Aperture/Photos migration issues

Lightroom Classic was the destination for most folks who migrated. It's now a very powerful application, and the package you get when you subscribe is compelling. CaptureOne has its passionate followers, though I personally find it difficult to use. Others that are worth looking at; Mylio is closer t Photos/iPhoto in feel but very powerful and especuially good if syncing across devices is important. On1 Photo Raw is a kind of merge between Aperture and Photoshop, DxO Photolab is an excellent raw processor but not particularly well developed asset manager. All fo them are considerably more powerful than Photos.

With Aperture, I imported my pics into an album + stored them in a hierarchical structure on the HD:

This is called a referenced library, where you, and not the app, are managing the files. In a managed library, the files were copied into the library package and managed by the app.

If you wish to continue working this way don't use Photos.

With Aperture you had tools to use a referenced library. Particularly to manage deleting files or moving them as necessary. These features are entirely absent in Photos. Using referenced library with Photos is a disaster waiting to happen. Should the path to the files chnage for any reason you can find yourself reconnecting each file individually. Should you want to delete an image you first delete it in Photos, and then go looking in your file store to delete it there too. It's a mess and I cannot urge you enough not to use Photos with a referenced library.

My solid advice: if you want to use Photos, don't use a referenced library. If you want to use a referenced Library, don't use Photos.

There are plenty of 3rd party apps that are much more powerful than Photos, and indeed Aperture (having had 8 more years development).

Stefan,

earlier versions of Photos, up to macOS 12, could open Aperture Libraries and create new Photos Libraries from them. The new Photos library has been created in the same folder as the original Aperture Library.

On these older system versions we could save the structure of the Aperture Library and maintain the albums and folders. And even migrate a referenced Aperture Library.

This is no longer possible on Ventura and . We an only import the photos and videos from the Aperture Library into an existing Photos Library and lose the structure.

When I try to import photos from a referenced library to Photos, the Import window remains empty, because there are no items inside the library package. You would have to consolidate your Aperture Libraries before importing them to Photos. There would be no point to do that as it would be easier to import the referenced images right away. This would at least preserve your folder structure as albums.

I second Yer_Man's advice to avoid a referenced library in Photos. It is not only ill supported, but also still buggy.

And it is not possible to use iCloud Photos, if the library contains reverenced items.

To use iCloud Photos would need to set up your photos Library as a managed library. Only one Photos Library can be the system photos Library and sync with iCloud Photos .

I migrated my Aperture Libraries to Photos while I could still use Aperture and photos together. The last system version to support this has been macOS 10.14 Mojave.