Will Aperture 3.6 work in Mac OS Sierra?
OS X Yosemite (10.10.5)
I'm so happy to see that there are Aperture users out there that STILL use it. My entire professional photography business is pretty much based around Aperture. Is there any way all of us can do something to let the people over at Apple to PLEASE keep Aperture running again without all these problems...?
I'm encouraged to hear that Aperture and Sierra appear to be compatible (under the right circumstances). I'm hanging on to Aperture as long as I can in hopes that by the time I can't use it anymore, Photos will be a suitable replacement or one of the Lightroom competitors finally is a suitable replacement. There are some interesting candidates out there right now so if I can just hang onto Aperture for one more OS cycle, I might be good.
You can still use Aperture, yes, but I would prepare your libraries for the migration now. Get them ship-shape while you can, so you are ready, if Aperture should stop working on you, or you need to replace your Mac.
The Photos for Mac application can create a migrated library from your Aperture library and you will be able to export the originals, export the edited versions, browse your albums and most of the metadata, so you can access your photos in Aperture libraries for a migration, but it is not a professional tool. It will help, if you prepare an eventual migration now.
See: How Photos handles content and metadata from iPhoto and Aperture - Apple Support
I Wish I knew how to merge Aperture libraries. I have five largeish ones but had been told merging was not possible. Please could you give me a brief pointer?
You can merge libraries in Aperture 3 or newer.
You can merge iPhoto Libraries into your Aperture library the same way: Aperture 3.3: How to use Aperture to merge iPhoto libraries - Apple Support
Before doing this, I would make backup copies of all libraries, however, just to be sure.
And merging will temporarily need more disk storage than the combined size of the libraries. Use a drive with plenty of free storage to merge the libraries there.
"If you are using hierarchical keywords, flatten the keyword structure, if the application you might be migrating to does not support hierarchical keywords."
I've never completely understood hierarchical keywords, but started to use some years ago before I abandoned them. However, I still have quite a few in my library (e.g. “1940s—> 1943” vs “1943”). The result is I have photos using both keywords for 1943.
How do I collapse the keywords so I simply have "1943"?
Thanks!
Open the Keywords HUD from the Windows menu.
Then drag the subordinate keyword 1943 from below 1940 to the same level as the plain 1943. You should get a warning, that 1943 already exists at this level and if you want to merge them. Confirm, that you want to merge.
Once you removed all subordinate keywords to 1940s, you can delete this keyword, unless you want to keep it.
@leonie Why are you recommending merging libraries together? Do you think there is a maximum size?
One of my libraries is 900GB and I'm not sure that's a great idea. Mainly because it can be very slow to move the library from one disk to another. Not a common task, but once in a while you have to do it.
I'm recommending merging libraries now, if you still have libraries that need merging, because it might be too late to use Aperture for this, if you need to migrate. But naturally don't merge libraries that contain unrelated sets of photos and will never be used together.
I have mainly one library for private photos and one library for business photos.
I like to have all photos in one library that I might be needing to use together. It is more work to create a slideshow or a presentation, if the photos are split across libraries. Only one library can sync with iCloud. Only one library can be the system photo library, visible in the Media Browser for other applications.
It is reasonable to try to keep the library as small as possible, but I do not mind to have to wait while cloning the library to a new drive, occasionally.
But I do mind to have to switch between libraries, and to have to move photos between libraries, when I am working on a project. That would be more work in the long run. I want to have Aperture's power to search all my photos at once. I'm not yet close to the maximum 1000000 photos in one library that Aperture supports.
One of my libraries is 900GB and I'm not sure that's a great idea. Mainly because it can be very slow to move the library from one disk to another.
I'm back after a week or so because it took so long to fix one of my 900GB libraries. That said it appears that Aperture is working in Sierra. Some comments follow.
@neckargecko Seems to have worked. I deleted three custom fields, and import and Info panel display presets while in El Cap. Imported that "preset and custom free" library into new empty Library in Sierra. Batch Change now works. Import works. By works I mean no Continue/Crash dialog. I had previously deleted all the Import Presets: ~/Library/Application Support/Aperture/ per @léonie.
Can't be sure which step it was. In other words, maybe the Import Presets files didn't need to be deleted. I do think it is necessary to import into a new library. Directly opening the "preset and custom free" library in Sierra didn't work well.
My small older libraries went fairly smoothly, but my current working 900GB took several tries. And some of those tries took more than 24 hours. While in El Cap, I was merging from one 4TB drive to another. I had to prevent my computer from sleeping. Numerous stalls and hangs. Not sure how many were real hangs now that I'm done. I was watching the file size and sometime it didn't change for minutes or longer, then would increase. Activity Monitor showed Aperture "not responding" the whole time. I finally developed more patience and wouldn't Force Quit until there was at least an hour of no changes in file size. For some reason it took more than 24 hours to copy the "new" library back from one drive to another. The last five or so hours the reported time to finish was 42 minutes, then I'd come back a hour later and it would be 38 minutes, etc. But finally finished.
I didn't do a Clean Install of Sierra.
Thank you all. Looks like I'm good for at least another year. And if I can resist the next OS upgrade, another year beyond that.
Here's a just released book on Photos which looks at migrating. I haven't seen the book, I just know the author has a good history and also has Lynda.com videos on Photos and other photo programs. My only connection is that I've followed his blogs and podcasts for years. His book announcement: http://thedigitalstory.com/2016/11/the-guy-before-you.html
Wow... This going to take a while!
Theres a lot of beachball action during the keyword merge!
Thanks as always, Leonie!
@léonie Thank you for your response. It reminded me of some of the reasons I have such large libraries and good reasons to merge.
My 900GB library is the last eight years. Other libraries are special projects and before 2008. It would be worthwhile merging some of the special projects back into my main library. Some of them were created for portability (can't fit my main library on my laptop) and never got merged back in.
I'm a long time Apple user, but will wait and see before putting all my photos on iCloud. Obviously would require some serious cleaning up (which does need to be done, I'm too slow to delete).
I recently upgraded to MacOS Sierra and lo and behold, suddenly Aperture works. They say there are bugs but have yet to validate that. Happy camper here. I dont see any photos which was stored in my old aperture app. Is there a way of recovering those old files?
I finally closed my eyes, crossed my fingers, and upgraded to MacOS Sierra ... Aperture 3.6 still works. <whew>
I've actually tried to go to photos, but the lack of control that Aperture gives me prevents me from switching over to Photos. I'm really not sure what I'm going to do when Aperture finally stops working.
Can you share on which Mac you did this?
Will Aperture 3.6 work in Mac OS Sierra?
