Will I lose iPhoto if I upgrade to High Sierra?

I am also concerned. I recently upgraded my iMac to MacOS 10.12 Sierra. So far, iPhoto is still working.

I am aware that iPhoto is EOL'd, meaning Apple no longer supports it. This is tremendously disappointing, as Apple's new official Photos app seems to be more like iPhoto Lite, or iPhoto 2004. I have a lot of time and effort invested in organizing Events with titles that I wrote like highly abbreviated summaries. I also have alot of newspaper-style prose captions stored as metadata in the Comments pane for quite a few photos. I store this information, and more, for family members, volunteering for local civic organizations, events planning, and work projects.

I am deeply concerned that migrating from iPhoto to Photos will ruin all that metadata and organization permanently. I have over 64,000 images in my iPhoto library, dating back to before the beginning of the first version of iPhoto. (I bought my first digital camera in November 2001.)

Is there anywhere I can send feedback to Apple?

That's a useful link. It mentions titles and keywords but not descriptions which is a ton of text in my case. I hope this was just an oversight!? Here is a cropped screenshot of iPhoto to show the description, which is the text under the date. I would be interested to see how Photos displays this info.

No, I don't joke at all.

My iPhoto library contains approx. 17,000 (228 GB) of mostly high and very high resolution photos

That all? When I left iPhoto mine was 60k plus, and yeah, high and very high too.

If I migrate the library to Photos (an undertaking of many hours), I end up with two 228 GB libraries sitting side by side on the HDD

But you won't, you see. Because the two libraries share the same originals, via the magic of Unix. It's complex, not too complex.

https://support.apple.com/en-ie/HT204476

Just to 'explore the options' and hang onto my photos I would have to get myself a new MBP with terabyte-range storage, at a significant cost.

Yes, well, there is that option. Or, and this is just a thought, how about a USB external drive?

What I am going to do, reluctantly, is to forget the OS upgrade to High Sierra, soldier on under El Capitan, and export my 17,000 photos from iPhoto to an external HDD archive, as an extra insurance against Apple suddenly disabling iPhoto.

That's pretty much the worst option, really. iPhoto is a dead end street. Apple won't 'suddenly disable iPhoto', the whole point of discontinuing it is to let you know that it's no longer in their thinking. So, at some point, a change in the OS will impact on it, and either stop it, or more likely, degrade its capability or performance. So, you'll need to move to a new app.

That process will be much easier now while iPhoto still works, and while it is a PITA, it means you can manage the migration (and preserve as much of your work as possible). Try it when iPhoto doesn't run and you'll have more than a PITA, you'll have a crisis.

Every photo editing/organising software product under the sun but Photos provides either a default or an option to view your photos against black or dark grey background

No argument here. So, if Photos is not for you, now you need to choose what will be your next manager. It's not for me either. So I went elsewhere. There are plenty of apps out there, and frankly, 17k is not a large library.

Photos is showing the titles below the thumbnails. Before you migrate your iPhoto Library to Photos use the batch change in iPhoto to copy the filename to the photo title.

In Photos it is more work to copy the filenames to the title field. Either use an Apple Script (: Script: Batch Changing the Titles to the Filename w/Extension)or copy and paste the filenames manually into the title field.

It includes previous files, not just the ones that have changed in the point update, so if you have a corrupt system file it stands a better chance of being replaced.

You can get the macOS High Sierra 10.13.3 Combo Update here: download updates manually

#4. Set up my events as Albums (since I read events will not work in Photos and that is how I organized them) , I will put the albums under folders since there will be so many.

Photos will automatically create an album for each event. The automatically created Albus will have the same name as the event, see: How Photos handles content and metadata from iPhoto and Aperture - Apple Support

If you are using smart albums in iPhoto, create an album from the smart album, because Photos cannot recreate all smart rules for the smart albums. If your albums and events have descriptions, copy these descriptions to the description of a photo from this event. There are no descriptions for albums in Photos.

Batch change the titles of your photos to include the filenames, if you want to see the filenames as titles in Photos. The batch change support in Photos is still lacking compared to iPhoto.

#7. Question: should I UPGRADE to Sierra or do what people call a CLEAN install ? And how do you do that?

A clean install is only necessary, if your current system is performing badly, and you suspect you have problematic items installed. I would not do it unnecessarily. It is a lot of trouble, because you will have to reinstall all applications, and you may not even be able to do that, if the installers will not run on Sierra or the software is no longer available at the AppStore. is there a current problem, that makes you think a clean install will help?

I read that Photos has more to offer in High Sierra. Would I have a problem going straight to High Sierra?

If there is a better way, please, please tell me. Thank you so much in advance.

Photos on High Sierra is easier to use because of more advanced editing tool, and the interface for the library is easier. The sidebar is always available and better organized, and you can now filter albums or moments and search more easily. If you are using named faces, they will now sync with iCloud Photo Library. https://www.apple.com/macos/high-sierra/

migrating keeps everything - Details of how Photos handles the migration from iPhoto

Product Feedback - Apple

LN

No, you won't lose it.

However, iPhoto is a dead end. At some point in the future it will stop working, probably due to an OS change of some form. Then you will have to migrate to another app, something that will be immeasurably more difficult if iPhoto doesn't work. So, now is the time to find that replacement app and move on. Now it's a pain in the rear to do. If iPhoto is not working it's a fully fledged crisis.

I am aware that iPhoto is EOL'd, meaning Apple no longer supports it.

That's not what that means. Apple do support it, that's part of what this forum is. However, what it does mean is that iPhoto is no longer a consideration when they upgrade other things, and so could break at any time.

Photos app seems to be more like iPhoto Lite, or iPhoto 2004

You really need to look much more closely at Photos.app. I'm not a fan myself - I dislike the interface - but i's a lot more powerful than iPhoto. Not the same, sure, and there is a learning curve, but that iPhoto 2004 notion is very wide of the mark. As a longstanding iPhoto user heavily invested in Events, surely you remember when they replaced Rolls in v7? And we all survived that...

I have over 64,000 images in my iPhoto library, dating back to before the beginning of the first version of iPhoto

And, as I said above, that's all at risk simply by doing nothing. Now is the time to do something. Photos or something else (as I did), the unwise option is doing nothing.

Me too - I use the titles, descriptions, also the keywords in iPhoto. I have no idea if Photos will import these, or if it can search with them.

Every review of Photos talks about image manipulation, but barely mentions photo organisation. I cannot afford to lose all that work, plus a way to export to Flickr that retains it.

Also how are events managed in Photos? I have not seen a screenshot of this anywhere, like how are photos moved between events? Someone told me it was possible to move photos one-at-a-time by fiddling about in the sidebar! And you can't rename events, which means I can't find them after importing a folder of new photos. In iPhoto it picks up the name of the folder.

I use the titles, descriptions, also the keywords in iPhoto. I have no idea if Photos will import these, or if it can search with them.

It does. But even better, you can migrate a library to Photos.app and leave your iPhoto Library completely untouched, and have both side by side but independent of each other. That means you can explore the options that the newer app offers, risk free.

Also how are events managed in Photos?

When you migrate your existing Events are converted into Albums in the newer app. Events, as a concept do not exist in Photos.app - nor, indeed, in any other app anywhere. So, face it, sooner or later you're going to be changing...

How can it be, if it has lost the organizational capabilities of iPhoto

It has different capabilities... But Albums, Keywords, Smart Albums, Searching are all there.

As I said above... Sooner or later you're going to be changing to some other app because either the OS will change and iPhoto won't run, or you'll get a new Mac or some other computer. So, change is coming. You have a choice: do it now, while you can indulge in some trial and error, checking out the options, or wait for it to be a crisis. You pick.

Me too - I use the titles, descriptions, also the keywords in iPhoto. I have no idea if Photos will import these, or if it can search with them.

You can search for them. What will be missing, is the "Flag" feature and the rating stars. The rating stars will be replaced by keywords, but they are not visible on the thumbnails.

And if you added descriptions to the albums, you need to save them elsewhere. Album descriptions will not be transferred, only the descriptions of the photos.

Terence,

This is all very helpful to me as I contemplate getting a new iMac. You stated that now is the time to change from iPhoto to "Photos or something else (as I did)." Did you mean that you prefer something other than Photos? If so, what?

Hi Beverly

I settled on Lightroom, having tried out CaptureOne, ON1 and a couple of other offerings. But then I was coming from Aperture more than iPhoto at that stage. I think Photos has a lot going for it compared to iPhoto - superior editing, superior integration with other editors, that whole cloud thing - but it's not a great Raw processor, I have no particular use for the Cloud Library, and frankly, the interface is just too bug ugly (and I can't believe I'm saying that about an Apple app!) to look at. Who designs a photo viewer with a white background? File Management is a bit thin too. So, it's a capable app if you don't mind the interface and especially if you have use for the Cloud Library.

Lightroom is no one's idea of nirvana, but it's the best fit for our usage here. ()Hobbyist married to a happy snapper, with a few teens using their phones). It is slow but the recent update has improved that significantly. File management is strong, raw processing is strong. The interface is - how shall I put this - easy to look at but irritatingly modular. At times it feels like several apps - organiser, editor, etc - bolted together. The newest update also includes a Cloud app that, frankly, puts it up to Photos for 9.99 a month you get the app and 1TB of storage and the same cross-platform (and not just the Apple ecosystem) features. And that 1TB is actual storage, not just a sharing mechanism. I haven't looked at it seriously yet - not being that interested in the whole cloud thing - but I will.

That said... each time someone produces a new DAM I check it out because of the performance and layout of Lightroom. Macphun say they'll be adding one in 2018, so I'll check that out in turn. Maybe that will sit better. Their Luminar is a fine editor, with a lot of power that's just not obvious when you launch it first. Capture One is an excellent app, but it makes no concessions to the consumer user and that meant too big of a learning curve for folks in this house. On1 is interesting but just felt a bit clunky. They've a new version coming out soon which might rub off some of the edges. Only you know what your needs are, so basically, check them all out, they all have trials.

Enjoy the new Mac.

Yes if you have v9.6.1.

But remember iPhoto is a dead end. Sooner or later you're going to be changing. Don't wait until iPhoto doesn't run any more. That will be a crisis. Do it now when it's just a pain in the you-know-where