Batch change in Photos?

To make a batch change in Photos.app:

View and add information about photos

To view or change information for photos, you select one or more photos, then open the Info window (if the Info window is not open, in the menu bar: Window -> Info).

• To change description for one photo, open the Info window: Double-click a photo to view it, then click the Info button in the toolbar or press Command-I.
• Add or change information: Edit any of the following.
  • Title: Enter a name in the Title field.
  • Description: Enter a caption in the Description field.
  • Favorite: Click the Favorite button to mark the photo as a favorite. Click the button again to unmark it.
  • Keywords: Enter keywords in the Keywords field. As you type, Photos suggests keywords that you’ve used before. Press Enter when you’ve finished a keyword. To remove a keyword, select it and press Delete.
  • Faces: Click and type a name to identify a face. Click multiple times and drag the face identifier over different faces to identify multiple faces in a photo.
  • Location: Enter a location in the Location field. As you type, Photos suggests locations that you can choose. To change a location, you can search for a different location or change the location by dragging a pin on the map. To remove location information, delete it or choose Image > Location, then choose Remove Location or Revert to Original Location. You can’t assign a location if your computer is not connected to the Internet.

Right, Catherine, this kind of batch changing is now possible in Photos, a great improvement. The ability to change the titles and descriptions for multiple selected photos has been introduced in Photos with the upgrade to OS X 10.11. It has not been possible in Photos, when it first came out in Yosemite and is still not possible in Photos on Yosemite.

And to append a text to the description of multiple selected photos we still need to fall back on an Apple Script, for examle the modification posted by cgaffga .

It is still there for titles. Select your photos and then open the info window (command I) and type in your title. There does not seem to be a way to append numbers any more.....

Thanks very much - I'm migrating from Aperture (temporarily) to Photos in macOS and this will be hugely helpful to me as I reorganize things.

If all you need is adding a description to multiple images, you may select all required images, type command+i and add

but pressing cmd-i and typing a description would not add it to all selected pictures. It would replace it. For adding as in appending it you still need to to it via script. There was a really nice option for that in iPhoto, vut since Photos.app it's gone 😟

Stand corrected. It is true one can only edit the description (if it's the same for all selected images), or write a new description (if there are various descriptions). However, one can add Keywords quite nicely to multiple images

I had the same problem. I dreaded managing my photos and having to copy and paste the title on each and every photo. I finally discovered the answer today! I can't believe it is so easy, and that Apple hasn't included it in the "Help" section.

Select the photos that you would like to Title. Go to "Window" and open "Info". A little window will open showing how many photos you selected and a little bit of information about them. Look for "Add a Title" and enter your title there. Press enter. Now all of those photos will have the same Title. This process works for "Add a Description" as well.

I'm running OS X.11.5 and Photos 1.5.

Heidi, yes that will work to add the same title or description to all selected photos, and it is great that this feature has been added in Photos on El Capitan. But the problem is, that you still cannot append a a title or description to the existing description for more than one description at once. Typing into the Info panel will replace the existing descriptions or titles and make them all the same.

Hi Leoni,

But do we really need to ADD (rather than edit) to a Title for multiple images? I think Kewords are better for that purpose, and that is already possible.

I think Kewords are better for that purpose, and that is already possible.

Yes, we do. At least, I want descriptive descriptions and titles. The advantage of titles is, that they can be displayed below the thumbnails while browsing the photos, but the keywords not.

I like keywords too, and I am using them excessively. I am using keywords to add categories to photos - but my titles and descriptions are describing the particular situation.

I do not want thousands of keywords describing each and every event in my life. This will make the Keyword Manager impossible to use. It is bad enough that I have to assign keywords for every named person, because the names of the named people do not sync with iCloud between my Macs. Now my keyword list has already more than a hundred entries with just the names of the people. I want to reserve some space there for categories, like Birds, Lighthouses, Bears, Bridges, etc., the categories I like to use in my smart albums. Photos is now finding categories automatically, but it is not yet perfect, so I still need the manually assigned keywords.

What I mean by appending to the existing titles:

If the selected photos already have existing descriptions, and now I want to append the same text to all descriptions, it cannot be done, if the existing descriptions are different. If I just enter the text I want to add to all selected photos, it will wipe out the existing descriptions. I have to append the added text for each photo individually.

(now how do I DELETE my own post here after seeing a similar reply?)

- Semiconducted

You can not - for 15 min you can edit it (sometimes to just a . )

LN

Why don't you just select the images, go to information and write down the description?

Why don't you just select the images, go to information and write down the description?

Good idea.

Now we can do that in Photos 2.0, but it has not been possible in Photos 1.0, when the question has been posted:

Posted on Apr 13, 2015 1:37 AM

Apple added a lot of improvements since the first release.

But we can still not batch append something to existing titles and descriptions; we can only batch replace the existing titles and descriptions.