Exporting Photos Causes Duplicates and Missing Images

I backup my images to my desktop using the Photos app. In the Photos app I select the images I want (about 100-150 at a time) and go to File -> Export. I then use File Naming to name my project's images in sequential order. I've been doing this for several months but recently two things have been happening.

Images are duplicated several times
Some of the selected images don't get exported at all

This doesn't appear to be random because if I try exporting again just about the same images get duplicated and the same images are missing. Oddly enough, when I drag the photos I selected from the Photos app to my desktop folder all of them appear, none are duplicated.

Posted on Aug 14, 2023 9:03 PM

Best reply

léonie

Level 10

195,453 points

Posted on Aug 15, 2023 1:24 AM

Could you give us a bit more background information, please?

Which system version is installed on your Mac?
And which file naming rule are you using? Are you selecting the images in an album and are using the "album name" preset for the filename?
Are you exporting with "File > Export > Export original file"? Or are you exporting the edited versions with "File > Export > Export .. photos"?

Your duplicates may depend on the export method:

When you drag and drop, you will be getting random results, depending on the image size. By dragging and dropping you are exporting the current preview of the edited version, whatever the preview quality is. But you should get just one file per dragged image.
When you export with "File > Export > Export original file", all originals of an image will be exported. For Live Photos you will get at least two exported files, for RAW&JPEG pairs also two files.
When you export the edited versions with "File > Export > Export .. photos" you should also get only one file per image.

When you export each album separately, you might get duplicates, if a photo is in several albums.

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Exporting Photos Causes Duplicates and Missing Images

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