Why do AAE files keep reappearing after deletion in my Photos app?

Gozoman wrote:

Is there any way of turning this AAE stuff off

It depends on the workflow. It has been a while since I tested this but the last time it was like below.

Have you done any edits in the mobile device? Or is the camera set as 16:9 which really shoots with the whole 4:3 sensor and automatically crops it so it is also regarded as an edit.

.AAE sidecar file describes the edits done on iOS devices. If you AirDrop or import such iPhone image then all three related files IMG_*.HEIC (original), IMG_*.heic (edited version) and IMG_*.AAE to Photos, are treated as one image. If the .AAE file is missing, Photos imports the original and the edited version as two separate images.

Photos's edit panel allows you to see which editing options were used and then revert just that or all to the original.

Personally I do not care about the .AAE files because I always import only the originals via USB (and Image Capture.app) which forces only the originals to import (without pixel or metadata edits) and do any editing on the Mac (with Lightroom, GraphicConverter or exiftool).

AirDrop "All Photos Data" option (with on the Mac side "Save to Downloads" or "Open in Photos" option selected in some macOS versions) transfers original image and movie. If image or movie pixel data has been edited, there is the original IMG_0001.* and the edited IMG_E0001.* (confusingly both with original metadata!), and image and movie IMG_0001.AAE sidecar files describing the edits.

Those are edits to the original photo. It is Metadata that is attached to the original photo by using that file name. This could show a crop on the original photo or automatic color correction to the photo. The Photos app takes the original photo, then applies the edits from the .aae file. That way you can revert edits back to a previous state without having to save multiple copies of the photo, which would significantly increase the amount of storage needed.

When I looked at the .AAE files in Photos on my Mac (synced with iCloud from my iPhone) I noticed that also face detection results are stored there in the .AAE files, the depth info and coordinates of the mouth, the eyes, the nose, the chin. So they might reappear, when the faces scan has to be repeated or we are editing Portrait Mode photos.

For example - using exiftool:

[JSON]          AdjustmentsSettingsDepthInfoFacesChinX: 0.6363841081620194, 0.82846863186568953, 0.29303731006439193
[JSON]          AdjustmentsSettingsDepthInfoFacesLeftEyeY: 0.55877074044406072, 0.64664753564352395, 0.7011039165619195
[JSON]          AdjustmentsSettingsDepthInfoFacesLeftEyeX: 0.59432180114367839, 0.82804231114778304, 0.28579466634937489
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AFAIK .AAE comes from "Apple Aperture Edits", "Apple Aperture Extension", or something like that relating to the old Aperture.app.

macOS Photos.app can import .AAE and the related settings so the user can continue editing there. I usually ignore and delete .AAE.

In Apple's .AAE files the adjustmentData section is base64 encoded and zlib compressed JSON (in some 3rd party .AAE file the adjustmentData section is base64 encoded with no compression). A few months ago it seemed that Photos.app choked on that 3rd party .AAE and failed to import the relating image.

Photos refuses to import JPEGs - Apple Community

exiftool can decode .AAE, attached is an example output.