Lost originals on Aperture and exporting

So this is what I have done to solve this issue.

It is quite a long process but will:

1. Allow you to access an aperture library on Ventura
2. Allow you to export files if you have the originals
3. Allow you to export files if you don't have the originals (which was the bit I was really struggling with)

1. You can download Retroactive from Github to allow you to access Aperture on a Mac https://github.com/cormiertyshawn895/Retroactive and you can then open you old Library to see all your photos
2. You can export your library to any number of apps if you have all the originals in the app (which isn't the case for me). You can also go to Photos and import an aperture library into it.
3. As at some point, probably when I was a student and didn't have a big enough HDD, I moved some of the photos out of aperture. I have no idea where these HDD are but I an happy with the mediocre quality of the screen shot for the memory.

I moved all of my photos into projects of about 2k of photos each and then made a new library with each project.

I took the Thumbnails folder and moved it out of the aperture package (right click and select "show package contents on the Aperture library) so that I could access it with the.......

......Duplicate File Finder App https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/duplicate-file-finder-remover/id1032755628?mt=12.

The reason I need this is that the previews are of much lower quality (10-20kb) than the thumbnails (~500kb) but come in more than one file. You then need to scrub the Thumbnail folder with the duplicate app to make sure you remove all the extra files.

I then opened a new photos library for my Aperture import and imported the scrubbed thumbnail library into it.

I now have a photos library with all the originals and thumbnails from my aperture library.

This takes a long time and will not work for everyone, but I hope it helps someone.

So this is what I have done to solve this issue.

It is quite a long process but will:

1. Allow you to access an aperture library on Ventura
2. Allow you to export files if you have the originals
3. Allow you to export files if you don't have the originals (which was the bit I was really struggling with)

1. You can download Retroactive from Github to allow you to access Aperture on a Mac https://github.com/cormiertyshawn895/Retroactive and you can then open you old Library to see all your photos
2. You can export your library to any number of apps if you have all the originals in the app (which isn't the case for me). You can also go to Photos and import an aperture library into it.
3. As at some point, probably when I was a student and didn't have a big enough HDD, I moved some of the photos out of aperture. I have no idea where these HDD are but I an happy with the mediocre quality of the screen shot for the memory.

I moved all of my photos into projects of about 2k of photos each and then made a new library with each project.

I took the Thumbnails folder and moved it out of the aperture package (right click and select "show package contents on the Aperture library) so that I could access it with the.......

......Duplicate File Finder App https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/duplicate-file-finder-remover/id1032755628?mt=12.

The reason I need this is that the previews are of much lower quality (10-20kb) than the thumbnails (~500kb) but come in more than one file. You then need to scrub the Thumbnail folder with the duplicate app to make sure you remove all the extra files.

I then opened a new photos library for my Aperture import and imported the scrubbed thumbnail library into it.

I now have a photos library with all the originals and thumbnails from my aperture library.

It is a little more complicated if you have some originals and want to maintain those particular photos, but you can use the same duplicate app to sort those out as well.

Clearly you can change the way you do this to keep them in a particular order or by projects you already have in Aperture but I just wanted to make sure I had copied them all over.

This takes a long time and will not work for everyone, but I hope it helps someone.