Photos AppleScript shows GPS, not location name

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Photos AppleScript shows GPS, not location name

Macbook M3 Pro, Sequoia 15.6.1

I've been given a Dropbox of 580 unnamed photos from off-grid worksites for the last year for an environmental company and my first job is to create a slideshow for the Christmas party (tomorrow). I found Léonie's apple script for adding title, location and date and have been able to adapt it for location as there are no titles, but it is giving me the GPS coordinates and not the Location name that appears in the photo metadata. I realize the location name is the "nearest" option to the coordinates, but I would like to do three things and I'm wondering if someone can help me accomplish the coding as my late husband would usually do this for me.

1st - I changed fName to be the location, but I'm getting the GPS Coordinates. How can I get the location "name" that is shown on the info?

2nd - Is there a way to also use the gps coordinates under the title - currently I have "location" in the space of fName and that is giving me the coordinates in the notification window. I am guessing I can change description to equal location there?

3rd - where is the "missing" coming up in the script so I can remove it? I'd like for the date to be in that space.

As this is my first "job" for this company, I don't know the names of the employees yet, or the names of their dogs that go on the job with them - or even the names of some of the locations they spend time (near the arctic circle). Hopefully by next year I'll be able to use Faces to better navigate and create this slideshow.

Thank you so much for your much needed direction!

MacBook Pro 14″, macOS 15.6

Posted on Nov 27, 2025 11:44 AM

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Answer 1

Nov 28, 2025 7:15 AM in response to kenmcall

kenmcall wrote: … it is giving me the GPS coordinates and not the Location name that appears in the photo metadata.

I'm afraid that I'm too late to help, but it looks like you have been misinformed by someone. There is no location "name" in a picture's metadata. Here's a section of the metadata for a recent picture:

You see coordinates, not names. In Photos and other similar image viewers, the app uses the coordinates to go through the internet to a lookup table that gives places near those coordinates.

I'm not sure Photos is the best app to do a slide show like this. The File>Create>Slideshow can make a pretty good slideshow, but you have to add captions manually. I've used other apps to do the job, but in every case it seemed to take a lot of work.

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