1

14 points

How do I export ALL movies from 'TV.app' AND 'Photos.app' ?

IMAC LATE 2013 / Catalina 10.15.7 / TV.app v1.0.6.8 / Photos.app v5.0

Have had no luck googling. Searching for "export from" "TV.app" gets endless hits not related to the TV.app on the desktop.

I want to export ALL of my movies and extras from TV.app and Photos.app to a removable drive.

(To include the home movies in either app)

After confirming that I got everything OUT with the original filenames, I will have each app rebuild its own library on the startup drive by COPYing my files on that drive.

That will leave me with a backup (with human-readable file names) of all of my movies current to that date.

End result will hopefully be to have TV.app hold ALL moving pictures in ONE TV library, and to have Photos.app to hold all still images in ONE Photos library.

Please tell me how or link me to instructions for exporting from these apps?

Cheers!

iMac Line (2012 and Later)

Posted on May 20, 2022 9:00 PM

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Answer 1

Nixt Author

Level 1

14 points

Jun 29, 2022 3:35 PM in response to Nixt

Photos.app SOLUTION:

1) Select up to 5,000 photos that you want to export.

(Attempting to export more than about 5,000 causes my installation of Photos to crash)

2) Use Photos' internal feature File > Export > "Export Unmodified Original for _ Photos..." to export the photos to a location of your choice.

This is painfully slow - each batch can take up to 15 minutes, but this method will get it done.

TV.app SOLUTION:

1) Purchase / acquire a third-party search program to use in place of Finder and Spotlight. Those cannot search inside the apps. I used a search app called 'Find Any File.app' - but you can use any search program that can search contents as well as filenames and search within apps. (Third party tools are often WAY faster than Spotlight/Finder.)

2)Use the app to search your Movies folder and your Pictures folder for video files. This will take a while, be patient. Once the search is done, order the results by path and look for your movie titles. Look for movies in OTHER directories as well, because all of your movies may not be in the same library.

(Mine were in an iTunes library, an iPhoto library, a Photos library, AND a TV library)

3) Open the directories that hold your movies, and copy them to your location of choice. Don't delete or rename them - this would greatly upset TV.app.

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Answer 2

Nixt Author

Level 1

14 points

May 22, 2022 4:33 PM in response to Rudegar

Hi Rudegear,

Regarding the first link to a Google search:

I am not asking how to move the library, I am asking how to export my content FROM the librarieS that currently hold it. Big difference. I want to get my content OUT of the app's library!

Regarding the second link to the hit from the linked search:

Again, this explains how to move a library using Music.app not how to export content from the TV.app.

Thanks, though.

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