You can make a difference in the Apple Support Community!

When you sign up with your Apple Account, you can provide valuable feedback to other community members by upvoting helpful replies and User Tips.

Looks like no one’s replied in a while. To start the conversation again, simply ask a new question.

Liquidium Author

Level 1

4 points

Photos Storage and Transfer Safety

Greetings! Had a question with regards to maintaining all the excellent features in the photos app.

How should I export all the photos in the library, to an external SSD/HHD to maintain the full quality, original photos?

Option 1: Find where the photos are saved in finder and click and drag

Option 2: Select all photos in the library and click "Export." From here you can click export.

Option 3: Same as option 2 but rather than click “Export," click “export unmodified original.”

When doing it by way of option 3, you are presented with the option to “Export IPTC as XMP,” which is in an “export original” option box. I have already clicked “Export Unmodified Original” Why is this an option? Having this extra, seemingly redundant option, makes me wonder if there are other hidden options in the other methods, to set up the correct transfer.

Concerns and ReCap

Will the click and drag method include all the original metadata that I would have to manually figure out the latter options? Will it include the same features as “Export IPTC as XMP”?

I need to be sure that I am saving a good file source, I am upgrading my mac and don’t want lose any of the precious details. I’m only interested in local saved copies, not iCloud.

Thanks in advance!

Steve

Mac mini, macOS 10.15

Posted on Jul 23, 2022 8:32 AM

Top-ranking reply

Matti Haveri

Level 6

16,679 points

Posted on Jul 23, 2022 8:53 AM

Export unmodified original exports, erm, the original. “Export IPTC as XMP” option exports in addition .xmp sidecar files that have any possible metadata modifications you have done in Photos.app and want to preserve (changed dates, locations, Titles, Captions). You can then use 3rd party utilities like GraphicConverter to update the original images with that metadata while keeping the original pixel data intact.

Export .jpeg, .tif, .png exports all metadata and pixel modifications you have done in Photos.app but the pixel data might have slight generation loss, especially if you repeat that many times.

Use option 1 only if all else fails. It is not recommended to mess inside the library package -- at least do not make any changes there because it might corrupt the database.

View in context

Photos Storage and Transfer Safety

Similar questions