Importing archival photos to new Photo Library.

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Importing archival photos to new Photo Library.

I tried to import 60,000+ photos into a new non-SystemPhoto Library using the Photo Import feature ("Import All New Items")and using the "Keep Folder Organization" option. Only 350 photos were imported and some of the original folder descriptions went missing too. One original folder had 13 photos and only 5 were transferred to the new Photo Library. Those 13 photos were all scanned at the same time, same equipment, same Jpeg format.

Yes this was a crazy attempt but it was also a test of the Photo Import option. I do have thousands of digitized photos with some original historical negatives, now digitized, dating back to 1910. I do plan to create separate Photo Libraries by subject and date but I need to transfer & import thousands of photos.

Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Mac Studio, macOS 14.2

Posted on Jan 8, 2024 12:30 PM

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Answer 1

Jan 8, 2024 11:36 PM in response to Edsel

> import 60,000+ photos

I'd import in smaller batches. I archive my original in plain folders and import them. Currently max 12 000 images or max 30 GB for movies although I might increase those figures in the future to make the batch number smaller).

> Only 350 photos were imported and some of the original folder descriptions went missing too

Photos has some issues that might explain this. Maybe the imported files did not have standard IPTC/XMP metadata that Photos reads or some other metadata intervened (for example, Photos silently fails to import movies with sidecar .xmp files. A more obscure error was that Photos.app image time was "0.00" even though it was correctly in 'ExifIFD:DateTimeOriginal' -- the root of that error was 'IPTC:DateCreated' was missing its 'IPTC:TimeCreated' counterpart or a missing time in 'XMP-photoshop:DateCreated' if "IPTCDigest is not current")?