Where are photo file names?

I got my wife's 2200 image library "titled" in about 5 minutes. I started with a few images, and keep increasing the number of images processed - and it did several hundred at a time without any problems - and pretty quickly too.

I ran into two issues:

(1) The first couple of times you try to run the service script, it fails with an error. Restarting the computer seemed to fix that.

(2) I have an administrator account and my wife has a normal user account on her iMac (I am trying to keep her safe). I originally created the Photo Service in my account - and it didn't show up in her account. I recreated it in her account, and it runs fine. I haven't seen anything that says how to create an service for all user account - which would be a handy option.

Thanks again for this very helpful fix.

David

Virginia Vail wrote:

Is there any way to know if Apple will fix this and provide an easy way to copy the file name into the description field?

None of us know what Apple will do but it can't hurt to send them feedback about this & any of the other things you would like to see Photos be capable of doing.

Old Toad wrote:

I just ran it on my 4700 photo library and it completed the task in about a minute or so. Was faster than I expected.

How fast is the Mac you used to do this? My 1/4 second per file estimate was a crude one, based on what I saw while using my iMac (a 2.9 GHz Intel Core i5 2012 model) to process batches of no more than 100 or so images at a time, with Photos in the foreground. I did notice there was a lag before the first title appeared, & after that they appeared more quickly in groups of around 8 or so images at a time.

DRedfearn wrote:

I haven't seen anything that says how to create an service for all user account - which would be a handy option.

Services created when you choose the Service document type in Automator are saved in the Services folder in the user's Library folder (~/Library/Services). There does not seem to be an equivalent folder in the root level Library folder so I'm guessing there is no straightforward way to create an 'all accounts' one. There probably would be permissions issues to work out as well.

It's a mid 2011 27 " iMac Intel Core i7 with 8 GB of RAM with an SSD boot drive. I don't pay close attention to the time as I was posting to other topics as the time but it wasn't more than a couple of minutes I'm sure.

It looks like after running the script on the main copy of Photos, the titles don't show up on the other macs and iPhone and iPad being synchronized via iCloud. At least, it hasn't worked for me. (I ran the script for my main iMac - which synchronizes to another iMac, a MBA and to a iPhone 5s and an iPad Mini Retina. I have each of these devices set to conserve space.) Seems odd - Title is part of the metadata and should synchronize. The other metadata does show up.

David

To add to the confusion, file names of photos does not seem to follow the file through synchronization between Macs using iCloud Photo Library, but are changed outside of users control. Maybe Apple will fix this in the next version, but currently I experience that if I have imported a file to Photos named e.g. "2014_summervacation_1" from a folder, when it syncronizes to the other mac, the file there may be called IMGXXXX.jpg. How consistant is that? So a workaround would maybe be to store the filename in the metadata as you are discussing here. Can anyone confirm that this file renaming is automatically happening?

I just noticed this morning, that the filename2title script has stopped working. I get no error message, but nothing happens. I tried opening Automator and stepping through the script, and it completes with no errors, but the (one) image I had selected doesn't get a title. The only thing that has changed is that Photos has completed uploading my complete library to iCloud. As I mentioned in an earlier post, the titles changed by the script don't make it back to the other devices linked to iCloud Photos. The rest of the metadata is intact, but the title is blank again. Ugh.

David

Léoni;

I got this thread from another post I made, so .....

I tried creating the Automator script but it does not run nor does the new service appear in Photos' services. When I try running the script from Automator, with Photos open and a picture file selected, I get the follow error:

This being my first sue of Automator there's is likely some subtle thing I am doing wrong. Any guidance will be appreciated.

Thanks... Chris

My advice is to:

(1) Reboot your system and try again

and/or

(2) Open automator and try stepping through the script.

I got the same error the first couple of times I tried to run the script, but rebooting and stepping through the script seem to fix whatever problem was occurring.

The script is back working for me again after failing for a while.

I have pretty much decided to go back to Lightroom for all my photo organization and processing. I will only use Photos for my iPhone shots.

David

David;

Thanks. I rebooted but to no avail, so I logged in under my admin account and it works but only if run from Automator. Since this is my first attempt at scripting, maybe scripts only work from admin accounts. Also, the Service does not show up in Photos' menu system even though its visible in the \Library\Services folder. So I created a workflow app that works OK when run after selecting some photos. Fortunately Automator is reasonably self evident to use.

On a related topic, I tried deleting the newly created filename-as-title and tried the script again. Does not work. Its almost as if once a title is created and then deleted the script "sees" a title and won't overwrite it. Do you have any ideas as to a different script that would erase a previously created title ?

Thanks in advance .... Chris

There is something very strange going with with how OS X handles the service scripts. It took me two or three tries to get the script working (rebooting, stepping through the script, etc.). Then it stopped working (after my library had been completely uploaded to iCloud Photos). Then it started working again. I am not a script expert, so I have no idea of what is going on here. And, I have noted that the titles don't show up on my linked devices (a second iMac and a MBA - along with an iPhone 5s and an iPad Mini Retina). You could go back to the original author (leonie - who is very helpful) and ask, but I suspect the script treats a "blank" Title (which you get when you manually delete the Title text) as present - as distinct from an "absent" title. If the script thinks the Title is present, it won't update. This is only a guess, however.

I have gotten the script to work both in my own (administrator) account, and my wife's standard user account. This is on the same iMac. I had to create the script twice - once under my account and then again under my wife's account. So, I know it doesn't require an administrative account. There doesn't seem to be any way to create the service and make it available to all users on the same Mac.

I hope Apple clears up some of these details, but the articles I have read so far (the TidBITS FAQ by Joe Kissell is very good) leave some things a mystery - basically, the reviewers have to experiment with the software - and as we have seen, you don't get consistent results.

I have decided that Photos is not for me. I am going to migrate all my "real" photo organization and editing to Lightroom. I have used LR for several years, but split my usage between iPhoto and LR. Now, I think Photos is only good for my iPhone photos, and that is what I am going to do. It will save me some money too, as I purchased the 500GB iCloud package because of the size of my libraries.

David

David;

Thanks so much for this dialog. You confirmed what I suspected and that is, lots of experimentation is required. I will take a look at LR as I've got ~20K or so photos and iPhoto did the job nicely for me. Photos also does not support geotagging, but other 3rd party apps do. I might just keeping using iPhoto while preparing to exit to LR.

Cheers ... Chris

Chris Lyons wrote:

On a related topic, I tried deleting the newly created filename-as-title and tried the script again. Does not work. Its almost as if once a title is created and then deleted the script "sees" a title and won't overwrite it. Do you have any ideas as to a different script that would erase a previously created title ?

That is exactly what happens. The details are in this post but the bottom line is you need to modify the ifnot (exists (title)) then line of the script as follows:

ifnot (exists (title)) ortitle = "" then

This should fix that problem.

Thanks for throwing in on my other thread...I have tried this script a dozen times, and I always get an error: "AppleEvent handler failed." This happens even after multiple reboots, and also while stepping through the script. Any ideas? Thank you!

EDIT: Wait a minute, I just found that when I select images in the Photos tab, the script won't work, but when I select them in albums > all photos, it does. We'll see if the names propogate into iCloud. Thank you!