Exported photos don't show up in Finder

WoW! That is really interesting. Thanks for sharing this!

I tried to reproduce this, and sure enough, I'm seeing the same on OS X 10.11.4. The problem is, that erasing a title does not remove the title but creates an empty title, so the photo has an invisible title.

As a test, import three new photos, for eample:

The first one, has a title, the second one had a title, but deleted, the third one never had a title.

When I select and export them with "Use title as filename", only two photos will show in the Finder,

The problem is, that deleting a title does not remove the title but adds an empty title. So the photos will be exported with the filename ".jpg".

And even making the Finder always show the filename extensions will not reveal the exported ".jpg" files in the Finder.

As a work-around, do not erase the title completely, but use an underscore character as the empty title "_" or similar. It needs to be a visible character, a space will not suffice.

Have you filed a bug report ? Apple - Photos - Feedback

For others coming across this discussion, the files with the filenames ".jpg", ".jpeg (1)" etc. are hidden, because the filename starts with a "." . Any files with names starting with "." are automatically hidden.

A Terminal command to make the invisible files visible in the Finder is

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE

killall Finder

And to hide them again:

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles FALSE

killall Finder

Thanks for warning us - And report it to Apple - IMHO It is a bug - http://www.apple.com/feedback/photos.html

LN

If the imported photo has never had a title added to the title field in Photos it will export with the original file name as the file name even if the Title is selected to be the new file name. (Terrible sentence structure but I think you know what I mean.)

Yes, that part is working as expected, but deleting the title text does not not remove the title tag itself. The photo will be exported as if it had a title, but that part of the filename will be empty.

So we cannot test for the difference between empty titles and no title. and export photos without titles safely.

A smart album with the constraint "Title is Empty" will include both kinds of a missing title - photos that never had a title tag and photos with an empty string as title tag.

Both photos are in the smart album "Title is empty", but the right photo had previously had a title.

I put a link to this discussion into a new user tip, so we can more easily find back to it, if other users are reporting a similar problem:

Bug: Exporting Images with "Filename: Use Title" Exports the Files as Invisible if the Title has Been Deleted

It is really good that you found the cause for missing exported files. This bug can fill the drive with invisible files, that the users cannot track down, if they do not know how to make invisible files visible using the Terminal.

A workaround would be to select those photos that you've deleted the title from and use this Applescript to replace it with the file name before exporting: Batch Changing the Titles to the Filename. That way you'll know what files they are and they won't be invisible.