Photos for Mac: The export operation failed to create a file for the image identified

Hi, everything (OS and iCloud and everything) is most up to date as at the time of writing this.

As the title suggested when trying to export photos to my external drive for backup this message appeared and gave a list of photos/videos (file names only, no preview or anything): The export operation failed to create a file for the image identified

The problem is i dont know which files specifically did not get exported and i cant possibly check every single photo to chase up the ones that have not been backup. Any help regarding how to find these photos and ensure they get exported to be backup would be much appreciated!

MacBook Pro

Posted on Mar 30, 2018 5:40 AM

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19 replies

léonie

Level 10

200,519 points

Apr 1, 2018 10:50 AM in response to kl01

Do you have any idea what could have caused the loss? Just to prevent it from occurring again?

Some cleaning applications can do this. Stay away from duplicate finders and cleaning applications, that will modify the library directly. They can damage a Photos Library beyond repair.

kl01 Author

Level 1

18 points

Apr 1, 2018 11:04 AM in response to léonie

No idea at all. I have never used any cleaning applications.

As i said these photos appear to be the ones i got off from my mum's phone (sent via WhatsApp and saved in my Photos on iPhone before they were exported from the iPhone to the Mac) - however not all of them cannot be exported, in fact some photos i got off from her phone CAN BE exported with no problem despite long filename etc. They were all transferred at the same time so im unable to work out why some are missing and some are not.

LarryHN

Level 10

106,142 points

Mar 31, 2018 7:59 AM in response to kl01

Again

what is the format of the external drive?

The best wild guess is that it is not correctly formatted but only you can answer that question

léonie

Level 10

200,519 points

Mar 31, 2018 8:11 AM in response to LarryHN

Larry, kl01 wrote "I don’t understand what is a “format”, so give him/her time to find out. That is why I tried to explain a bit where the information can be found.

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Photos for Mac: The export operation failed to create a file for the image identified