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Photos: can't "Show Referenced File in Finder"

When I select a photo and want to make a change to the original, there is an item in the "File" menu called "Show Referenced File in Finder". This menu item is always greyed out. What's it there for if it never works?

Posted on Apr 13, 2015 7:47 AM

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128 replies

Apr 27, 2015 12:35 PM in response to Winston Churchill

Hi, I also have the same problem.

I bought a new MacBook Air and now I have all kinds of trouble unfortunately. I had a time machine backup on an external HD. So I opened the new Macbook, chose to use the backup from the HD, and then most things worked immediately. My two biggest problems are unrelated to each other. First the issue that is discussed in this group:


After I imported all my stuff from the time machine backup, my MacBook says I can't open iPhoto anymore because it's not compatible with Yosemite. I notice that I can access my photos through the Photos app, which I've never seen before. However, they can't be opened in Finder, which is a little annoying, because I have 13.000 photos and 368 videos, and I want to select all videos and copy them to a USB-stick for my parents... I can't even easily locate them now. Unless I scroll through ALL 13.000 files... Would my problem be solved by 'fixing' iPhoto somehow?


My other problem is that I also transferred my mails to Mail of course (with the time machine backup). Seemed to work. I have a sent-mail folder on IMAP, and I have one 'On My Mac', which is locally stored. That last folder had 97.000 e-mails. Full archive since 2003. I opened it in Mail, worked fined, until suddenly the folder was empty. I didn't do anything: I was reading an e-mail and boom... all gone... It's the only folder that's empty now. If I go to time machine to get a back up back, it loads all messages (which I can see in time machine then), but when I click restore, nothing happens. Well... yeah... the screen freezes... only cmd option escape gets me out of the screen... how can I fix this..?

Apr 27, 2015 12:42 PM in response to locuta

After I imported all my stuff from the time machine backup, my MacBook says I can't open iPhoto anymore because it's not compatible with Yosemite. I notice that I can access my photos through the Photos app, which I've never seen before. However, they can't be opened in Finder, which is a little annoying, because I have 13.000 photos and 368 videos, and I want to select all videos and copy them to a USB-stick for my parents... I can't even easily locate them now. Unless I scroll through ALL 13.000 files... Would my problem be solved by 'fixing' iPhoto somehow?


This is easy, and you do it in exactly the same way as you would in iPhoto.


First find all the videos:


Easy: they're all in the Video Album in the Side bar (you can enable the sidebar in the View menu.


Then Export them


File -> Export -> Export unmodified Original.


I would suggest that you export to a folder on the desktop and then copy that to the flash drive.

Apr 27, 2015 12:47 PM in response to Yer_Man

Oh wow... that's a really easy answer, and it works... perfect, thanks!!!!

One perhaps stupid question (but very relevant for me and I really don;t know): if I export them to a folder in Finder somewhere, and it's -let's say 20GB-, will the usage of my storage then be 2 x 20GB (in Photos AND in that Finder folder)?

May 3, 2015 8:06 PM in response to jayar

I'm a bit embarrassed at how mad I am. Is there really no way to properly reveal in finder from the app? I do all my touchups in Photoshop and I just use this app for photo sorting. With this one feature missing, Photos is in the useless category for me. It was literally the ONLY menu item I used in iPhoto. Sheesh.

May 3, 2015 10:17 PM in response to Yer_Man

Decided to finally check that. No, no rename on export. As with all new apple things, it's a non-standard save dialogue. I can rename as title or sequential, but I can't just call it what I want on export.

Makes for a lot of chasing files... Reveal was easier. I knew I was getting the file I wanted.

I guess it's time to see if Lightroom will work for me.

May 3, 2015 10:33 PM in response to Neal Bridgens

Photos is so feature reduced it's like traveling back in time.

Photos is just in its infancy - It is the first version of a complete new, very different application, and it will develope into something useful, I'm sure. Just keep sending feedback to Apple, so the developers will see what the customers want and need from a photo app.

May 19, 2015 6:36 AM in response to chirpie

I used iPhoto the same as you, Chirpie--it was a way to easily organize & view my photos. Then I'd use the "reveal in finder" to open the file in photoshop, and save the edited version elsewhere so I wasn't overwriting the original file. Or, I'd use the reveal in finder to find the file if I wanted to upload it on the web, etc. Now, I have to "export" anything that I want to use in anyway outside of Photos. I've tried copying the file name while in Photos, then searching for it in the finder. But it never finds the file.

Photos: can't "Show Referenced File in Finder"

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