How can I modify titles and descriptions in Photos on a Mac

You can select the photos, in the order you want them, and use this user AppleScript provided by user léonie to rename the photos' Title and and add a sequential number at the end: Batch Change Title to Text w/Padded Sequential Numbers, and then export the renamed photos using the Title as the File name.

Or, you can do it outside of the library with Name Mangler. It's a very powerful renaming app.

As Yer_Man says, "name of picture" can mean several things. For instance, the Photos app doesn't care about filenames-- it doesn't even use them, really, but it shows the filename in the Info Window for reference. You can't use Photos to change file names.

Photos uses ITPC, another metadata thing, to record captions, keywords, and titles. The Title (but not the filename, or caption) can be made to show up under pictures in the thumbnail view, and you can sort by title if you want. Doing batch operations with title sequences isn't something Photos does, but there are scripts that do that for you. See this: Thematic Index to Photos for Mac related … - Apple Community --and search for Batch.

There are a number of apps that can change filenames before you add pictures to Photos. An app that many of us use is GraphicConverter ($40) which also makes it easy to add information to Exif metadata and to IPTC metadata. The free ExifTool Reader lets you see the Exif metadata. Be very careful of apps that say they do things like this for pictures within the Photos Library-- they may corrupt the Library.

For batch changing titles within Photos, I use Photos Workbench ($30) which offers all sorts of options for titles. For instance, I include the date at the beginning of titles so that I can sort by title even for pictures whose date isn't really the capture date, and I add sequencing numbers to put them in the order I want.

Let us know if we can help with this....

The code is above is running for me. I posted it with the code insertion tool:

Many of the lines are longer than the window width. This needs to be taken into account when copying the script. The code for the apple script on the user tip page posted by OT has unfortunately been messed up by one of the updates of the forum software and the line breaks have been removed and is no longer save to use.

The error message -1721 means, that the run command of the Apple Script does not receive the parameters. It needs to be wrapped into an Automator Workflow (as shown on the page linked by OT) that is asking for the title text and passing it to the script.

For me, this automator workflow is working well, when running the script directly from Automator, after selecting the images in Photos: The workflow has been created as a Quick Action so I link it to a keyboard shortcut or call it from the Services menu in Photos. Or simply run it from Automator by clicking the Run button.

I have not tested to compile it as an app. When I compile it, I may have to recreate it, when the system version changes. Once it is an App, I can no longer edit it and do not see the error messages.

In GraphicConverter's browser there is a little camera icon at the top for Exif stuff. First choice is Edit Exif Data. I am no expert at this, but I have selected a bunch of pictures and added lens information, for instance, that shows up in Photos info.

You may want to uses keywords and enter that in IPTC metadata. This can be done in Photos as well as in GC. Photos might be easier-- there are keyword shortcuts that let you use a single keystroke. You can go through an album of pictures and just it the key. Also, you may need more then one tag on each picture, and keywords are good for that. Keywords get added, when some other thing get replaced.

When you posted the script into Script Editor did you click on the Compile button first? That would have given you the error.

Try again. Copy the following code into Script Editor and hit compile. It you don't get an error code all is well and you can save as an application.

on run {input, parameters}

  -- batch change the title to the input, © léonie, version 1.0.1

  set n_digits to 2 -- how many digits for the appended number

  set answer to display dialog "Select the number of digits for the appended numbers (0 .. 10).  Selecting '0' will suppress the leading zeros." buttons {"o.k"} default answer n_digits

   -- For 1-9 photos use 2.  For 10 to 99 photos use 3 and use 4 for 100 or more photos.

  set n_digits_text to the (text returned of answer)

  set n_digits to n_digits_text as number

  tell application "Photos"

  activate

  set counter to 1

  set imageSel to (get selection) -- get selected images

  if imageSel is {} then

  error "Please select some images."

  else

  repeat with im in imageSel

  set ntext to the counter as text

  repeat while (the length of ntext < n_digits) -- add leading zeros

  set ntext to "0" & ntext

  end repeat

  tell im

  set the name to input & "-" & ntext as text

  -- set the title to the input plus formatted number

  set counter to counter + 1

  end tell

  end repeat

  end if

  end tell

  return "Done. The titles of " & (length of imageSel) & " photos have been changed."

end run

I copied the code from my working version of the script.

on run {input, parameters}

	-- batch change the title to the input, © léonie, version 1.0.1
	
	set n_digits to 2 -- how many digits for the appended number
	
	set answer to display dialog "Select the number of digits for the appended numbers (0 .. 10).  Selecting '0' will suppress the leading zeros." buttons {"o.k"} default answer n_digits
	
	-- For 1-9 photos use 2.  For 10 to 99 photos use 3 and use 4 for 100 or more photos.
	set n_digits_text to the (text returned of answer)
	set n_digits to n_digits_text as number
	tell application "Photos"
		activate
		set counter to 1
		set imageSel to (get selection) -- get selected images
		if imageSel is {} then
			error "Please select some images."
		else
			repeat with im in imageSel
				set ntext to the counter as text
				repeat while (the length of ntext < n_digits) -- add leading zeros
					set ntext to "0" & ntext
				end repeat
				tell im
					set the name to input & "-" & ntext as text
					-- set the title to the input plus formatted number
					set counter to counter + 1
				end tell
			end repeat
		end if
	end tell
	return "Done. The titles of " & (length of imageSel) & " photos have been changed."
end run

Have you wrapped the script into the Automator workflow as shown in my screenshot?

The first action "Ask for text" should pass the title to the script. set the checkmark for "require an answer" in this action.

Can you clarify what you mean by 'rename photos'? Rename the jpeg files? or edit the Exif to add a title to the images?

I'd recommend doing that with GraphicConverter.

You also have to give the application you created full disk access in the System settings.

Thanks for the info about the formatting of the post. Will use the code addition from now on.