Missing smart albums after upgrade to 10.11.1 (iPhoto to Photos)

Question

Missing smart albums after upgrade to 10.11.1 (iPhoto to Photos)

Hey folks,

I recently upgraded my OS to 10.11, backing up my iPhoto libraries on an external HD. After copying the libraries back in to the photos folder, then relaunching Photos, all but a few of my smart albums are missing.

Furthermore, many of my photos seem to have their keywords in error. I tried remaking one of the smart albums, and it ended up including many photos that should not have been there. I hit apple-I to get info on the photo, and noticed that several photos in a row that weren't supposed to be in there all had the exact same keywords, which they should not have had.

Any suggestions?

Thank you!

Posted on Dec 8, 2015 1:00 PM

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Answer 1

Dec 8, 2015 1:09 PM in response to P is for People

Update:

I made a smart album with one of the erroneous keywords, and found that the keyword had been applied to only a very limited number of photos.

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Answer 2

léonie

Level 10

200,723 points

Dec 8, 2015 6:51 PM in response to P is for People

I recently upgraded my OS to 10.11, backing up my iPhoto libraries on an external HD. After copying the libraries back in to the photos folder, then relaunching Photos, all but a few of my smart albums are missing.

when you open an iPhoto Library in Photos, not all smart albums can be migrated to Photos.

See this document: How Photos handles content and metadata from iPhoto and Aperture - Apple Support

Most Smart Albums are preserved in Photos. Smart Albums with selection criteria that isn’t supported by Photos usually migrate to Smart Albums with "(modified)" added to the Smart Album name; in cases where none of the Smart Album criteria are supported in Photos, the Smart Album isn't migrated.

Keywords however should have been preserved. But after the migration keywords may reappear, that you thought had already been deleted. That can happen, if the keyword is stored i the original mster file, where it cannot be deleted by iPhoto.

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Answer 3

Dec 8, 2015 6:54 PM in response to léonie

Thank you for the reply, léonie.

My experience with the migration was that many smart albums containing only 2 or 3 keyword requirements and no others did not copy over. Other smart albums that did not have problems also had only 2 or 3 requirements of having a particular keyword.

Notably, none of the smart albums which had semi-colons in their titles migrated. Perhaps a change in naming convention also is at play.

Of note: migrating/upgrading to Photos from iPhoto means that you have to go through your ENTIRE collection to search for any erroneous keywords. Who has time for that with over 300 GB of point and shoot photos?? 😠 At least the database is still readable by iPhoto, but who knows what will happen when you begin to edit or add through Photos?

Thankfully iPhoto is still available, however I imagine I may be putting off the inevitable.

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Answer 4

Dec 8, 2015 6:56 PM in response to P is for People

Furthermore, it seems that both iPhoto and Photos are able to be open at the same time, accessing the same photo library. I can only assume this will lead to massive issues if edits are made in both simultaneously! 😮

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Answer 5

léonie

Level 10

200,723 points

Dec 8, 2015 11:34 PM in response to P is for People

Furthermore, it seems that both iPhoto and Photos are able to be open at the same time, accessing the same photo library.

That is impossible.

You can have both applications open, yes. But iPhoto can only open iPhoto Libraries, and Photos can only work with Photos Libraries. Photos will create a new library when it is opening an iPhoto Library and only update the resulting Photos Library.

iPhoto will not see the changes you are doing in Photos and Photos will not see the changes you are doing in iPhoto after the migration.

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