How to sort photos by file name or title in photo editing software?

Lawrence Giordano wrote: When I made the migration from the old computer to the new one, all of the file names that were on the 18th thousand photos move to the second line of the new software which I believe our titles

In the ⌘-i Info Window for this picture

The top arrow points to the Tittle, and the bottom arrow points to the filename. Below that is the capture date.

Here is a picture that has no Title:

In the Title field it says: Add a Title.

I lost my ability to sort by file name because now the file names became titles

While you can search for filenames, Photos does not allow sorting by filename. Sorting can be done by Title or Date.

One confusing thing is that in the Library view,

Sorting can only be done by date.

Sorting by Title or by Date is available in Album views. I usually make a Smart Album with all the pictures so that I can sort by Title.

I really wondered if Apple could do a sortation by titles, but if not, is there any software that you people have seen that allows the complete presentation of the file name, plus the title, plus the date, etc.

Well, as you can see in the first two pictures above, the Info Window in Photos shows all that, as well as caption, keywords, and location.

The app Photos Workbench ($30) lets you batch change Titles. The app  PowerPhotos ($40) does, as well.

Scripts listed here

Thematic Index to Photos for Mac related User Tips

are free, and we can help if you want to try one out.

"Just so you understand, when I moved 18k files that had names on each to the new photo, the names dropped to the second line, and the title is blank, which prohibits sortation, etc."

That is the expected behavior. As Richard explained, a photo or a video has a filename, and optionally, a title and a description, which we can assign. Previously I used the AppleScript posted by OldToad to copy the filename to the title. But now I am doing the batch changing in PowerPhotos.

Many photos are 35mm conversions, with no time data that is meaningful, as the items have been uploaded in batch, not when taken asked apple if there was a way to copy all of the file names into the title, in batch but they said noI believe power photo is the way to go.

PowerPhotos is a very useful companion to Photos. You will enjoy it, once you try it. It can now also batch change the locations and the capture date, in addition to the titles and keywords.

In all versions of PowerPhotos you can view your Photos Library in an additional browser window, view the metadata in a nice table view with the metadata for each photo in column and can sort the photos by clicking a header of the column, to sort them by size or filename, etc.

But the first versions of PowerPhotos have only been for browsing or merging or exporting libraries. We could not modify the photos in PowerPhotos. It is only since PowerPhotos 3 that we can edit and batch change the metadata directly in PowerPhotos. But it is very easy now in PowerPhotos 3.2.6, even when the library is an iCloud Photos Library.

One caveat: PowerPhotos will become slow, if the library is very large. With only 18000 items in your library it should be no problem, but my library has slowly grown to more than 80000 photos, in spite of trying to keep it small. And PowerPhotos is now noticeably slower than before, when opening a library or sorting the items by the filename or size.

You don't say what device you're using or what OS, but if it's a Mac, then you can use the menu View>Sort

to sort by title.

The filename is not the title, although it is true that in the absence of a title thumbnails will show the filename--

but that is less bright, so you can tell the difference.

Filenames are pretty much ignored by Photos. Filenames are important in File Management systems, but they really don't have much to do with a picture in an Image Management system. Not all pictures in Photos are files, so filename has less meaning. For instance, when you edit or crop a picture, that image is not a file, but rather it is information combined in a database. When you save that as a file you are creating a brand new file, so it can have whatever name you like.

If you're sure that the filenames are what you want to use, then you can run a script that adds the filename to the Title. There are some scripts here:

Thematic Index to Photos for Mac related User Tips

You can search for Filename.

I use the app Photos Workbench ($30) that, for me, is way easier to use. You get a vast array of things that can be put in the Title field, like this:

I use a standard form for the Title that includes date, counter, and description:

By changing the counter I can arrange pictures in a different order. When you export a picture in Photos, you can have the new filename be the Title, so slideshows, for instance, show the picture in the order you choose. Titles are part of an exported picture's metadata, so the Title travels along with the picture.

iOS and iPadOS don't show Titles, so I copy title information into the picture's Caption field, and I can add more specific information there.

The following shows the sorting options for the various methods of viewing in the library:

If you want to copy the file name (minus the extension) select the photos and run this Apple Script as an application;

-- Photos | Filename to Title Without Extension| V1.2

-- Images with no title will have the filename used as the title
-- Use values below to exclide or include specfic file extensions from the generated title
-- Existing titles will be modified to add or remove any extension from the title as required

set exclude to ".jpeg.bmp.jpg.mov.png.tif.tiff.psd.nef.dng.cr2" -- Extensions to exclude from the image titles
set include to ".txt" -- Extensions to include in the image titles



tell application "Photos"
	activate
	set updated to 0
	set info to "Photos | Filename to Title"
	set images to (get selection)
	if images is {} then
		display dialog "Please select items in Photos before calling this script." with title info buttons {"OK"} giving up after 5
	else
		repeat with image in images
			set fullName to filename of image
			set title to the name of image
			if not (exists (title)) or title = "" then
				set title to fullName
				set current to ""
			else
				set current to title
			end if
			set pos to offset of "." in ((reverse of characters of title) as string)
			set prefix to characters 1 thru (-1 - pos) of title as string
			if pos > 0 then
				set postfix to characters -pos thru -1 of title as string
			else
				set postfix to ""
			end if
			set pos to offset of "." in ((reverse of characters of fullName) as string)
			set ext to characters -pos thru -1 of fullName as string
			if (offset of postfix in exclude) > 0 then
				set newTitle to prefix
			else
				set newTitle to prefix & postfix
			end if
			if (offset of ext in include) > 0 and not ext = postfix then
				set newTitle to newTitle & ext -- Or could test here and add something like " | RAW" for raw formats
			end if
			if not current = newTitle then
				set the name of image to newTitle
				set updated to updated + 1
			end if
		end repeat
	end if
end tell

If you would like to include the extension in the Title use this script as an application:

-- Photos | File Name to Title with Extension
tell application "Photos"
	-- this script is adding the filename to the title. If the photo already has a title, it will append the old title to the filename
	activate
	set imageSel to (get selection)
	set currentfilename to ""
	if imageSel is {} then
		error "Please select an image."
	else
		repeat with im in imageSel
			
			tell media item im
				set newtitle to the filename of im
				set oldtitle to the name of im
				if (exists (oldtitle)) then
					set newtitle to newtitle & " " & oldtitle
				end if
				set the name of im to newtitle
			end tell
		end repeat
	end if
	return currentfilename
end tell`

Copy the code into Script Editor and save as an application.

I lost my ability to sort by file name because now the file names became titles

I wonder, how you have been sorting by filenames on your old computer. You probably have been using a different app. We could sort by filename in Aperture or iPhoto, but no longer in Photos. The Photos.app has been designed to be used with iCloud, for easy syncing across all our Apple devices, and all system versions. For this purpose Apple is renaming all files internally in Photos, with unique filenames, like "8E1EACE1-2A5C-4C1B-B779-4BDE4B1021A5.jpeg". The original filename is stored separately in the internal dadatabes, so Photos can show it in the Info and below the thumbnail, if a photo has no title. But this connection can break, if the Photos Library gets corrupted when Photos is crashing. To save the original filenames I recommend to archive the original image files outside the Photos Library in addition to the imported files in Photos. I am exporting all new original image files and videos to folders on a separate external drive, using the export preset "Filename > use Filename" and "Subfolder Format > Moment name".

This way I can recover my original files with the original filenames, even if Photos can no longer open the Photos Library because of a corruption.

Lawrence Giordano wrote: … the names dropped to the second line, and the title is blank, which prohibits sortation, etc

They didn't change- the top field is for the Title, and the second field is for the filename.

As léonie says,  PowerPhotos ($40) now offers the ability to batch change metadata.

I'm embarrassed to say that I have found it rather awkward at batch changes-- but I haven't played with it so much. As I mentioned earlier, I use the app Photos Workbench ($30) that, for me, is way easier to use for Title editing. This shows some of the menu of things you can include in the Title:

And here is another list:

I can also do Find & Replace to fix all the mistakes I've made!

I use Photos Workbench only for Titles, though it offers some other tools. On the other hand, I use PowerPhotos every day, and it is incredibly powerful and versatile.

léonie wrote: …Photos 4 on macOS 10.14 Mojave has been the only version of Photos, that would use the filename, when sorting by title, if the photo did not have a title assigned, one of the reasons why I kept an older Mac on macOS 10.14.

All the filenames changed to GUID names right after Mojave. I wish they put the original file name in the metadata, at least.

Thanks for the Tips catalog, by the way. I recommend it often.

Photos 4 on macOS 10.14 Mojave has been the only version of Photos, that would use the filename, when sorting by title, if the photo did not have a title assigned, one of the reasons why I kept an older Mac on macOS 10.14.