Export in Photos is extremely slow, and overheats the MacBook Pro. Why doesn't the export function work?

Choosing "Export Unmodified Original..." should take very little CPU power since it is just a simple file copy operation. All of the other export options recompress files, set different resolutions or quality levels, etc., so that can require a lot of CPU power, particularly on older Macs that don't have powerful GPUs (graphics cards) they can hand off some of the workload to.

Birmee's response was directly related to the OP's post. Instead of being defensive, maybe offer a solution instead of a condescending reply.

I just upgraded to the new OSX, El Capitan. Since doing away with iPhoto and having this new "Photos" app or program, it takes forever to transfer my pics and movies to my computer's hard drive or an external firewire drive. It is really ridiculous. I am looking for a shortcut to just navigate to my iPhone as a device on my computer and just drag and drop or copy and paste my pics and videos to where I want them on my hard drives. This Photos program is absolutely useless, and on top of that, they totally rendered iPhoto useless, which was working fine.

I know that I am 2.5 years late to reply.

But, dude, you just saved at least 6 hours of my time.

I wanted to export 100s of videos and 100s of pictures from my Photos library to clear up space on may Mac.

Exporting even 2-3 related videos was taking 5-10 minutes to be exported on 1080p (most of them are originally shot at 1080p).

I was not selecting "Export Unmodified Original For # Items" just because it was below regular "Export Items" option and I had some videos and images that were rotated but not further edited as such.

After wasting 30 mins or so, I finally googled my query and voila, I found the answer.

Thank you so much.

I'm having this same problem with my late 2013 MacBook Pro, only it takes over 15 minutes to do just ONE photo with the same problems David had (overheating, loud fan noise). It just started doing this a few days ago. Any idea what else might be causing this since I would like to keep the edits I make to the photos.

rather than treadjack an old thread on a totally different subject which is rude and confusing to you and others please start your own thread with the details of your system and your problem sticking to facts and leaving out the editorials

see Writing an effective Apple Support Communities question

LN

The reply to the person with the 2010 MacBook Pro should not apply to somebody with a late 2013 MacBook Pro. Big difference between Core Duo and Haswell. 15 minutes for ONE photo is ridiculous. Poor software design.

No defensiveness - simply a factually statement to help the threadjacker get answers - ThreadJacking old threads is rude and is not a good way to get answers - when a valid question is posted in a clean thread with adequate information then they will get answers and of course I included details instructions on how to post an effective question to help the threadjacker (interesting that I have helped tens of thousands of people and you have never helped a single yet you are rudely telling me how dumb I and and how smart you are - when you help your first ten people post back

LN

Cheers bud