Photos and Applescript export

Hi - Try this:

set albSource to "Test Album" -- Album name

set srcParent to "" -- Folder that album is in

tell application "Photos"

-- Get the the source album container object, checking first whether it exists or is in a folder

set notExist to false

if srcParent = "" then

if existscontaineralbSource then

set srcContainer to containeralbSource

else

set notExist to true

end if

else

if existscontaineralbSource of containersrcParent then

set srcContainer to containeralbSource of containersrcParent

else

set notExist to true

end if

end if

if notExist then

display dialog "Album or folder doesn't exist - Exiting" buttons ¬

"OK" with iconcautiondefault button "OK"

return

end if

-- Can either set the path as an alias directly, or use "choose folder"

-- set mypath to "Macintosh HD:Users:nifletcher:Desktop:TempPhotos" as alias

set mypath to (choose folder)

set myList to every media item in srcContainer

exportmyListtomypath

display dialog "I made it!"

end tell

I think the only thing wrong with your script is in your export step you are using the POSIX form of the file path reference, so you have to make that explicit:

use export theItemsList to POSIX file "Users/Name/Fototemp/NewPhotos/"

instead of export theItemsList to "Users/Name/Fototemp/NewPhotos/"

If you are going to reference a file path without the POSIX file specifier, you have to use Applescript's "native" colon separated path nomenclature, like this:

export theItemsList to "Users:Name:Fototemp:NewPhotos:"

(The trailing colon tells the script the path is to a folder, just like the trailing slash does in the POSIX reference.)

I tested your script with that change, using both the explicit POSIX & "native" forms of the file path specifier, on both a 'smart album' & regular one in my Photos Library, & they all ran fine, with no errors.

I wasn't aware about the subtlety of the colon at the end of an HFS path nomenclature... but I noticed my earlier script in this discussion did not have the colon, even though it was a folder. And it works with or without the last colon.

Maybe Photos is taking care of that.

Just FYI.

I mentioned the trailing colon or slash thing because it is common practice in many scripts to construct a file path by concatenating partial paths defined as strings, & because not every app will coerce the target of a verb to a folder when required unless that is made explicit with the trailing colon or slash.

It was intended only as an example of why you might need to make the type of a file path reference explicit if the script does not behave as expected. It is one of about a zillion scripting "gotchas" that have caused my scripts to fail more often than I like to think about. 😟

Yes, you're right... there is something strange regarding which album is displaying. The AppleEvent Handler error is inconsistent... for smaller runs, sometimes it will work, other times not. So, it is always best to have Photos displaying the appropriate album.

And, unfortunately, no it is not possible to select an Album with AppleScript (or at least through the Photos AppleScript interface). It could be possible to use UI scripting, but it's complex, hard to test, maybe depend on your folder structure, etc. So, I reckon it's just easier to go to Photos and select the right album.

For what it's worth, my favourite Duplicate Manager (PhotoSweeper - on the Mac App Store) when updating the library, requires you to have the "All Photos" album open before it will do its updates. So, it's not just AppleScript it would seem.

Finally, I wrote a script around a week ago, mainly for me just to test how different things worked... but I've not had time to do much more with it.

You're welcome to take a look at it here: Testing with Photos V1.0

But please NOTE: It's a NOT a script to necessarily do anything (although I do have a go at finding duplicates, updating keywords, etc.)... RATHER, it is a collection of sections that show how to perform base functions such as getting containers or lists, and I wrote lots of notes to explain my findings. You will probably want to COMMENT out several sections when running it... and you will certainly need to read the script.

Hi Nic,

I adapted your script to export all albums in a folder: https://gist.github.com/chrislaing/c42661365448993572e2

Unfortunately, the API seems to randomly throw fits and return error -10000. If you feel like improving the script, please do so.

Cheers,

Chris

I took a quick look at your script. While I'm only an amateur, I can't see anything wrong with it.

But what I can say - form limited experience with Photos (and much other experience on the internet) is that the Photos AppleScript API is extremely buggy. If you look at some of my other posts (two link to a sample script with notes on my experiments with Photos), you will see that there are some issues in Photos regarding a list of a container and a reference to a container. Even then, occasionally (but much less so), even a reference to an album (container) will cause the -1000 AppleEvent Handler error.

If Photos is open and running, AND the album being processed by AppleScript is selected and visible in Photos, then most scripts will run flawlessly. Even some commercial available utilities require Photos to be open and displaying a specific album. This "bug" is always worse when creating a list as opposed to referencing an album.

So, trying to do wha you are doing - aka loop through many album in a folder using only name in the list is probably bound to fail.

I don't have the time now to experiment, but I suggest you create a variable that references the album object - i.e, use your list of every album name to create a new reference to the album object.

While it feels tedious, it is often quicker to process album by album than try to solve this issue. Only today, with something completely different, I wasted 45 minutes trying to automate something I could have manually intervened with that would added only 5 minutes! In this case, I use a smart album to collect the media items I want to process; by using the same Smart Album name, it means I don't need to change my script every time.

I think part of the problem is Photos can take a significant amount of time to perform some operations & while Applescripts should default to waiting 2 minutes for an application response before timing out, for some reason this does not always happen with Photos, possibly because the app is signaling to the script that the operation is complete before it really is.

As I have mentioned elsewhere, the reliability of some of my Photos scripts have been improved by adding a delay statement in repeat loops, but of course that can increase execution time significantly & only trial & error can determine how long a delay is needed, or even if it will help.

how do I use Cliclick?. I downloaded it and ran the command, however, the script you said worked for above gave me and error: "Photos got an error: sh: cliclick: command not found"