OSXPhotos provides the ability to interact with and query Apple's Photos.app library on macOS. You can query the Photos library database — for example, file name, file path, and metadata such as keywords/tags, persons/faces, albums, etc. You can also easily export both the original and edited photos.
- Supported operating systems
- Installation
- Command Line Usage
- Package Interface
- Examples
- Related Projects
- Contributing
- Known Bugs and Limitations
- Implementation Notes
- Dependencies
- Acknowledgements
Only works on macOS (aka Mac OS X). Tested on macOS Sierra (10.12.6) through macOS Monterey (12.0.1). Tested on both x86 and Apple silicon (M1).
| macOS Version | macOS name | Photos.app version |
|---|---|---|
| 12.0 | Monterey | 7.0 ✅ |
| 10.16, 11.0-11.4 | Big Sur | 6.0 ✅ |
| 10.15.1 - 10.15.7 | Catalina | 5.0 ✅ |
| 10.14.5, 10.14.6 | Mojave | 4.0 ✅ |
| 10.13.6 | High Sierra | 3.0 ✅ |
| 10.12.6 | Sierra | 2.0 ✅ |
This package will read Photos databases for any supported version on any supported macOS version. E.g. you can read a database created with Photos 5.0 on MacOS 10.15 on a machine running macOS 10.12 and vice versa.
Requires python >= 3.7.
If you are new to python, I recommend you to install using pipx. See other advanced options below.
If you aren't familiar with installing python applications, I recommend you install osxphotos with pipx. If you use pipx, you will not need to create a virtual environment as pipx takes care of this. The easiest way to do this on a Mac is to use homebrew:
- Open
Terminal(search forTerminalin Spotlight or look inApplications/Utilities) - Install
homebrewaccording to instructions at https://brew.sh/ - Type the following into Terminal:
brew install pipx - Then type this:
pipx install osxphotos - Now you should be able to run
osxphotosby typing:osxphotos
Once you've installed osxphotos with pipx, to upgrade to the latest version:
pipx upgrade osxphotos
You can also install directly from pypi:
pip install osxphotos
Once you've installed osxphotos with pip, to upgrade to the latest version:
pip install --upgrade osxphotos
OSXPhotos uses setuptools, thus simply run:
git clone https://github.com/RhetTbull/osxphotos.git
cd osxphotos
python3 setup.py install
I recommend you create a virtual environment before installing osxphotos.
WARNING The git repo for this project is very large (> 1GB) because it contains multiple Photos libraries used for testing on different versions of macOS. If you just want to use the osxphotos package in your own code, I recommend you install the latest version from PyPI which does not include all the test libraries. If you just want to use the command line utility, you can download a pre-built executable of the latest release or you can install via pip which also installs the command line app. If you aren't comfortable with running python on your Mac, start with the pre-built executable or pipx as described above.
Once you've installed osxphotos via the git repository, to upgrade to the latest version:
cd osxphotos
git pull
python3 setup.py install
You can also download a stand-alone pre-built executable--that doesn't require installing python--from the releases page. Look for the file with a name similar to osxphotos_MacOS_exe_darwin_x64_v0.42.9.zip. In this case v0.42.9 specifies version 0.42.9. Unzip the file and put the included osxphotos binary in your system path. Currently, the binary is not signed or notarized so you'll have to authorize the app to run in the System Preferences | Security & Privacy settings. It's also likely this executable will not run on M1 Macs. If you don't know how to do this, I recommend using pipx as described above.
This package will install a command line utility called osxphotos that allows you to query the Photos database. Alternatively, you can also run the command line utility like this: python3 -m osxphotos
> osxphotos
Usage: osxphotos [OPTIONS] COMMAND [ARGS]...
Options:
--db <Photos database path> Specify Photos database path. Path to Photos
library/database can be specified using either
--db or directly as PHOTOS_LIBRARY positional
argument. If neither --db or PHOTOS_LIBRARY
provided, will attempt to find the library to
use in the following order: 1. last opened
library, 2. system library, 3.
~/Pictures/Photos Library.photoslibrary
--json Print output in JSON format.
-v, --version Show the version and exit.
-h, --help Show this message and exit.
Commands:
about Print information about osxphotos including license.
albums Print out albums found in the Photos library.
diff Compare two Photos databases and print out differences
dump Print list of all photos & associated info from the Photos...
export Export photos from the Photos database.
help Print help; for help on commands: help <command>.
info Print out descriptive info of the Photos library database.
install Install Python packages into the same environment as osxphotos
keywords Print out keywords found in the Photos library.
labels Print out image classification labels found in the Photos...
list Print list of Photos libraries found on the system.
persons Print out persons (faces) found in the Photos library.
places Print out places found in the Photos library.
query Query the Photos database using 1 or more search options; if...
repl Run interactive osxphotos REPL shell (useful for debugging,...
snap Create snapshot of Photos database to use with diff command
tutorial Display osxphotos tutorial.
uninstall Uninstall Python packages from the osxphotos environment
uuid Print out unique IDs (UUID) of photos selected in Photos
To get help on a specific command, use osxphotos help <command_name>
osxphotos export --export-by-date ~/Pictures/Photos\ Library.photoslibrary ~/Desktop/export
Note: Photos library/database path can also be specified using --db option:
osxphotos export --export-by-date --db ~/Pictures/Photos\ Library.photoslibrary ~/Desktop/export
osxphotos query --keyword Kids --json ~/Pictures/Photos\ Library.photoslibrary >results.json
Find all videos larger than 200MB and add them to an album named "Big Videos" in Photos, creating the album if necessary
osxphotos query --only-movies --min-size 200MB --add-to-album "Big Videos"
The design philosophy for osxphotos is "make the easy things easy and make the hard things possible". To "make the hard things possible", osxphotos is very flexible and has many, many configuration options -- the export command for example, has over 100 command line options. Thus, osxphotos may seem daunting at first. The purpose of this tutorial is to explain a number of common use cases with examples and, hopefully, make osxphotos less daunting to use. osxphotos includes several commands for retrieving information from your Photos library but the one most users are interested in is the export command which exports photos from the library so that's the focus of this tutorial.
osxphotos export /path/to/export
This command exports all your photos to the /path/to/export directory.
Note: osxphotos uses the term 'photo' to refer to a generic media asset in your Photos Library. A photo may be an image, a video file, a combination of still image and video file (e.g. an Apple "Live Photo" which is an image and an associated "live preview" video file), a JPEG image with an associated RAW image, etc.
While the previous command will export all your photos (and videos--see note above), it probably doesn't do exactly what you want. In the previous example, all the photos will be exported to a single folder: /path/to/export. If you have a large library with thousands of images and videos, this likely isn't very useful. You can use the --export-by-date option to export photos to a folder structure organized by year, month, day, e.g. 2021/04/21:
osxphotos export /path/to/export --export-by-date
With this command, a photo that was created on 31 May 2015 would be exported to: /path/to/export/2015/05/31
If you prefer a different directory structure for your exported images, osxphotos provides a very flexible Template System that allows you to specify the directory structure using the --directory option. For example, this command exported to a directory structure that looks like: 2015/May (4-digit year / month name):
osxphotos export /path/to/export --directory "{created.year}/{created.month}"
The string following --directory is an osxphotos template string. Template strings are widely used throughout osxphotos and it's worth your time to learn more about them. In a template string, the values between the curly braces, e.g. {created.year} are replaced with metadata from the photo being exported. In this case, {created.year} is the 4-digit year of the photo's creation date and {created.month} is the full month name in the user's locale (e.g. May, mai, etc.). In the osxphotos template system these are referred to as template fields. The text not included between {} pairs is interpreted literally, in this case /, is a directory separator.
osxphotos provides access to almost all the metadata known to Photos about your images. For example, Photos performs reverse geolocation lookup on photos that contain GPS coordinates to assign place names to the photo. Using the --directory template, you could thus export photos organized by country name:
osxphotos export /path/to/export --directory "{created.year}/{place.name.country}"
Of course, some photos might not have an associated place name so the template system allows you specify a default value to use if a template field is null (has no value).
osxphotos export /path/to/export --directory "{created.year}/{place.name.country,No-Country}"
The value after the ',' in the template string is the default value, in this case 'No-Country'. Note: If you don't specify a default value and a template field is null, osxphotos will use "_" (underscore character) as the default.
Some template fields, such as {keyword}, may expand to more than one value. For example, if a photo has keywords of "Travel" and "Vacation", {keyword} would expand to "Travel", "Vacation". When used with --directory, this would result in the photo being exported to more than one directory (thus more than one copy of the photo would be exported). For example, if IMG_1234.JPG has keywords Travel, and Vacation and you run the following command:
osxphotos export /path/to/export --directory "{keyword}"
the exported files would be:
/path/to/export/Travel/IMG_1234.JPG
/path/to/export/Vacation/IMG_1234.JPG
By default, osxphotos will use the original filename of the photo when exporting. That is, the filename the photo had when it was taken or imported into Photos. This is often something like IMG_1234.JPG or DSC05678.dng. osxphotos allows you to specify a custom filename template using the --filename option in the same way as --directory allows you to specify a custom directory name. For example, Photos allows you specify a title or caption for a photo and you can use this in place of the original filename:
osxphotos export /path/to/export --filename "{title}"
The above command will export photos using the title. Note that you don't need to specify the extension as part of the --filename template as osxphotos will automatically add the correct file extension. Some photos might not have a title so in this case, you could use the default value feature to specify a different name for these photos. For example, to use the title as the filename, but if no title is specified, use the original filename instead:
osxphotos export /path/to/export --filename "{title,{original_name}}"
│ ││ │
│ ││ │
Use photo's title as the filename <──────┘ ││ │
││ │
Value after comma will be used <───────┘│ │
if title is blank │ │
│ │
The default value can be <────┘ │
another template field │
│
Use photo's original name if no title <──────┘The osxphotos template system also allows for limited conditional logic of the type "If a condition is true then do one thing, otherwise, do a different thing". For example, you can use the --filename option to name files that are marked as "Favorites" in Photos differently than other files. For example, to add a "#" to the name of every photo that's a favorite:
osxphotos export /path/to/export --filename "{original_name}{favorite?#,}"
│ │ │││
│ │ │││
Use photo's original name as filename <──┘ │ │││
│ │││
'favorite' is True if photo is a Favorite, <───────┘ │││
otherwise, False │││
│││
'?' specifies a conditional <─────────────┘││
││
Value immediately following ? will be used if <──────┘│
preceding template field is True or non-blank │
│
Value immediately following comma will be used if <──────┘
template field is False or blank (null); in this case
no value is specified so a blank string "" will be usedLike with --directory, using a multi-valued template field such as {keyword} may result in more than one copy of a photo being exported. For example, if IMG_1234.JPG has keywords Travel, and Vacation and you run the following command:
osxphotos export /path/to/export --filename "{keyword}-{original_name}"
the exported files would be:
/path/to/export/Travel-IMG_1234.JPG
/path/to/export/Vacation-IMG_1234.JPG
If a photo has been edited in Photos (e.g. cropped, adjusted, etc.) there will be both an original image and an edited image in the Photos Library. By default, osxphotos will export both the original and the edited image. To distinguish between them, osxphotos will append "_edited" to the edited image. For example, if the original image was named IMG_1234.JPG, osxphotos will export the original as IMG_1234.JPG and the edited version as IMG_1234_edited.jpeg. Note: Photos changes the extension of edited images to ".jpeg" even if the original was named ".JPG". You can change the suffix appended to edited images using the --edited-suffix option:
osxphotos export /path/to/export --edited-suffix "_EDIT"
In this example, the edited image would be named IMG_1234_EDIT.jpeg. Like many options in osxphotos, the --edited-suffix option can evaluate an osxphotos template string so you could append the modification date (the date the photo was edited) to all edited photos using this command:
osxphotos export /path/to/export --edited-suffix "_{modified.year}-{modified.mm}-{modified.dd}"
In this example, if the photo was edited on 21 April 2021, the name of the exported file would be: IMG_1234_2021-04-21.jpeg.
You can tell osxphotos to not export edited photos (that is, only export the original unedited photos) using --skip-edited:
osxphotos export /path/to/export --skip-edited
You can also tell osxphotos to export either the original photo (if the photo has not been edited) or the edited photo (if it has been edited), but not both, using the --skip-original-if-edited option:
osxphotos export /path/to/export --skip-original-if-edited
As mentioned above, Photos renames JPEG images that have been edited with the ".jpeg" extension. Some applications use ".JPG" and others use ".jpg" or ".JPEG". You can use the --jpeg-ext option to have osxphotos rename all JPEG files with the same extension. Valid values are jpeg, jpg, JPEG, JPG; e.g. --jpeg-ext jpg to use '.jpg' for all JPEGs.
osxphotos export /path/to/export --jpeg-ext jpg
All the above commands operate on the default Photos library. Most users only use a single Photos library which is also known as the System Photo Library. It is possible to use Photos with more than one library. For example, if you hold down the "Option" key while opening Photos, you can select an alternate Photos library. If you don't specify which library to use, osxphotos will try find the last opened library. Occasionally it can't determine this and in that case, it will use the System Photos Library. If you use more than one Photos library and want to explicitly specify which library to use, you can do so with the --db option. (db is short for database and is so named because osxphotos operates on the database that Photos uses to manage your Photos library).
osxphotos export /path/to/export --db ~/Pictures/MyAlternateLibrary.photoslibrary
osxphotos works by copying photos out of the Photos library folder to export them. You may see osxphotos report that one or more photos are missing and thus could not be exported. One possible reason for this is that you are using iCloud to synch your Photos library and Photos either hasn't yet synched the cloud library to the local Mac or you have Photos configured to "Optimize Mac Storage" in Photos Preferences. Another reason is that even if you have Photos configured to download originals to the Mac, Photos does not always download photos from shared albums or original screenshots to the Mac.
If you encounter missing photos you can tell osxphotos to download the missing photos from iCloud using the --download-missing option. --download-missing uses AppleScript to communicate with Photos and tell it to download the missing photos. Photos' AppleScript interface is somewhat buggy and you may find that Photos crashes. In this case, osxphotos will attempt to restart Photos to resume the download process. There's also an experimental --use-photokit option that will communicate with Photos using a different "PhotoKit" interface. This option must be used together with --download-missing:
osxphotos export /path/to/export --download-missing
osxphotos export /path/to/export --download-missing --use-photokit
If you are exporting to an external network attached storage (NAS) device, you may encounter errors if the network connection is unreliable. In this case, you can use the --retry option so that osxphotos will automatically retry the export. Use --retry with a number that specifies the number of times to retry the export:
osxphotos export /path/to/export --retry 3
In this example, osxphotos will attempt to export a photo up to 3 times if it encounters an error.
Photos tracks a tremendous amount of metadata associated with photos in the library such as keywords, faces and persons, reverse geolocation data, and image classification labels. Photos' native export capability does not preserve most of this metadata. osxphotos can, however, access and preserve almost all the metadata associated with photos. Using the free exiftool app, osxphotos can write metadata to exported photos. Follow the instructions on the exiftool website to install exiftool then you can use the --exiftool option to write metadata to exported photos:
osxphotos export /path/to/export --exiftool
This will write basic metadata such as keywords, persons, and GPS location to the exported files. osxphotos includes several additional options that can be used in conjunction with --exiftool to modify the metadata that is written by exiftool. For example, you can use the --keyword-template option to specify custom keywords (again, via the osxphotos template system). For example, to use the folder and album a photo is in to create hierarchal keywords in the format used by Lightroom Classic:
osxphotos export /path/to/export --exiftool --keyword-template "{folder_album(>)}"
│ │
│ │
folder_album results in the folder(s) <──┘ │
and album a photo is contained in │
│
The value in () is used as the path separator <───────┘
for joining the folders and albums. For example,
if photo is in Folder1/Folder2/Album, (>) produces
"Folder1>Folder2>Album" which some programs, such as
Lightroom Classic, treat as hierarchal keywordsThe above command will write all the regular metadata that --exiftool normally writes to the file upon export but will also add an additional keyword in the exported metadata in the form "Folder1>Folder2>Album". If you did not include the (>) in the template string (e.g. {folder_album}), folder_album would render in form "Folder1/Folder2/Album".
A powerful feature of Photos is that it uses machine learning algorithms to automatically classify or label photos. These labels are used when you search for images in Photos but are not otherwise available to the user. osxphotos is able to read all the labels associated with a photo and makes those available through the template system via the {label}. Think of these as automatic keywords as opposed to the keywords you assign manually in Photos. One common use case is to use the automatic labels to create new keywords when exporting images so that these labels are embedded in the image's metadata:
osxphotos export /path/to/export --exiftool --keyword-template "{label}"
Note: When evaluating templates for --directory and --filename, osxphotos inserts the automatic default value "_" for any template field which is null (empty or blank). This is to ensure that there's never a null directory or filename created. For metadata templates such as --keyword-template, osxphotos does not provide an automatic default value thus if the template field is null, no keyword would be created. Of course, you can provide a default value if desired and osxphotos will use this. For example, to add "nolabel" as a keyword for any photo that doesn't have labels:
osxphotos export /path/to/export --exiftool --keyword-template "{label,nolabel}"
Another way to export metadata about your photos is through the use of sidecar files. These are files that have the same name as your photo (but with a different extension) and carry the metadata. Many digital asset management applications (for example, PhotoPrism, Lightroom, Digikam, etc.) can read or write sidecar files. osxphotos can export metadata in exiftool compatible JSON and XMP formats using the --sidecar option. For example, to output metadata to XMP sidecars:
osxphotos export /path/to/export --sidecar XMP
Unlike --exiftool, you do not need to install exiftool to use the --sidecar feature. Many of the same configuration options that apply to --exiftool to modify metadata, for example, --keyword-template can also be used with --sidecar.
Sidecar files are named "photoname.ext.sidecar_ext". For example, if the photo is named IMG_1234.JPG and the sidecar format is XMP, the sidecar would be named IMG_1234.JPG.XMP. Some applications expect the sidecar in this case to be named IMG_1234.XMP. You can use the -sidecar-drop-ext option to force osxphotos to name the sidecar files in this manner:
osxphotos export /path/to/export --sidecar XMP -sidecar-drop-ext
If you want to use osxphotos to perform periodic backups of your Photos library rather than a one-time export, use the --update option. When osxphotos export is run, it creates a database file named .osxphotos_export.db in the export folder. (Note Because the filename starts with a ".", you won't see it in Finder which treats "dot-files" like this as hidden. You will see the file in the Terminal.) . If you run osxphotos with the --update option, it will look for this database file and, if found, use it to retrieve state information from the last time it was run to only export new or changed files. For example:
osxphotos export /path/to/export --update
will read the export database located in /path/to/export/.osxphotos_export.db and only export photos that have been added or changed since the last time osxphotos was run. You can run osxphotos with the --update option even if it's never been run before. If the database isn't found, osxphotos will create it. If you run osxphotos export without --update in a folder where you had previously exported photos, it will re-export all the photos. If your intent is to keep a periodic backup of your Photos Library up to date with osxphotos, you should always use --update.
If your workflow involves moving files out of the export directory (for example, you move them into a digital asset management app) but you want to use the features of --update, you can use the --only-new with --update to force osxphotos to only export photos that are new (added to the library) since the last update. In this case, osxphotos will ignore the previously exported files that are now missing. Without --only-new, osxphotos would see that previously exported files are missing and re-export them.
osxphotos export /path/to/export --update --only-new
If your workflow involves editing the images you exported from Photos but you still want to maintain a backup with --update, you should use the --ignore-signature option. --ignore-signature instructs osxphotos to ignore the file's signature (for example, size and date modified) when deciding which files should be updated with --update. If you edit a file in the export directory and then run --update without --ignore-signature, osxphotos will see that the file is different than the one in the Photos library and re-export it.
osxphotos export /path/to/export --update --ignore-signature
You can use the --dry-run option to have osxphotos "dry run" or test an export without actually exporting any files. When combined with the --verbose option, which causes osxphotos to print out details of every file being exported, this can be a useful tool for testing your export options before actually running a full export. For example, if you are learning the template system and want to verify that your --directory and --filename templates are correct, --dry-run --verbose will print out the name of each file being exported.
osxphotos export /path/to/export --dry-run --verbose
You can use the --report option to create a report, in comma-separated values (CSV) format that will list the details of all files that were exported, skipped, missing, etc. This file format is compatible with programs such as Microsoft Excel. Provide the name of the report after the --report option:
osxphotos export /path/to/export --report export.csv
By default, osxphotos will export your entire Photos library. If you want to export only certain photos, osxphotos provides a rich set of "query options" that allow you to query the Photos database to filter out only certain photos that match your query criteria. The tutorial does not cover all the query options as there are over 50 of them--read the help text (osxphotos help export) to better understand the available query options. No matter which subset of photos you would like to export, there is almost certainly a way for osxphotos to filter these. For example, you can filter for only images that contain certain keywords or images without a title, images from a specific time of day or specific date range, images contained in specific albums, etc.
For example, to export only photos with keyword Travel:
osxphotos export /path/to/export --keyword "Travel"
Like many options in osxphotos, --keyword (and most other query options) can be repeated to search for more than one term. For example, to find photos with keyword Travel or keyword Vacation:
osxphotos export /path/to/export --keyword "Travel" --keyword "Vacation"
To export only photos contained in the album "Summer Vacation":
osxphotos export /path/to/export --album "Summer Vacation"
In Photos, it's possible to have multiple albums with the same name. In this case, osxphotos would export photos from all albums matching the value passed to --album. If you wanted to export only one of the albums and this album is in a folder, the --regex option (short for "regular expression"), which does pattern matching, could be used with the {folder_album} template to match the specific album. For example, if you had a "Summer Vacation" album inside the folder "2018" and also one with the same name inside the folder "2019", you could export just the album "2018/Summer Vacation" using this command:
osxphotos export /path/to/export --regex "2018/Summer Vacation" "{folder_album}"
This command matches the pattern "2018/Summer Vacation" against the full folder/album path for every photo.
There are also a number of query options to export only certain types of photos. For example, to export only photos taken with iPhone "Portrait Mode":
osxphotos export /path/to/export --portrait
You can also export photos in a certain date range:
osxphotos export /path/to/export --from-date "2020-01-01" --to-date "2020-02-28"
Photos can store images in many different formats. osxphotos can convert non-JPEG images (for example, RAW photos) to JPEG on export using the --convert-to-jpeg option. You can specify the JPEG quality (0: worst, 1.0: best) using --jpeg-quality. For example:
osxphotos export /path/to/export --convert-to-jpeg --jpeg-quality 0.9
In addition to using exiftool to write metadata directly to the image metadata, osxphotos can write certain metadata that is available to the Finder and Spotlight but does not modify the actual image file. This is done through something called extended attributes which are stored in the filesystem with a file but do not actually modify the file itself. Finder tags and Finder comments are common examples of these.
osxphotos can, for example, write any keywords in the image to Finder tags so that you can search for images in Spotlight or the Finder using the tag:tagname syntax:
osxphotos export /path/to/export --finder-tag-keywords
--finder-tag-keywords also works with --keyword-template as described above in the section on exiftool:
osxphotos export /path/to/export --finder-tag-keywords --keyword-template "{label}"
The --xattr-template option allows you to set a variety of other extended attributes. It is used in the format --xattr-template ATTRIBUTE TEMPLATE where ATTRIBUTE is one of 'authors','comment', 'copyright', 'description', 'findercomment', 'headline', 'keywords'.
For example, to set Finder comment to the photo's title and description:
osxphotos export /path/to/export --xattr-template findercomment "{title}{newline}{descr}"
In the template string above, {newline} instructs osxphotos to insert a new line character ("\n") between the title and description. In this example, if {title} or {descr} is empty, you'll get "title\n" or "\ndescription" which may not be desired so you can use more advanced features of the template system to handle these cases:
osxphotos export /path/to/export --xattr-template findercomment "{title,}{title?{descr?{newline},},}{descr,}"
Explanation of the template string:
{title,}{title?{descr?{newline},},}{descr,}
│ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │
└──> insert title (or nothing if no title)
│ │ │ │ │ │
└───> is there a title?
│ │ │ │ │
└───> if so, is there a description?
│ │ │ │
└───> if so, insert new line
│ │ │
└───> if descr is blank, insert nothing
│ │
└───> if title is blank, insert nothing
│
└───> finally, insert description
(or nothing if no description)In this example, title? demonstrates use of the boolean (True/False) feature of the template system. title? is read as "Is the title True (or not blank/empty)? If so, then the value immediately following the ? is used in place of title. If title is blank, then the value immediately following the comma is used instead. The format for boolean fields is field?value if true,value if false. Either value if true or value if false may be blank, in which case a blank string ("") is used for the value and both may also be an entirely new template string as seen in the above example. Using this format, template strings may be nested inside each other to form complex if-then-else statements.
The above example, while complex to read, shows how flexible the osxphotos template system is. If you invest a little time learning how to use the template system you can easily handle almost any use case you have.
See Extended Attributes section in the help for osxphotos export for additional information about this feature.
If you repeatedly run a complex osxphotos export command (for example, to regularly back-up your Photos library), you can save all the options to a configuration file for future use (--save-config FILE) and then load them (--load-config FILE) instead of repeating each option on the command line.
To save the configuration:
osxphotos export /path/to/export <all your options here> --update --save-config osxphotos.toml
Then the next to you run osxphotos, you can simply do this:
osxphotos export /path/to/export --load-config osxphotos.toml
The configuration file is a plain text file in TOML format so the .toml extension is standard but you can name the file anything you like.
You can use the --post-command option to run one or more commands against exported files. The --post-command option takes two arguments: CATEGORY and COMMAND. CATEGORY is a string that describes which category of file to run the command against. The available categories are described in the help text available via: osxphotos help export. For example, the exported category includes all exported photos and the skipped category includes all photos that were skipped when running export with --update. COMMAND is an osxphotos template string which will be rendered then passed to the shell for execution.
For example, the following command generates a log of all exported files and their associated keywords:
osxphotos export /path/to/export --post-command exported "echo {shell_quote,{filepath}{comma}{,+keyword,}} >> {shell_quote,{export_dir}/exported.txt}"
The special template field {shell_quote} ensures a string is properly quoted for execution in the shell. For example, it's possible that a file path or keyword in this example has a space in the value and if not properly quoted, this would cause an error in the execution of the command. When running commands, the template {filepath} is set to the full path of the exported file and {export_dir} is set to the full path of the base export directory.
Explanation of the template string:
{shell_quote,{filepath}{comma}{,+keyword,}}
│ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ | │
└──> quote everything after comma for proper execution in the shell
│ │ │ │
└───> filepath of the exported file
│ │ │
└───> insert a comma
│ │
└───> join the list of keywords together with a ","
│
└───> if no keywords, insert nothing (empty string: "")Another example: if you had exiftool installed and wanted to wipe all metadata from all exported files, you could use the following:
osxphotos export /path/to/export --post-command exported "/usr/local/bin/exiftool -all= {filepath|shell_quote}"
This command uses the |shell_quote template filter instead of the {shell_quote} template because the only thing that needs to be quoted is the path to the exported file. Template filters filter the value of the rendered template field. A number of other filters are available and are described in the help text.
Here's a comprehensive use case from an actual osxphotos user that integrates many of the concepts discussed in this tutorial (thank-you Philippe for contributing this!):
I usually import my iPhone’s photo roll on a more or less regular basis, and it
includes photos and videos. As a result, the size ot my Photos library may rise
very quickly. Nevertheless, I will tag and geolocate everything as Photos has a
quite good keyword management system.
After a while, I want to take most of the videos out of the library and move them
to a separate "videos" folder on a different folder / volume. As I might want to
use them in Final Cut Pro, and since Final Cut is able to import Finder tags into
its internal library tagging system, I will use osxphotos to do just this.
Picking the videos can be left to Photos, using a smart folder for instance. Then
just add a keyword to all videos to be processed. Here I chose "Quik" as I wanted
to spot all videos created on my iPhone using the Quik application (now part of
GoPro).
I want to retrieve my keywords only and make sure they populate the Finder tags, as
well as export all the persons identified in the videos by Photos. I also want to
merge any keywords or persons already in the video metadata with the exported
metadata.
Keeping Photo’s edited titles and descriptions and putting both in the Finder
comments field in a readable manner is also enabled.
And I want to keep the file’s creation date (using `--touch-file`).
Finally, use `--strip` to remove any leading or trailing whitespace from processed
template fields.
osxphotos export ~/Desktop/folder for exported videos/ --keyword Quik --only-movies --db /path to my.photoslibrary --touch-file --finder-tag-keywords --person-keyword --xattr-template findercomment "{title}{title?{descr?{newline},},}{descr}" --exiftool-merge-keywords --exiftool-merge-persons --exiftool --strip
osxphotos is very flexible. If you merely want to backup your Photos library, then spending a few minutes to understand the --directory option is likely all you need and you can be up and running in minutes. However, if you have a more complex workflow, osxphotos likely provides options to implement your workflow. This tutorial does not attempt to cover every option offered by osxphotos but hopefully it provides a good understanding of what kinds of things are possible and where to explore if you want to learn more.
osxphotos help export
Usage: osxphotos export [OPTIONS] [PHOTOS_LIBRARY]... DEST
Export photos from the Photos database. Export path DEST is required.
Optionally, query the Photos database using 1 or more search options; if more
than one option is provided, they are treated as "AND" (e.g. search for photos
matching all options). If no query options are provided, all photos will be
exported. By default, all versions of all photos will be exported including
edited versions, live photo movies, burst photos, and associated raw images.
See --skip-edited, --skip-live, --skip-bursts, and --skip-raw options to
modify this behavior.
Options:
--db <Photos database path> Specify Photos database path. Path to Photos
library/database can be specified using either
--db or directly as PHOTOS_LIBRARY positional
argument. If neither --db or PHOTOS_LIBRARY
provided, will attempt to find the library to
use in the following order: 1. last opened
library, 2. system library, 3.
~/Pictures/Photos Library.photoslibrary
-V, --verbose Print verbose output.
--keyword KEYWORD Search for photos with keyword KEYWORD. If
more than one keyword, treated as "OR", e.g.
find photos matching any keyword
--person PERSON Search for photos with person PERSON. If more
than one person, treated as "OR", e.g. find
photos matching any person
--album ALBUM Search for photos in album ALBUM. If more than
one album, treated as "OR", e.g. find photos
matching any album
--folder FOLDER Search for photos in an album in folder
FOLDER. If more than one folder, treated as
"OR", e.g. find photos in any FOLDER. Only
searches top level folders (e.g. does not look
at subfolders)
--name FILENAME Search for photos with filename matching
FILENAME. If more than one --name options is
specified, they are treated as "OR", e.g. find
photos matching any FILENAME.
--uuid UUID Search for photos with UUID(s). May be
repeated to include multiple UUIDs.
--uuid-from-file FILE Search for photos with UUID(s) loaded from
FILE. Format is a single UUID per line. Lines
preceded with # are ignored.
--title TITLE Search for TITLE in title of photo.
--no-title Search for photos with no title.
--description DESC Search for DESC in description of photo.
--no-description Search for photos with no description.
--place PLACE Search for PLACE in photo's reverse
geolocation info
--no-place Search for photos with no associated place
name info (no reverse geolocation info)
--location Search for photos with associated location
info (e.g. GPS coordinates)
--no-location Search for photos with no associated location
info (e.g. no GPS coordinates)
--label LABEL Search for photos with image classification
label LABEL (Photos 5 only). If more than one
label, treated as "OR", e.g. find photos
matching any label
--uti UTI Search for photos whose uniform type
identifier (UTI) matches UTI
-i, --ignore-case Case insensitive search for title,
description, place, keyword, person, or album.
--edited Search for photos that have been edited.
--external-edit Search for photos edited in external editor.
--favorite Search for photos marked favorite.
--not-favorite Search for photos not marked favorite.
--hidden Search for photos marked hidden.
--not-hidden Search for photos not marked hidden.
--shared Search for photos in shared iCloud album
(Photos 5 only).
--not-shared Search for photos not in shared iCloud album
(Photos 5 only).
--burst Search for photos that were taken in a burst.
--not-burst Search for photos that are not part of a
burst.
--live Search for Apple live photos
--not-live Search for photos that are not Apple live
photos.
--portrait Search for Apple portrait mode photos.
--not-portrait Search for photos that are not Apple portrait
mode photos.
--screenshot Search for screenshot photos.
--not-screenshot Search for photos that are not screenshot
photos.
--slow-mo Search for slow motion videos.
--not-slow-mo Search for photos that are not slow motion
videos.
--time-lapse Search for time lapse videos.
--not-time-lapse Search for photos that are not time lapse
videos.
--hdr Search for high dynamic range (HDR) photos.
--not-hdr Search for photos that are not HDR photos.
--selfie Search for selfies (photos taken with front-
facing cameras).
--not-selfie Search for photos that are not selfies.
--panorama Search for panorama photos.
--not-panorama Search for photos that are not panoramas.
--has-raw Search for photos with both a jpeg and raw
version
--only-movies Search only for movies (default searches both
images and movies).
--only-photos Search only for photos/images (default
searches both images and movies).
--from-date DATETIME Search by item start date, e.g.
2000-01-12T12:00:00,
2001-01-12T12:00:00-07:00, or 2000-12-31 (ISO
8601 with/without timezone).
--to-date DATETIME Search by item end date, e.g.
2000-01-12T12:00:00,
2001-01-12T12:00:00-07:00, or 2000-12-31 (ISO
8601 with/without timezone).
--from-time TIME Search by item start time of day, e.g. 12:00,
or 12:00:00.
--to-time TIME Search by item end time of day, e.g. 12:00 or
12:00:00.
--has-comment Search for photos that have comments.
--no-comment Search for photos with no comments.
--has-likes Search for photos that have likes.
--no-likes Search for photos with no likes.
--is-reference Search for photos that were imported as
referenced files (not copied into Photos
library).
--in-album Search for photos that are in one or more
albums.
--not-in-album Search for photos that are not in any albums.
--duplicate Search for photos with possible duplicates.
osxphotos will compare signatures of photos,
evaluating date created, size, height, width,
and edited status to find *possible*
duplicates. This does not compare images byte-
for-byte nor compare hashes but should find
photos imported multiple times or duplicated
within Photos.
--min-size SIZE Search for photos with size >= SIZE bytes. The
size evaluated is the photo's original size
(when imported to Photos). Size may be
specified as integer bytes or using SI or NIST
units. For example, the following are all
valid and equivalent sizes: '1048576'
'1.048576MB', '1 MiB'.
--max-size SIZE Search for photos with size <= SIZE bytes. The
size evaluated is the photo's original size
(when imported to Photos). Size may be
specified as integer bytes or using SI or NIST
units. For example, the following are all
valid and equivalent sizes: '1048576'
'1.048576MB', '1 MiB'.
--regex REGEX TEMPLATE Search for photos where TEMPLATE matches
regular expression REGEX. For example, to find
photos in an album that begins with 'Beach': '
--regex "^Beach" "{album}"'. You may specify
more than one regular expression match by
repeating '--regex' with different arguments.
--selected Filter for photos that are currently selected
in Photos.
--exif EXIF_TAG VALUE Search for photos where EXIF_TAG exists in
photo's EXIF data and contains VALUE. For
example, to find photos created by Adobe
Photoshop: `--exif Software 'Adobe Photoshop'
`or to find all photos shot on a Canon camera:
`--exif Make Canon`. EXIF_TAG can be any valid
exiftool tag, with or without group name, e.g.
`EXIF:Make` or `Make`. To use --exif, exiftool
must be installed and in the path.
--query-eval CRITERIA Evaluate CRITERIA to filter photos. CRITERIA
will be evaluated in context of the following
python list comprehension: `photos = [photo
for photo in photos if CRITERIA]` where photo
represents a PhotoInfo object. For example:
`--query-eval photo.favorite` returns all
photos that have been favorited and is
equivalent to --favorite. You may specify more
than one CRITERIA by using --query-eval
multiple times. CRITERIA must be a valid
python expression. See
https://rhettbull.github.io/osxphotos/ for
additional documentation on the PhotoInfo
class.
--query-function filename.py::function
Run function to filter photos. Use this in
format: --query-function filename.py::function
where filename.py is a python file you've
created and function is the name of the
function in the python file you want to call.
Your function will be passed a list of
PhotoInfo objects and is expected to return a
filtered list of PhotoInfo objects. You may
use more than one function by repeating the
--query-function option with a different
value. Your query function will be called
after all other query options have been
evaluated. See https://github.com/RhetTbull/os
xphotos/blob/master/examples/query_function.py
for example of how to use this option.
--missing Export only photos missing from the Photos
library; must be used with --download-missing.
--deleted Include photos from the 'Recently Deleted'
folder.
--deleted-only Include only photos from the 'Recently
Deleted' folder.
--update Only export new or updated files. See notes
below on export and --update.
--ignore-signature When used with '--update', ignores file
signature when updating files. This is useful
if you have processed or edited exported
photos changing the file signature (size &
modification date). In this case, '--update'
would normally re-export the processed files
but with '--ignore-signature', files which
exist in the export directory will not be re-
exported. If used with '--sidecar', '--ignore-
signature' has the following behavior: 1) if
the metadata (in Photos) that went into the
sidecar did not change, the sidecar will not
be updated; 2) if the metadata (in Photos)
that went into the sidecar did change, a new
sidecar is written but a new image file is
not; 3) if a sidecar does not exist for the
photo, a sidecar will be written whether or
not the photo file was written or updated.
--only-new If used with --update, ignores any previously
exported files, even if missing from the
export folder and only exports new files that
haven't previously been exported.
--dry-run Dry run (test) the export but don't actually
export any files; most useful with --verbose.
--export-as-hardlink Hardlink files instead of copying them. Cannot
be used with --exiftool which creates copies
of the files with embedded EXIF data. Note: on
APFS volumes, files are cloned when exporting
giving many of the same advantages as
hardlinks without having to use --export-as-
hardlink.
--touch-file Sets the file's modification time to match
photo date.
--overwrite Overwrite existing files. Default behavior is
to add (1), (2), etc to filename if file
already exists. Use this with caution as it
may create name collisions on export. (e.g. if
two files happen to have the same name)
--retry RETRY Automatically retry export up to RETRY times
if an error occurs during export. This may be
useful with network drives that experience
intermittent errors.
--export-by-date Automatically create output folders to
organize photos by date created (e.g.
DEST/2019/12/20/photoname.jpg).
--skip-edited Do not export edited version of photo if an
edited version exists.
--skip-original-if-edited Do not export original if there is an edited
version (exports only the edited version).
--skip-bursts Do not export all associated burst images in
the library if a photo is a burst photo.
--skip-live Do not export the associated live video
component of a live photo.
--skip-raw Do not export associated RAW image of a
RAW+JPEG pair. Note: this does not skip RAW
photos if the RAW photo does not have an
associated JPEG image (e.g. the RAW file was
imported to Photos without a JPEG preview).
--skip-uuid UUID Skip photos with UUID(s) during export. May be
repeated to include multiple UUIDs.
--skip-uuid-from-file FILE Skip photos with UUID(s) loaded from FILE.
Format is a single UUID per line. Lines
preceded with # are ignored.
--current-name Use photo's current filename instead of
original filename for export. Note: Starting
with Photos 5, all photos are renamed upon
import. By default, photos are exported with
the the original name they had before import.
--convert-to-jpeg Convert all non-JPEG images (e.g. RAW, HEIC,
PNG, etc) to JPEG upon export. Note: does not
convert the RAW component of a RAW+JPEG pair
as the associated JPEG image will be exported.
You can use --skip-raw to skip exporting the
associated RAW image of a RAW+JPEG pair. See
also --jpeg-quality and --jpeg-ext. Only works
if your Mac has a GPU (thus may not work on
virtual machines).
--jpeg-quality FLOAT RANGE Value in range 0.0 to 1.0 to use with
--convert-to-jpeg. A value of 1.0 specifies
best quality, a value of 0.0 specifies maximum
compression. Defaults to 1.0 [0.0<=x<=1.0]
--preview Export preview image generated by Photos. This
is a lower-resolution image used by Photos to
quickly preview the image. See also --preview-
suffix and --preview-if-missing.
--preview-if-missing Export preview image generated by Photos if
the actual photo file is missing from the
library. This may be helpful if photos were
not copied to the Photos library and the
original photo is missing. See also --preview-
suffix and --preview.
--preview-suffix SUFFIX Optional suffix template for naming preview
photos. Default name for preview photos is in
form 'photoname_preview.ext'. For example,
with '--preview-suffix _low_res', the preview
photo would be named 'photoname_low_res.ext'.
The default suffix is '_preview'. Multi-value
templates (see Templating System) are not
permitted with --preview-suffix. See also
--preview and --preview-if-missing.
--download-missing Attempt to download missing photos from
iCloud. The current implementation uses
Applescript to interact with Photos to export
the photo which will force Photos to download
from iCloud if the photo does not exist on
disk. This will be slow and will require
internet connection. This obviously only works
if the Photos library is synched to iCloud.
Note: --download-missing does not currently
export all burst images; only the primary
photo will be exported--associated burst
images will be skipped.
--sidecar FORMAT Create sidecar for each photo exported; valid
FORMAT values: xmp, json, exiftool; --sidecar
xmp: create XMP sidecar used by Digikam, Adobe
Lightroom, etc. The sidecar file is named in
format photoname.ext.xmp The XMP sidecar
exports the following tags: Description,
Title, Keywords/Tags, Subject (set to Keywords
+ PersonInImage), PersonInImage, CreateDate,
ModifyDate, GPSLongitude, Face Regions
(Metadata Working Group and Microsoft Photo).
--sidecar json: create JSON sidecar useable by
exiftool (https://exiftool.org/) The sidecar
file can be used to apply metadata to the file
with exiftool, for example: "exiftool
-j=photoname.jpg.json photoname.jpg" The
sidecar file is named in format
photoname.ext.json; format includes tag groups
(equivalent to running 'exiftool -G -j').
--sidecar exiftool: create JSON sidecar
compatible with output of 'exiftool -j'.
Unlike '--sidecar json', '--sidecar exiftool'
does not export tag groups. Sidecar filename
is in format photoname.ext.json; For a list of
tags exported in the JSON and exiftool
sidecar, see '--exiftool'. See also '--ignore-
signature'.
--sidecar-drop-ext Drop the photo's extension when naming sidecar
files. By default, sidecar files are named in
format 'photo_filename.photo_ext.sidecar_ext',
e.g. 'IMG_1234.JPG.xmp'. Use '--sidecar-drop-
ext' to ignore the photo extension. Resulting
sidecar files will have name in format
'IMG_1234.xmp'. Warning: this may result in
sidecar filename collisions if there are files
of different types but the same name in the
output directory, e.g. 'IMG_1234.JPG' and
'IMG_1234.MOV'.
--exiftool Use exiftool to write metadata directly to
exported photos. To use this option, exiftool
must be installed and in the path. exiftool
may be installed from https://exiftool.org/.
Cannot be used with --export-as-hardlink.
Writes the following metadata:
EXIF:ImageDescription, XMP:Description (see
also --description-template); XMP:Title;
XMP:TagsList, IPTC:Keywords, XMP:Subject (see
also --keyword-template, --person-keyword,
--album-keyword); XMP:PersonInImage;
EXIF:GPSLatitudeRef; EXIF:GPSLongitudeRef;
EXIF:GPSLatitude; EXIF:GPSLongitude;
EXIF:GPSPosition; EXIF:DateTimeOriginal;
EXIF:OffsetTimeOriginal; EXIF:ModifyDate (see
--ignore-date-modified); IPTC:DateCreated;
IPTC:TimeCreated; (video files only):
QuickTime:CreationDate; QuickTime:CreateDate;
QuickTime:ModifyDate (see also --ignore-date-
modified); QuickTime:GPSCoordinates;
UserData:GPSCoordinates.
--exiftool-path EXIFTOOL_PATH Optionally specify path to exiftool; if not
provided, will look for exiftool in $PATH.
--exiftool-option OPTION Optional flag/option to pass to exiftool when
using --exiftool. For example, --exiftool-
option '-m' to ignore minor warnings. Specify
these as you would on the exiftool command
line. See exiftool docs at
https://exiftool.org/exiftool_pod.html for
full list of options. More than one option may
be specified by repeating the option, e.g.
--exiftool-option '-m' --exiftool-option '-F'.
--exiftool-merge-keywords Merge any keywords found in the original file
with keywords used for '--exiftool' and '--
sidecar'.
--exiftool-merge-persons Merge any persons found in the original file
with persons used for '--exiftool' and '--
sidecar'.
--ignore-date-modified If used with --exiftool or --sidecar, will
ignore the photo modification date and set
EXIF:ModifyDate to EXIF:DateTimeOriginal; this
is consistent with how Photos handles the
EXIF:ModifyDate tag.
--person-keyword Use person in image as keyword/tag when
exporting metadata.
--album-keyword Use album name as keyword/tag when exporting
metadata.
--keyword-template TEMPLATE For use with --exiftool, --sidecar; specify a
template string to use as keyword in the form
'{name,DEFAULT}' This is the same format as
--directory. For example, if you wanted to
add the full path to the folder and album
photo is contained in as a keyword when
exporting you could specify --keyword-template
"{folder_album}" You may specify more than one
template, for example --keyword-template
"{folder_album}" --keyword-template
"{created.year}". See '--replace-keywords' and
Templating System below.
--replace-keywords Replace keywords with any values specified
with --keyword-template. By default,
--keyword-template will add keywords to any
keywords already associated with the photo.
If --replace-keywords is specified, values
from --keyword-template will replace any
existing keywords instead of adding additional
keywords.
--description-template TEMPLATE
For use with --exiftool, --sidecar; specify a
template string to use as description in the
form '{name,DEFAULT}' This is the same format
as --directory. For example, if you wanted to
append 'exported with osxphotos on [today's
date]' to the description, you could specify
--description-template "{descr} exported with
osxphotos on {today.date}" See Templating
System below.
--finder-tag-template TEMPLATE Set MacOS Finder tags to TEMPLATE. These tags
can be searched in the Finder or Spotlight
with 'tag:tagname' format. For example, '--
finder-tag-template "{label}"' to set Finder
tags to photo labels. You may specify multiple
TEMPLATE values by using '--finder-tag-
template' multiple times. See also '--finder-
tag-keywords and Extended Attributes below.'.
--finder-tag-keywords Set MacOS Finder tags to keywords; any
keywords specified via '--keyword-template', '
--person-keyword', etc. will also be used as
Finder tags. See also '--finder-tag-template
and Extended Attributes below.'.
--xattr-template ATTRIBUTE TEMPLATE
Set extended attribute ATTRIBUTE to TEMPLATE
value. Valid attributes are: 'authors',
'comment', 'copyright', 'creator',
'description', 'findercomment', 'headline',
'keywords', 'participants', 'projects',
'rating', 'subject', 'title', 'version'. For
example, to set Finder comment to the photo's
title and description: '--xattr-template
findercomment "{title}; {descr}" See Extended
Attributes below for additional details on
this option.
--directory DIRECTORY Optional template for specifying name of
output directory in the form '{name,DEFAULT}'.
See below for additional details on templating
system.
--filename FILENAME Optional template for specifying name of
output file in the form '{name,DEFAULT}'. File
extension will be added automatically--do not
include an extension in the FILENAME template.
See below for additional details on templating
system.
--jpeg-ext EXTENSION Specify file extension for JPEG files. Photos
uses .jpeg for edited images but many images
are imported with .jpg or .JPG which can
result in multiple different extensions used
for JPEG files upon export. Use --jpeg-ext to
specify a single extension to use for all
exported JPEG images. Valid values are jpeg,
jpg, JPEG, JPG; e.g. '--jpeg-ext jpg' to use
'.jpg' for all JPEGs.
--strip Optionally strip leading and trailing
whitespace from any rendered templates. For
example, if --filename template is "{title,}
{original_name}" and image has no title,
resulting file would have a leading space but
if used with --strip, this will be removed.
--edited-suffix SUFFIX Optional suffix template for naming edited
photos. Default name for edited photos is in
form 'photoname_edited.ext'. For example, with
'--edited-suffix _bearbeiten', the edited
photo would be named
'photoname_bearbeiten.ext'. The default
suffix is '_edited'. Multi-value templates
(see Templating System) are not permitted with
--edited-suffix.
--original-suffix SUFFIX Optional suffix template for naming original
photos. Default name for original photos is
in form 'filename.ext'. For example, with '--
original-suffix _original', the original photo
would be named 'filename_original.ext'. The
default suffix is '' (no suffix). Multi-value
templates (see Templating System) are not
permitted with --original-suffix.
--use-photos-export Force the use of AppleScript or PhotoKit to
export even if not missing (see also '--
download-missing' and '--use-photokit').
--use-photokit Use with '--download-missing' or '--use-
photos-export' to use direct Photos interface
instead of AppleScript to export. Highly
experimental alpha feature; does not work with
iTerm2 (use with Terminal.app). This is faster
and more reliable than the default AppleScript
interface.
--report <path to export report>
Write a CSV formatted report of all files that
were exported.
--cleanup Cleanup export directory by deleting any files
which were not included in this export set.
For example, photos which had previously been
exported and were subsequently deleted in
Photos. WARNING: --cleanup will delete *any*
files in the export directory that were not
exported by osxphotos, for example, your own
scripts or other files. Be sure this is what
you intend before using --cleanup. Use --dry-
run with --cleanup first if you're not
certain.
--add-exported-to-album ALBUM Add all exported photos to album ALBUM in
Photos. Album ALBUM will be created if it
doesn't exist. All exported photos will be
added to this album. This only works if the
Photos library being exported is the last-
opened (default) library in Photos. This
feature is currently experimental. I don't
know how well it will work on large export
sets.
--add-skipped-to-album ALBUM Add all skipped photos to album ALBUM in
Photos. Album ALBUM will be created if it
doesn't exist. All skipped photos will be
added to this album. This only works if the
Photos library being exported is the last-
opened (default) library in Photos. This
feature is currently experimental. I don't
know how well it will work on large export
sets.
--add-missing-to-album ALBUM Add all missing photos to album ALBUM in
Photos. Album ALBUM will be created if it
doesn't exist. All missing photos will be
added to this album. This only works if the
Photos library being exported is the last-
opened (default) library in Photos. This
feature is currently experimental. I don't
know how well it will work on large export
sets.
--post-command CATEGORY COMMAND
Run COMMAND on exported files of category
CATEGORY. CATEGORY can be one of: exported,
new, updated, skipped, missing, exif_updated,
touched, converted_to_jpeg,
sidecar_json_written, sidecar_json_skipped,
sidecar_exiftool_written,
sidecar_exiftool_skipped, sidecar_xmp_written,
sidecar_xmp_skipped, error. COMMAND is an
osxphotos template string, for example: '--
post-command exported "echo
{filepath|shell_quote} >>
{export_dir}/exported.txt"', which appends the
full path of all exported files to the file
'exported.txt'. You can run more than one
command by repeating the '--post-command'
option with different arguments. See Post
Command below.
--post-function filename.py::function
Run function on exported files. Use this in
format: --post-function filename.py::function
where filename.py is a python file you've
created and function is the name of the
function in the python file you want to call.
The function will be passed information about
the photo that's been exported and a list of
all exported files associated with the photo.
You can run more than one function by
repeating the '--post-function' option with
different arguments. See Post Function below.
--exportdb EXPORTDB_FILE Specify alternate path for database file which
stores state information for export and
--update. If --exportdb is not specified,
export database will be saved to
'.osxphotos_export.db' in the export
directory. If --exportdb is specified, it
will be saved to the specified file.
--load-config <config file path>
Load options from file as written with --save-
config. This allows you to save a complex
export command to file for later reuse. For
example: 'osxphotos export <lots of options
here> --save-config osxphotos.toml' then
'osxphotos export /path/to/export --load-
config osxphotos.toml'. If any other command
line options are used in conjunction with
--load-config, they will override the
corresponding values in the config file.
--save-config <config file path>
Save options to file for use with --load-
config. File format is TOML.
--help Show this message and exit.
** Export **
When exporting photos, osxphotos creates a database in the top-level export
folder called '.osxphotos_export.db'. This database preserves state information
used for determining which files need to be updated when run with --update. It
is recommended that if you later move the export folder tree you also move the
database file.
The --update option will only copy new or updated files from the library to the
export folder. If a file is changed in the export folder (for example, you
edited the exported image), osxphotos will detect this as a difference and re-
export the original image from the library thus overwriting the changes. If
using --update, the exported library should be treated as a backup, not a
working copy where you intend to make changes. If you do edit or process the
exported files and do not want them to be overwritten withsubsequent --update,
use --ignore-signature which will match filename but not file signature when
exporting.
Note: The number of files reported for export and the number actually exported
may differ due to live photos, associated raw images, and edited photos which
are reported in the total photos exported.
Implementation note: To determine which files need to be updated, osxphotos
stores file signature information in the '.osxphotos_export.db' database. The
signature includes size, modification time, and filename. In order to minimize
run time, --update does not do a full comparison (diff) of the files nor does it
compare hashes of the files. In normal usage, this is sufficient for updating
the library. You can always run export without the --update option to re-export
the entire library thus rebuilding the '.osxphotos_export.db' database.
** Extended Attributes **
Some options (currently '--finder-tag-template', '--finder-tag-keywords',
'-xattr-template') write additional metadata to extended attributes in the file.
These options will only work if the destination filesystem supports extended
attributes (most do). For example, --finder-tag-keyword writes all keywords
(including any specified by '--keyword-template' or other options) to Finder
tags that are searchable in Spotlight using the syntax: 'tag:tagname'. For
example, if you have images with keyword "Travel" then using '--finder-tag-
keywords' you could quickly find those images in the Finder by typing
'tag:Travel' in the Spotlight search bar. Finder tags are written to the
'com.apple.metadata:_kMDItemUserTags' extended attribute. Unlike EXIF metadata,
extended attributes do not modify the actual file. Most cloud storage services
do not synch extended attributes. Dropbox does sync them and any changes to a
file's extended attributes will cause Dropbox to re-sync the files.
The following attributes may be used with '--xattr-template':
authors The author, or authors, of the contents of the file. A list of
strings. (com.apple.metadata:kMDItemAuthors)
comment A comment related to the file. This differs from the Finder
comment, kMDItemFinderComment. A string.
(com.apple.metadata:kMDItemComment)
copyright The copyright owner of the file contents. A string.
(com.apple.metadata:kMDItemCopyright)
creator Application used to create the document content (for example
“Word”, “Pages”, and so on). A string.
(com.apple.metadata:kMDItemCreator)
description A description of the content of the resource. The description
may include an abstract, table of contents, reference to a
graphical representation of content or a free-text account of
the content. A string. (com.apple.metadata:kMDItemDescription)
findercomment Finder comments for this file. A string.
(com.apple.metadata:kMDItemFinderComment)
headline A publishable entry providing a synopsis of the contents of the
file. A string. (com.apple.metadata:kMDItemHeadline)
keywords Keywords associated with this file. For example, “Birthday”,
“Important”, etc. This differs from Finder tags
(_kMDItemUserTags) which are keywords/tags shown in the Finder
and searchable in Spotlight using "tag:tag_name". A list of
strings. (com.apple.metadata:kMDItemKeywords)
participants The list of people who are visible in an image or movie or
written about in a document. A list of strings.
(com.apple.metadata:kMDItemParticipants)
projects The list of projects that this file is part of. For example, if
you were working on a movie all of the files could be marked as
belonging to the project “My Movie”. A list of strings.
(com.apple.metadata:kMDItemProjects)
rating User rating of this item. For example, the stars rating of an
iTunes track. An integer.
(com.apple.metadata:kMDItemStarRating)
subject Subject of the this item. A string.
(com.apple.metadata:kMDItemSubject)
title The title of the file. For example, this could be the title of
a document, the name of a song, or the subject of an email
message. A string. (com.apple.metadata:kMDItemTitle)
version The version number of this file. A string.
(com.apple.metadata:kMDItemVersion)
For additional information on extended attributes see: https://developer.apple.c
om/documentation/coreservices/file_metadata/mditem/common_metadata_attribute_key
s
** Templating System **
The templating system converts one or template statements, written in osxphotos
metadata templating language, to one or more rendered values using information
from the photo being processed.
In its simplest form, a template statement has the form: "{template_field}", for
example "{title}" which would resolve to the title of the photo.
Template statements may contain one or more modifiers. The full syntax is:
"pretext{delim+template_field:subfield|filter(path_sep)[find,replace]
conditional?bool_value,default}posttext"
Template statements are white-space sensitive meaning that white space (spaces,
tabs) changes the meaning of the template statement.
pretext and posttext are free form text. For example, if a photo has title "My
Photo Title". the template statement "The title of the photo is {title}",
resolves to "The title of the photo is My Photo Title". The pretext in this
example is "The title if the photo is " and the template_field is {title}.
delim: optional delimiter string to use when expanding multi-valued template
values in-place
+: If present before template name, expands the template in place. If delim not
provided, values are joined with no delimiter.
e.g. if Photo keywords are ["foo","bar"]:
• "{keyword}" renders to "foo", "bar"
• "{,+keyword}" renders to: "foo,bar"
• "{; +keyword}" renders to: "foo; bar"
• "{+keyword}" renders to "foobar"
template_field: The template field to resolve. See Template Substitutions for
full list of template fields.
:subfield: Some templates have sub-fields, For example, {exiftool:IPTC:Make};
the template_field is exiftool and the sub-field is IPTC:Make.
|filter: You may optionally append one or more filter commands to the end of the
template field using the vertical pipe ('|') symbol. Filters may be combined,
separated by '|' as in: {keyword|capitalize|parens}.
Valid filters are:
• lower: Convert value to lower case, e.g. 'Value' => 'value'.
• upper: Convert value to upper case, e.g. 'Value' => 'VALUE'.
• strip: Strip whitespace from beginning/end of value, e.g. ' Value ' =>
'Value'.
• titlecase: Convert value to title case, e.g. 'my value' => 'My Value'.
• capitalize: Capitalize first word of value and convert other words to lower
case, e.g. 'MY VALUE' => 'My value'.
• braces: Enclose value in curly braces, e.g. 'value => '{value}'.
• parens: Enclose value in parentheses, e.g. 'value' => '(value')
• brackets: Enclose value in brackets, e.g. 'value' => '[value]'
• shell_quote: Quotes the value for safe usage in the shell, e.g. My file.jpeg
=> 'My file.jpeg'; only adds quotes if needed.
• function: Run custom python function to filter value; use in format
'function:/path/to/file.py::function_name'. See example at https://github.com
/RhetTbull/osxphotos/blob/master/examples/template_filter.py
e.g. if Photo keywords are ["FOO","bar"]:
• "{keyword|lower}" renders to "foo", "bar"
• "{keyword|upper}" renders to: "FOO", "BAR"
• "{keyword|capitalize}" renders to: "Foo", "Bar"
• "{keyword|lower|parens}" renders to: "(foo)", "(bar)"
e.g. if Photo description is "my description":
• "{descr|titlecase}" renders to: "My Description"
(path_sep): optional path separator to use when joining path-like fields, for
example {folder_album}. Default is "/".
e.g. If Photo is in Album1 in Folder1:
• "{folder_album}" renders to ["Folder1/Album1"]
• "{folder_album(>)}" renders to ["Folder1>Album1"]
• "{folder_album()}" renders to ["Folder1Album1"]
[find,replace]: optional text replacement to perform on rendered template value.
For example, to replace "/" in an album name, you could use the template
"{album[/,-]}". Multiple replacements can be made by appending "|" and adding
another find|replace pair. e.g. to replace both "/" and ":" in album name:
"{album[/,-|:,-]}". find/replace pairs are not limited to single characters.
The "|" character cannot be used in a find/replace pair.
conditional: optional conditional expression that is evaluated as boolean
(True/False) for use with the ?bool_value modifier. Conditional expressions
take the form ' not operator value' where not is an optional modifier that
negates the operator. Note: the space before the conditional expression is
required if you use a conditional expression. Valid comparison operators are:
• contains: template field contains value, similar to python's in
• matches: template field contains exactly value, unlike contains: does not
match partial matches
• startswith: template field starts with value
• endswith: template field ends with value
• <=: template field is less than or equal to value
• >=: template field is greater than or equal to value
• <: template field is less than value
• >: template field is greater than value
• ==: template field equals value
• !=: template field does not equal value
The value part of the conditional expression is treated as a bare (unquoted)
word/phrase. Multiple values may be separated by '|' (the pipe symbol). value
is itself a template statement so you can use one or more template fields in
value which will be resolved before the comparison occurs.
For example:
• {keyword matches Beach} resolves to True if 'Beach' is a keyword. It would
not match keyword 'BeachDay'.
• {keyword contains Beach} resolves to True if any keyword contains the word
'Beach' so it would match both 'Beach' and 'BeachDay'.
• {photo.score.overall > 0.7} resolves to True if the photo's overall aesthetic
score is greater than 0.7.
• {keyword|lower contains beach} uses the lower case filter to do
case-insensitive matching to match any keyword that contains the word
'beach'.
• {keyword|lower not contains beach} uses the not modifier to negate the
comparison so this resolves to True if there is no keyword that matches
'beach'.
Examples: to export photos that contain certain keywords with the osxphotos
export command's --directory option:
--directory "{keyword|lower matches
travel|vacation?Travel-Photos,Not-Travel-Photos}"
This exports any photo that has keywords 'travel' or 'vacation' into a directory
'Travel-Photos' and all other photos into directory 'Not-Travel-Photos'.
This can be used to rename files as well, for example: --filename
"{favorite?Favorite-{original_name},{original_name}}"
This renames any photo that is a favorite as 'Favorite-ImageName.jpg' (where
'ImageName.jpg' is the original name of the photo) and all other photos with the
unmodified original name.
?bool_value: Template fields may be evaluated as boolean (True/False) by
appending "?" after the field name (and following "(path_sep)" or
"[find/replace]". If a field is True (e.g. photo is HDR and field is "{hdr}")
or has any value, the value following the "?" will be used to render the
template instead of the actual field value. If the template field evaluates to
False (e.g. in above example, photo is not HDR) or has no value (e.g. photo has
no title and field is "{title}") then the default value following a "," will be
used.
e.g. if photo is an HDR image,
• "{hdr?ISHDR,NOTHDR}" renders to "ISHDR"
and if it is not an HDR image,
• "{hdr?ISHDR,NOTHDR}" renders to "NOTHDR"
,default: optional default value to use if the template name has no value. This
modifier is also used for the value if False for boolean-type fields (see above)
as well as to hold a sub-template for values like {created.strftime}. If no
default value provided, "_" is used.
e.g., if photo has no title set,
• "{title}" renders to "_"
• "{title,I have no title}" renders to "I have no title"
Template fields such as created.strftime use the default value to pass the
template to use for strftime.
e.g., if photo date is 4 February 2020, 19:07:38,
• "{created.strftime,%Y-%m-%d-%H%M%S}" renders to "2020-02-04-190738"
Some template fields such as "{media_type}" use the default value to allow
customization of the output. For example, "{media_type}" resolves to the special
media type of the photo such as panorama or selfie. You may use the default
value to override these in form:
"{media_type,video=vidéo;time_lapse=vidéo_accélérée}". In this example, if photo
was a time_lapse photo, media_type would resolve to vidéo_accélérée instead of
time_lapse.
Either or both bool_value or default (False value) may be empty which would
result in empty string "" when rendered.
If you want to include "{" or "}" in the output, use "{openbrace}" or
"{closebrace}" template substitution.
e.g. "{created.year}/{openbrace}{title}{closebrace}" would result in
"2020/{Photo Title}".
With the --directory and --filename options you may specify a template for the
export directory or filename, respectively. The directory will be appended to
the export path specified in the export DEST argument to export. For example,
if template is '{created.year}/{created.month}', and export destination DEST is
'/Users/maria/Pictures/export', the actual export directory for a photo would be
'/Users/maria/Pictures/export/2020/March' if the photo was created in March
2020.
The templating system may also be used with the --keyword-template option to set
keywords on export (with --exiftool or --sidecar), for example, to set a new
keyword in format 'folder/subfolder/album' to preserve the folder/album
structure, you can use --keyword-template "{folder_album}" or in the
'folder>subfolder>album' format used in Lightroom Classic, --keyword-template
"{folder_album(>)}".
In the template, valid template substitutions will be replaced by the
corresponding value from the table below. Invalid substitutions will result in
a an error and the script will abort.
** Template Substitutions **
Substitution Description
{name} Current filename of the photo
{original_name} Photo's original filename when imported to
Photos
{title} Title of the photo
{descr} Description of the photo
{media_type} Special media type resolved in this
precedence: selfie, time_lapse, panorama,
slow_mo, screenshot, portrait, live_photo,
burst, photo, video. Defaults to 'photo' or
'video' if no special type. Customize one or
more media types using format: '{media_type,vi
deo=vidéo;time_lapse=vidéo_accélérée}'
{photo_or_video} 'photo' or 'video' depending on what type the
image is. To customize, use default value as
in '{photo_or_video,photo=fotos;video=videos}'
{hdr} Photo is HDR?; True/False value, use in format
'{hdr?VALUE_IF_TRUE,VALUE_IF_FALSE}'
{edited} True if photo has been edited (has
adjustments), otherwise False; use in format
'{edited?VALUE_IF_TRUE,VALUE_IF_FALSE}'
{edited_version} True if template is being rendered for the
edited version of a photo, otherwise False.
{favorite} Photo has been marked as favorite?; True/False
value, use in format
'{favorite?VALUE_IF_TRUE,VALUE_IF_FALSE}'
{created.date} Photo's creation date in ISO format, e.g.
'2020-03-22'
{created.year} 4-digit year of photo creation time
{created.yy} 2-digit year of photo creation time
{created.mm} 2-digit month of the photo creation time (zero
padded)
{created.month} Month name in user's locale of the photo
creation time
{created.mon} Month abbreviation in the user's locale of the
photo creation time
{created.dd} 2-digit day of the month (zero padded) of
photo creation time
{created.dow} Day of week in user's locale of the photo
creation time
{created.doy} 3-digit day of year (e.g Julian day) of photo
creation time, starting from 1 (zero padded)
{created.hour} 2-digit hour of the photo creation time
{created.min} 2-digit minute of the photo creation time
{created.sec} 2-digit second of the photo creation time
{created.strftime} Apply strftime template to file creation
date/time. Should be used in form
{created.strftime,TEMPLATE} where TEMPLATE is
a valid strftime template, e.g.
{created.strftime,%Y-%U} would result in year-
week number of year: '2020-23'. If used with
no template will return null value. See
https://strftime.org/ for help on strftime
templates.
{modified.date} Photo's modification date in ISO format, e.g.
'2020-03-22'; uses creation date if photo is
not modified
{modified.year} 4-digit year of photo modification time; uses
creation date if photo is not modified
{modified.yy} 2-digit year of photo modification time; uses
creation date if photo is not modified
{modified.mm} 2-digit month of the photo modification time
(zero padded); uses creation date if photo is
not modified
{modified.month} Month name in user's locale of the photo
modification time; uses creation date if photo
is not modified
{modified.mon} Month abbreviation in the user's locale of the
photo modification time; uses creation date if
photo is not modified
{modified.dd} 2-digit day of the month (zero padded) of the
photo modification time; uses creation date if
photo is not modified
{modified.dow} Day of week in user's locale of the photo
modification time; uses creation date if photo
is not modified
{modified.doy} 3-digit day of year (e.g Julian day) of photo
modification time, starting from 1 (zero
padded); uses creation date if photo is not
modified
{modified.hour} 2-digit hour of the photo modification time;
uses creation date if photo is not modified
{modified.min} 2-digit minute of the photo modification time;
uses creation date if photo is not modified
{modified.sec} 2-digit second of the photo modification time;
uses creation date if photo is not modified
{modified.strftime} Apply strftime template to file modification
date/time. Should be used in form
{modified.strftime,TEMPLATE} where TEMPLATE is
a valid strftime template, e.g.
{modified.strftime,%Y-%U} would result in
year-week number of year: '2020-23'. If used
with no template will return null value. Uses
creation date if photo is not modified. See
https://strftime.org/ for help on strftime
templates.
{today.date} Current date in iso format, e.g. '2020-03-22'
{today.year} 4-digit year of current date
{today.yy} 2-digit year of current date
{today.mm} 2-digit month of the current date (zero
padded)
{today.month} Month name in user's locale of the current
date
{today.mon} Month abbreviation in the user's locale of the
current date
{today.dd} 2-digit day of the month (zero padded) of
current date
{today.dow} Day of week in user's locale of the current
date
{today.doy} 3-digit day of year (e.g Julian day) of
current date, starting from 1 (zero padded)
{today.hour} 2-digit hour of the current date
{today.min} 2-digit minute of the current date
{today.sec} 2-digit second of the current date
{today.strftime} Apply strftime template to current date/time.
Should be used in form
{today.strftime,TEMPLATE} where TEMPLATE is a
valid strftime template, e.g.
{today.strftime,%Y-%U} would result in year-
week number of year: '2020-23'. If used with
no template will return null value. See
https://strftime.org/ for help on strftime
templates.
{place.name} Place name from the photo's reverse
geolocation data, as displayed in Photos
{place.country_code} The ISO country code from the photo's reverse
geolocation data
{place.name.country} Country name from the photo's reverse
geolocation data
{place.name.state_province} State or province name from the photo's
reverse geolocation data
{place.name.city} City or locality name from the photo's reverse
geolocation data
{place.name.area_of_interest} Area of interest name (e.g. landmark or public
place) from the photo's reverse geolocation
data
{place.address} Postal address from the photo's reverse
geolocation data, e.g. '2007 18th St NW,
Washington, DC 20009, United States'
{place.address.street} Street part of the postal address, e.g. '2007
18th St NW'
{place.address.city} City part of the postal address, e.g.
'Washington'
{place.address.state_province} State/province part of the postal address,
e.g. 'DC'
{place.address.postal_code} Postal code part of the postal address, e.g.
'20009'
{place.address.country} Country name of the postal address, e.g.
'United States'
{place.address.country_code} ISO country code of the postal address, e.g.
'US'
{searchinfo.season} Season of the year associated with a photo,
e.g. 'Summer'; (Photos 5+ only, applied
automatically by Photos' image categorization
algorithms).
{exif.camera_make} Camera make from original photo's EXIF
information as imported by Photos, e.g.
'Apple'
{exif.camera_model} Camera model from original photo's EXIF
information as imported by Photos, e.g.
'iPhone 6s'
{exif.lens_model} Lens model from original photo's EXIF
information as imported by Photos, e.g.
'iPhone 6s back camera 4.15mm f/2.2'
{uuid} Photo's internal universally unique identifier
(UUID) for the photo, a 36-character string
unique to the photo, e.g.
'128FB4C6-0B16-4E7D-9108-FB2E90DA1546'
{id} A unique number for the photo based on its
primary key in the Photos database. A
sequential integer, e.g. 1, 2, 3...etc. Each
asset associated with a photo (e.g. an image
and Live Photo preview) will share the same
id. May be formatted using a python string
format code. For example, to format as a
5-digit integer and pad with zeros, use
'{id:05d}' which results in 00001, 00002,
00003...etc.
{album_seq} An integer, starting at 0, indicating the
photo's index (sequence) in the containing
album. Only valid when used in a '--filename'
template and only when '{album}' or
'{folder_album}' is used in the '--directory'
template. For example '--directory
"{folder_album}" --filename
"{album_seq}_{original_name}"'. To start
counting at a value other than 0, append
append a period and the starting value to the
field name. For example, to start counting at
1 instead of 0: '{album_seq.1}'. May be
formatted using a python string format code.
For example, to format as a 5-digit integer
and pad with zeros, use '{album_seq:05d}'
which results in 00000, 00001, 00002...etc.
This may result in incorrect sequences if you
have duplicate albums with the same name; see
also '{folder_album_seq}'.
{folder_album_seq} An integer, starting at 0, indicating the
photo's index (sequence) in the containing
album and folder path. Only valid when used in
a '--filename' template and only when
'{folder_album}' is used in the '--directory'
template. For example '--directory
"{folder_album}" --filename
"{folder_album_seq}_{original_name}"'. To
start counting at a value other than 0, append
append a period and the starting value to the
field name. For example, to start counting at
1 instead of 0: '{folder_album_seq.1}' May be
formatted using a python string format code.
For example, to format as a 5-digit integer
and pad with zeros, use
'{folder_album_seq:05d}' which results in
00000, 00001, 00002...etc. This may result in
incorrect sequences if you have duplicate
albums with the same name in the same folder;
see also '{album_seq}'.
{comma} A comma: ','
{semicolon} A semicolon: ';'
{questionmark} A question mark: '?'
{pipe} A vertical pipe: '|'
{openbrace} An open brace: '{'
{closebrace} A close brace: '}'
{openparens} An open parentheses: '('
{closeparens} A close parentheses: ')'
{openbracket} An open bracket: '['
{closebracket} A close bracket: ']'
{newline} A newline: '\n'
{lf} A line feed: '\n', alias for {newline}
{cr} A carriage return: '\r'
{crlf} a carriage return + line feed: '\r\n'
{osxphotos_version} The osxphotos version, e.g. '0.44.13'
{osxphotos_cmd_line} The full command line used to run osxphotos
The following substitutions may result in multiple values. Thus if specified for
--directory these could result in multiple copies of a photo being being
exported, one to each directory. For example: --directory
'{created.year}/{album}' could result in the same photo being exported to each
of the following directories if the photos were created in 2019 and were in
albums 'Vacation' and 'Family': 2019/Vacation, 2019/Family
Substitution Description
{album} Album(s) photo is contained in
{folder_album} Folder path + album photo is contained in. e.g.
'Folder/Subfolder/Album' or just 'Album' if no
enclosing folder
{project} Project(s) photo is contained in (such as greeting
cards, calendars, slideshows)
{album_project} Album(s) and project(s) photo is contained in; treats
projects as regular albums
{folder_album_project} Folder path + album (includes projects as albums)
photo is contained in. e.g. 'Folder/Subfolder/Album'
or just 'Album' if no enclosing folder
{keyword} Keyword(s) assigned to photo
{person} Person(s) / face(s) in a photo
{label} Image categorization label associated with a photo
(Photos 5+ only). Labels are added automatically by
Photos using machine learning algorithms to
categorize images. These are not the same as
{keyword} which refers to the user-defined
keywords/tags applied in Photos.
{label_normalized} All lower case version of 'label' (Photos 5+ only)
{comment} Comment(s) on shared Photos; format is 'Person name:
comment text' (Photos 5+ only)
{exiftool} Format: '{exiftool:GROUP:TAGNAME}'; use exiftool
(https://exiftool.org) to extract metadata, in form
GROUP:TAGNAME, from image. E.g.
'{exiftool:EXIF:Make}' to get camera make, or
{exiftool:IPTC:Keywords} to extract keywords. See
https://exiftool.org/TagNames/ for list of valid tag
names. You must specify group (e.g. EXIF, IPTC, etc)
as used in `exiftool -G`. exiftool must be installed
in the path to use this template.
{searchinfo.holiday} Holiday names associated with a photo, e.g.
'Christmas Day'; (Photos 5+ only, applied
automatically by Photos' image categorization
algorithms).
{searchinfo.activity} Activities associated with a photo, e.g. 'Sporting
Event'; (Photos 5+ only, applied automatically by
Photos' image categorization algorithms).
{searchinfo.venue} Venues associated with a photo, e.g. name of
restaurant; (Photos 5+ only, applied automatically by
Photos' image categorization algorithms).
{searchinfo.venue_type} Venue types associated with a photo, e.g.
'Restaurant'; (Photos 5+ only, applied automatically
by Photos' image categorization algorithms).
{photo} Provides direct access to the PhotoInfo object for
the photo. Must be used in format '{photo.property}'
where 'property' represents a PhotoInfo property. For
example: '{photo.favorite}' is the same as
'{favorite}' and '{photo.place.name}' is the same as
'{place.name}'. '{photo}' provides access to
properties that are not available as separate
template fields but it assumes some knowledge of the
underlying PhotoInfo class. See
https://rhettbull.github.io/osxphotos/ for additional
documentation on the PhotoInfo class.
{detected_text} List of text strings found in the image after
performing text detection. Using '{detected_text}'
will cause osxphotos to perform text detection on
your photos using the built-in macOS text detection
algorithms which will slow down your export. The
results for each photo will be cached in the export
database so that future exports with '--update' do
not need to reprocess each photo. You may pass a
confidence threshold value between 0.0 and 1.0 after
a colon as in '{detected_text:0.5}'; The default
confidence threshold is 0.75. '{detected_text}' works
only on macOS Catalina (10.15) or later. Note: this
feature is not the same thing as Live Text in macOS
Monterey, which osxphotos does not yet support.
{shell_quote} Use in form '{shell_quote,TEMPLATE}'; quotes the
rendered TEMPLATE value(s) for safe usage in the
shell, e.g. My file.jpeg => 'My file.jpeg'; only adds
quotes if needed.
{strip} Use in form '{strip,TEMPLATE}'; strips whitespace
from begining and end of rendered TEMPLATE value(s).
{function} Execute a python function from an external file and
use return value as template substitution. Use in
format: {function:file.py::function_name} where
'file.py' is the name of the python file and
'function_name' is the name of the function to call.
The function will be passed the PhotoInfo object for
the photo. See https://github.com/RhetTbull/osxphotos
/blob/master/examples/template_function.py for an
example of how to implement a template function.
The following substitutions are file or directory paths. You can access various
parts of the path using the following modifiers:
{path.parent}: the parent directory
{path.name}: the name of the file or final sub-directory
{path.stem}: the name of the file without the extension
{path.suffix}: the suffix of the file including the leading '.'
For example, if the field {export_dir} is '/Shared/Backup/Photos':
{export_dir.parent} is '/Shared/Backup'
If the field {filepath} is '/Shared/Backup/Photos/IMG_1234.JPG':
{filepath.parent} is '/Shared/Backup/Photos'
{filepath.name} is 'IMG_1234.JPG'
{filepath.stem} is 'IMG_1234'
{filepath.suffix} is '.JPG'
Substitution Description
{export_dir} The full path to the export directory
{filepath} The full path to the exported file
** Post Command **
You can run commands on the exported photos for post-processing using the '--
post-command' option. '--post-command' is passed a CATEGORY and a COMMAND.
COMMAND is an osxphotos template string which will be rendered and passed to the
shell for execution. CATEGORY is the category of file to pass to COMMAND. The
following categories are available:
Category Description
exported All exported files
new When used with '--update', all newly exported files
updated When used with '--update', all files which were
previously exported but updated this time
skipped When used with '--update', all files which were
skipped (because they were previously exported and
didn't change)
missing All files which were not exported because they were
missing from the Photos library
exif_updated When used with '--exiftool', all files on which
exiftool updated the metadata
touched When used with '--touch-file', all files where the
date was touched
converted_to_jpeg When used with '--convert-to-jpeg', all files which
were converted to jpeg
sidecar_json_written When used with '--sidecar json', all JSON sidecar
files which were written
sidecar_json_skipped When used with '--sidecar json' and '--update', all
JSON sidecar files which were skipped
sidecar_exiftool_written When used with '--sidecar exiftool', all exiftool
sidecar files which were written
sidecar_exiftool_skipped When used with '--sidecar exiftool' and '--update,
all exiftool sidecar files which were skipped
sidecar_xmp_written When used with '--sidecar xmp', all XMP sidecar
files which were written
sidecar_xmp_skipped When used with '--sidecar xmp' and '--update', all
XMP sidecar files which were skipped
error All files which produced an error during export
In addition to all normal template fields, the template fields '{filepath}' and
'{export_dir}' will be available to your command template. Both of these are
path-type templates which means their various parts can be accessed using the
available properties, e.g. '{filepath.name}' provides just the file name without
path and '{filepath.suffix}' is the file extension (suffix) of the file. When
using paths in your command template, it is important to properly quote the
paths as they will be passed to the shell and path names may contain spaces.
Both the '{shell_quote}' template and the '|shell_quote' template filter are
available for this purpose. For example, the following command outputs the full
path of newly exported files to file 'new.txt':
--post-command new "echo {filepath|shell_quote} >> {shell_quote,{export_dir}/exported.txt}"
In the above command, the 'shell_quote' filter is used to ensure '{filepath}' is
properly quoted and the '{shell_quote}' template ensures the constructed path of
'{exported_dir}/exported.txt' is properly quoted. If '{filepath}' is 'IMG
1234.jpeg' and '{export_dir}' is '/Volumes/Photo Export', the command thus
renders to:
echo 'IMG 1234.jpeg' >> '/Volumes/Photo Export/exported.txt'
It is highly recommended that you run osxphotos with '--dry-run --verbose' first
to ensure your commands are as expected. This will not actually run the commands
but will print out the exact command string which would be executed.
** Post Function **
You can run your own python functions on the exported photos for post-processing
using the '--post-function' option. '--post-function' is passed the name a
python file and the name of the function in the file to call using format
'filename.py::function_name'. See the example function at
https://github.com/RhetTbull/osxphotos/blob/master/examples/post_function.py You
may specify multiple functions to run by repeating the --post-function option.
All post functions will be called immediately after export of each photo and
immediately before any --post-command commands. Post functions will not be
called if the --dry-run flag is set.
""" Simple usage of the package """
import os.path
import osxphotos
def main():
db = os.path.expanduser("~/Pictures/Photos Library.photoslibrary")
photosdb = osxphotos.PhotosDB(db)
print(photosdb.keywords)
print(photosdb.persons)
print(photosdb.album_names)
print(photosdb.keywords_as_dict)
print(photosdb.persons_as_dict)
print(photosdb.albums_as_dict)
# find all photos with Keyword = Foo and containing John Smith
photos = photosdb.photos(keywords=["Foo"],persons=["John Smith"])
# find all photos that include Alice Smith but do not contain the keyword Bar
photos = [p for p in photosdb.photos(persons=["Alice Smith"])
if p not in photosdb.photos(keywords=["Bar"]) ]
for p in photos:
print(
p.uuid,
p.filename,
p.original_filename,
p.date,
p.description,
p.title,
p.keywords,
p.albums,
p.persons,
p.path,
)
if __name__ == "__main__":
main()""" Export all photos to specified directory using album names as folders
If file has been edited, also export the edited version,
otherwise, export the original version
This will result in duplicate photos if photo is in more than album """
import os.path
import pathlib
import sys
import click
from pathvalidate import is_valid_filepath, sanitize_filepath
import osxphotos
@click.command()
@click.argument("export_path", type=click.Path(exists=True))
@click.option(
"--default-album",
help="Default folder for photos with no album. Defaults to 'unfiled'",
default="unfiled",
)
@click.option(
"--library-path",
help="Path to Photos library, default to last used library",
default=None,
)
def export(export_path, default_album, library_path):
export_path = os.path.expanduser(export_path)
library_path = os.path.expanduser(library_path) if library_path else None
if library_path is not None:
photosdb = osxphotos.PhotosDB(library_path)
else:
photosdb = osxphotos.PhotosDB()
photos = photosdb.photos()
for p in photos:
if not p.ismissing:
albums = p.albums
if not albums:
albums = [default_album]
for album in albums:
click.echo(f"exporting {p.filename} in album {album}")
# make sure no invalid characters in destination path (could be in album name)
album_name = sanitize_filepath(album, platform="auto")
# create destination folder, if necessary, based on album name
dest_dir = os.path.join(export_path, album_name)
# verify path is a valid path
if not is_valid_filepath(dest_dir, platform="auto"):
sys.exit(f"Invalid filepath {dest_dir}")
# create destination dir if needed
if not os.path.isdir(dest_dir):
os.makedirs(dest_dir)
# export the photo
if p.hasadjustments:
# export edited version
exported = p.export(dest_dir, edited=True)
edited_name = pathlib.Path(p.path_edited).name
click.echo(f"Exported {edited_name} to {exported}")
# export unedited version
exported = p.export(dest_dir)
click.echo(f"Exported {p.filename} to {exported}")
else:
click.echo(f"Skipping missing photo: {p.filename}")
if __name__ == "__main__":
export() # pylint: disable=no-value-for-parameterosxphotos.PhotosDB()
osxphotos.PhotosDB(path)
osxphotos.PhotosDB(dbfile=path)Reads the Photos library database and returns a PhotosDB object.
Pass the path to a Photos library or to a specific database file (e.g. "/Users/smith/Pictures/Photos Library.photoslibrary" or "/Users/smith/Pictures/Photos Library.photoslibrary/database/photos.db"). Normally, it's recommended you pass the path the .photoslibrary folder, not the actual database path. Note: In Photos, users may specify a different library to open by holding down the option key while opening Photos.app. See also get_last_library_path and get_system_library_path
If an invalid path is passed, PhotosDB will raise FileNotFoundError exception.
Note: If neither path or dbfile is passed, PhotosDB will use get_last_library_path to open the last opened Photos library. This usually works but is not 100% reliable. It can also lead to loading a different library than expected if the user has held down option key when opening Photos to switch libraries. You may therefore want to explicitely pass the path to PhotosDB().
The default library is the library that would open if the user opened Photos.app.
import osxphotos
photosdb = osxphotos.PhotosDB(osxphotos.utils.get_last_library_path())In Photos 5 (Catalina / MacOS 10.15), you can use get_system_library_path() to get the path to the System photo library if you want to ensure PhotosDB opens the system library. This does not work on older versions of MacOS. E.g.
import osxphotos
path = osxphotos.get_system_library_path()
photosdb = osxphotos.PhotosDB(path)also,
import osxphotos
path = osxphotos.get_system_library_path()
photosdb = osxphotos.PhotosDB(dbfile=path)import osxphotos
photosdb = osxphotos.PhotosDB(dbfile="/Users/smith/Pictures/Test.photoslibrary/database/photos.db")or
import osxphotos
photosdb = osxphotos.PhotosDB("/Users/smith/Pictures/Test.photoslibrary")Pass the fully qualified path to the Photos library or the actual database file inside the library. The database is called photos.db and resides in the database folder in your Photos library. If you pass only the path to the library, PhotosDB will add the database path automatically. The option to pass the actual database path is provided so database files can be queried even if separated from the actual .photoslibrary file.
Returns a PhotosDB object.
Note: If you have a large library (e.g. many thousdands of photos), creating the PhotosDB object can take a long time (10s of seconds). See Implementation Notes for additional details.
# assumes photosdb is a PhotosDB object (see above)
keywords = photosdb.keywordsReturns a list of the keywords found in the Photos library
# assumes photosdb is a PhotosDB object (see above)
albums = photosdb.album_infoReturns a list of AlbumInfo objects representing albums in the database or empty list if there are no albums. See also albums and burst_album_info.
# assumes photosdb is a PhotosDB object (see above)
album_names = photosdb.albumsReturns a list of the album names found in the Photos library. See also burst_albums.
Note: In Photos 5.0 (MacOS 10.15/Catalina), It is possible to have more than one album with the same name in Photos. Albums with duplicate names are treated as a single album and the photos in each are combined. For example, if you have two albums named "Wedding" and each has 2 photos, osxphotos will treat this as a single album named "Wedding" with 4 photos in it.
See also album_info
Returns list of shared album names found in photos database (e.g. albums shared via iCloud photo sharing)
Note: Only valid for Photos 5 / MacOS 10.15; on Photos <= 4, prints warning and returns empty list.
Returns a list of ImportInfo objects representing the import sessions for the database.
Returns a list of ProjectInfo objects representing the projects/creations (cards, calendars, etc.) in the database.
# assumes photosdb is a PhotosDB object (see above)
folders = photosdb.folder_infoReturns a list of FolderInfo objects representing top level folders in the database or empty list if there are no folders. See also folders.
Note: Currently folder_info is only implemented for Photos 5 (Catalina); will return empty list and output warning if called on earlier database versions.
# assumes photosdb is a PhotosDB object (see above)
folders = photosdb.foldersReturns a list names of top level folder names in the database.
Note: Currently folders is only implemented for Photos 5 (Catalina); will return empty list and output warning if called on earlier database versions.
# assumes photosdb is a PhotosDB object (see above)
persons = photosdb.personsReturns a list of the person names (faces) found in the Photos library. Note: It is of course possible to have more than one person with the same name, e.g. "Maria Smith", in the database. persons assumes these are the same person and will list only one person named "Maria Smith". If you need more information about persons in the database, see person_info.
# assumes photosdb is a PhotosDB object (see above)
person_info = photosdb.person_infoReturns a list of PersonInfo objects representing persons who appear in photos in the database.
# assumes photosdb is a PhotosDB object (see above)
keyword_dict = photosdb.keywords_as_dictReturns a dictionary of keywords found in the Photos library where key is the keyword and value is the count of how many times that keyword appears in the library (ie. how many photos are tagged with the keyword). Resulting dictionary is in reverse sorted order (e.g. keyword with the highest count is first).
# assumes photosdb is a PhotosDB object (see above)
persons_dict = photosdb.persons_as_dictReturns a dictionary of persons (faces) found in the Photos library where key is the person name and value is the count of how many times that person appears in the library (ie. how many photos are tagged with the person). Resulting dictionary is in reverse sorted order (e.g. person who appears in the most photos is listed first). Note: It is of course possible to have more than one person with the same name, e.g. "Maria Smith", in the database. persons_as_dict assumes these are the same person and will list only one person named "Maria Smith". If you need more information about persons in the database, see person_info.
# assumes photosdb is a PhotosDB object (see above)
albums_dict = photosdb.albums_as_dictReturns a dictionary of albums found in the Photos library where key is the album name and value is the count of how many photos are in the album. Resulting dictionary is in reverse sorted order (e.g. album with the most photos is listed first).
Note: In Photos 5.0 (MacOS 10.15/Catalina), It is possible to have more than one album with the same name in Photos. Albums with duplicate names are treated as a single album and the photos in each are combined. For example, if you have two albums named "Wedding" and each has 2 photos, osxphotos will treat this as a single album named "Wedding" with 4 photos in it.
# assumes photosdb is a PhotosDB object (see above)
albums_shared_dict = photosdb.albums_shared_as_dictReturns a dictionary of shared albums (e.g. shared via iCloud photo sharing) found in the Photos library where key is the album name and value is the count of how many photos are in the album. Resulting dictionary is in reverse sorted order (e.g. album with the most photos is listed first).
Note: Photos 5 / MacOS 10.15 only. On earlier versions of Photos, prints warning and returns empty dictionary.
Returns image categorization labels associated with photos in the library as list of str.
Note: Only valid on Photos 5; on earlier versions, returns empty list. In Photos 5, Photos runs machine learning image categorization against photos in the library and automatically assigns labels to photos such as "People", "Dog", "Water", etc. A photo may have zero or more labels associated with it. See also labels_normalized.
Returns image categorization labels associated with photos in the library as list of str. Labels are normalized (e.g. converted to lower case). Use of normalized strings makes it easier to search if you don't how Apple capitalizes a label.
Note: Only valid on Photos 5; on earlier versions, returns empty list. In Photos 5, Photos runs machine learning image categorization against photos in the library and automatically assigns labels to photos such as "People", "Dog", "Water", etc. A photo may have zero or more labels associated with it. See also labels.
Returns dictionary image categorization labels associated with photos in the library where key is label and value is number of photos in the library with the label.
Note: Only valid on Photos 5; on earlier versions, logs warning and returns empty dict. In Photos 5, Photos runs machine learning image categorization against photos in the library and automatically assigns labels to photos such as "People", "Dog", "Water", etc. A photo may have zero or more labels associated with it. See also labels_normalized_as_dict.
Returns dictionary of image categorization labels associated with photos in the library where key is normalized label and value is number of photos in the library with that label. Labels are normalized (e.g. converted to lower case). Use of normalized strings makes it easier to search if you don't how Apple capitalizes a label.
Note: Only valid on Photos 5; on earlier versions, logs warning and returns empty dict. In Photos 5, Photos runs machine learning image categorization against photos in the library and automatically assigns labels to photos such as "People", "Dog", "Water", etc. A photo may have zero or more labels associated with it. See also labels_as_dict.
# assumes photosdb is a PhotosDB object (see above)
photosdb.library_pathReturns the path to the Photos library as a string
# assumes photosdb is a PhotosDB object (see above)
photosdb.db_pathReturns the path to the Photos database PhotosDB was initialized with
# assumes photosdb is a PhotosDB object (see above)
photosdb.db_versionReturns the version number for Photos library database. You likely won't need this but it's provided in case needed for debugging. PhotosDB will print a warning to sys.stderr if you open a database version that has not been tested.
Returns tuple of (connection, cursor) for the working copy of the Photos database. This is useful for debugging or prototyping new features.
photosdb = osxphotos.PhotosDB()
conn, cursor = photosdb.get_db_connection()
results = conn.execute(
"SELECT ZUUID FROM ZGENERICASSET WHERE ZFAVORITE = 1;"
).fetchall()
for row in results:
# do something
pass
conn.close()photos(keywords=None, uuid=None, persons=None, albums=None, images=True, movies=True, from_date=None, to_date=None, intrash=False)
# assumes photosdb is a PhotosDB object (see above)
photos = photosdb.photos([keywords=['keyword',]], [uuid=['uuid',]], [persons=['person',]], [albums=['album',]],[from_date=datetime.datetime],[to_date=datetime.datetime])Returns a list of PhotoInfo objects. Each PhotoInfo object represents a photo in the Photos Libary.
If called with no parameters, returns a list of every photo in the Photos library.
May be called with one or more of the following parameters:
photos = photosdb.photos(
keywords = [],
uuid = [],
persons = [],
albums = [],
images = bool,
movies = bool,
from_date = datetime.datetime,
to_date = datetime.datetime,
intrash = bool,
)keywords: list of one or more keywords. Returns only photos containing the keyword(s). If more than one keyword is provided finds photos matching any of the keywords (e.g. treated as "or")uuid: list of one or more uuids. Returns only photos whos UUID matches. Note: The UUID is the universally unique identifier that the Photos database uses to identify each photo. You shouldn't normally need to use this but it is a way to access a specific photo if you know the UUID. If more than more uuid is provided, returns photos that match any of the uuids (e.g. treated as "or")persons: list of one or more persons. Returns only photos containing the person(s). If more than one person provided, returns photos that match any of the persons (e.g. treated as "or")albums: list of one or more album names. Returns only photos contained in the album(s). If more than one album name is provided, returns photos contained in any of the albums (.e.g. treated as "or")images: bool; if True, returns photos/images; default is Truemovies: bool; if True, returns movies/videos; default is Truefrom_date: datetime.datetime; if provided, finds photos where creation date >= from_date; default is Noneto_date: datetime.datetime; if provided, finds photos where creation date <= to_date; default is Noneintrash: if True, finds only photos in the "Recently Deleted" or trash folder, if False does not find any photos in the trash; default is False
See also get_photo() which is much faster for retrieving a single photo.
If more than one of (keywords, uuid, persons, albums,from_date, to_date) is provided, they are treated as "and" criteria. E.g.
Finds all photos with (keyword = "wedding" or "birthday") and (persons = "Juan Rodriguez")
photos=photosdb.photos(keywords=["wedding","birthday"],persons=["Juan Rodriguez"])Find all photos tagged with keyword "wedding":
# assumes photosdb is a PhotosDB object (see above)
photos = photosdb.photos(keywords=["wedding"])Find all photos of Maria Smith
# assumes photosdb is a PhotosDB object (see above)
photos=photosdb.photos(persons=["Maria Smith"])Find all photos in album "Summer Vacation" or album "Ski Trip"
# assumes photosdb is a PhotosDB object (see above)
photos=photosdb.photos(albums=["Summer Vacation", "Ski Trip"])Find the single photo with uuid = "osMNIO5sQFGZTbj9WrydRB"
# assumes photosdb is a PhotosDB object (see above)
photos=photosdb.photos(uuid=["osMNIO5sQFGZTbj9WrydRB"])If you need to do more complicated searches, you can do this programmaticaly. For example, find photos with keyword = "Kids" but not in album "Vacation 2019"
# assumes photosdb is a PhotosDB object (see above)
photos1 = photosdb.photos(albums=["Vacation 2019"])
photos2 = photosdb.photos(keywords=["Kids"])
photos3 = [p for p in photos2 if p not in photos1]To get only movies:
movies = photosdb.photos(images=False, movies=True)Note PhotosDB.photos() may return a different number of photos than Photos.app reports in the GUI. This is because photos() returns hidden photos, shared photos, and for burst photos, all selected burst images even if non-selected burst images have not been deleted. Photos only reports 1 single photo for each set of burst images until you "finalize" the burst by selecting key photos and deleting the others using the "Make a selection" option.
For example, in my library, Photos says I have 19,386 photos and 474 movies. However, PhotosDB.photos() reports 25,002 photos. The difference is due to 5,609 shared photos and 7 hidden photos. (Note Shared photos only valid for Photos 5). Similarly, filtering for just movies returns 625 results. The difference between 625 and 474 reported by Photos is due to 151 shared movies.
>>> import osxphotos
>>> photosdb = osxphotos.PhotosDB("/Users/smith/Pictures/Photos Library.photoslibrary")
>>> photos = photosdb.photos()
>>> len(photos)
25002
>>> shared = [p for p in photos if p.shared]
>>> len(shared)
5609
>>> not_shared = [p for p in photos if not p.shared]
>>> len(not_shared)
19393
>>> hidden = [p for p in photos if p.hidden]
>>> len(hidden)
7
>>> movies = photosdb.photos(movies=True, images=False)
>>> len(movies)
625
>>> shared_movies = [m for m in movies if m.shared]
>>> len(shared_movies)
151
>>>Returns a single PhotoInfo instance for photo with UUID matching uuid or None if no photo is found matching uuid. If you know the UUID of a photo, get_photo() is much faster than photos. See also photos().
Execute sql statement against the Photos database and return a sqlite cursor with the results.
PhotosDB.photos() returns a list of PhotoInfo objects. Each PhotoInfo object represents a single photo in the Photos library.
Returns the universally unique identifier (uuid) of the photo. This is how Photos keeps track of individual photos within the database.
Returns the current filename of the photo on disk. See also original_filename
Returns the original filename of the photo when it was imported to Photos. Note: Photos 5.0+ renames the photo when it adds the file to the library using UUID. See also filename
Returns the create date of the photo as a datetime.datetime object
Returns the date the photo was added to the Photos library as a timezone aware datetime.datetime object, or None if the data added cannot be determined
Returns the modification date of the photo as a datetime.datetime object or None if photo has no modification date
Returns the description of the photo
Returns the title of the photo
Returns a list of keywords (e.g. tags) applied to the photo
Returns a list of albums the photo is contained in. See also album_info.
Returns a list of AlbumInfo objects representing the albums the photo is contained in or empty list of the photo is not in any albums. See also albums.
Returns an ImportInfo object representing the import session associated with the photo or None if there is no associated import session.
Returns a list of ProjectInfo objects representing projects/creations (cards, calendars, etc.) the photo is contained in or empty list if there are no projects associated with the photo.
Returns a list of the names of the persons in the photo
Returns a list of PersonInfo objects representing persons in the photo. Each PersonInfo object is associated with one or more FaceInfo objects.
Returns a list of FaceInfo objects representing faces in the photo. Each face is associated with the a PersonInfo object.
Returns the absolute path to the photo on disk as a string. Note: this returns the path to the original unedited file (see hasadjustments). If the file is missing on disk, path=None (see ismissing).
Returns the absolute path to the edited photo on disk as a string. If the photo has not been edited, returns None. See also path and hasadjustments.
Note: will also return None if the edited photo is missing on disk.
Returns list of paths to any derivative preview images associated with the photo. The list of returned paths is sorted in descending order by size (the largest, presumably highest quality) preview image will be the first element in the returned list. These will be named something like this on Photos 5+:
F19E06B8-A712-4B5C-907A-C007D37BDA16_1_101_o.jpegF19E06B8-A712-4B5C-907A-C007D37BDA16_1_102_o.jpegF19E06B8-A712-4B5C-907A-C007D37BDA16_1_105_c.jpeg
On Photos <=4, they'll be named something like:
UNADJUSTEDNONRAW_mini_6.jpgUNADJUSTEDNONRAW_thumb_6.jpgY6OofYkbR96spbS6XgwOQw_mini_1.jpg
I've not yet decoded the suffixes to know which preview is used for which purpose but in general, if you look for the largest file, you'll get the highest resolution preview. Note that video files and Live images may have both a .mov video preview as well as a .jpeg still-image preview (the JPEG file is the one Photos displays as the "cover" for the video.)
Returns empty list if no preview images are found.
Returns the absolute path to the associated raw photo on disk as a string, if photo is part of a RAW+JPEG pair, otherwise returns None. See notes on Raw Photos.
Returns True if photo has an associated raw image, otherwise False. (e.g. Photo is a RAW+JPEG pair). See also is_raw and notes on Raw Photos.
Returns True if photo is a raw image. E.g. it was imported as a single raw image, not part of a RAW+JPEG pair. See also has_raw and .
Returns True if associated raw image and the raw image is selected in Photos via "Use RAW as Original", otherwise returns False. See notes on Raw Photos.
Returns height of the photo in pixels. If image has been edited, returns height of the edited image, otherwise returns height of the original image. See also original_height.
Returns width of the photo in pixels. If image has been edited, returns width of the edited image, otherwise returns width of the original image. See also original_width.
Returns EXIF orientation value of the photo as integer. If image has been edited, returns orientation of the edited image, otherwise returns orientation of the original image. See also original_orientation. If orientation cannot be determined, returns 0 (this happens if osxphotos cannot decode the adjustment info for an edited image).
Returns height of the original photo in pixels. See also height.
Returns width of the original photo in pixels. See also width.
Returns EXIF orientation value of the original photo as integer. See also orientation.
Returns size of the original photo in bytes as integer.
Returns True if the original image file is missing on disk, otherwise False. This can occur if the file has been uploaded to iCloud but not yet downloaded to the local library or if the file was deleted or imported from a disk that has been unmounted and user hasn't enabled "Copy items to the Photos library" in Photos preferences. Note: this status is computed based on data in the Photos library and ismissing does not verify if the photo is actually missing. See also path.
Returns True if the picture has been edited, otherwise False
On Photos 5+, returns an AdjustmentsInfo object representing the adjustments (edits) to the photo or None if there are no adjustments. On earlier versions of Photos, always returns None.
Returns True if the picture was edited in an external editor (outside Photos.app), otherwise False
Returns True if the picture has been marked as a favorite, otherwise False
hidden
Returns True if the picture has been marked as hidden, otherwise False
Returns True if the picture is visible in library, otherwise False. e.g. non-selected burst photos are not hidden but also not visible
Returns True if the picture is in the trash ('Recently Deleted' folder), otherwise False
Returns the date the photo was placed in the trash as a datetime.datetime object or None if photo is not in the trash
Returns latitude and longitude as a tuple of floats (latitude, longitude). If location is not set, latitude and longitude are returned as None
Returns a PlaceInfo object with reverse geolocation data or None if there is the photo has no reverse geolocation information.
Returns True if photo is in a shared album, otherwise False.
Note: *Only valid on Photos 5 / MacOS 10.15+; on Photos <= 4, returns None.
Returns full name of the photo owner (person who shared the photo) for shared photos or None if photo is not shared. Also returns None if you are the person who shared the photo.
Note: *Only valid on Photos 5 / MacOS 10.15+; on Photos <= 4, returns None.
Returns list of CommentInfo objects for comments on shared photos or empty list if no comments.
Note: *Only valid on Photos 5 / MacOS 10.15+; on Photos <= 4, returns empty list.
Returns list of LikeInfo objects for likes on shared photos or empty list if no likes.
Note: *Only valid on Photos 5 / MacOS 10.15+; on Photos <= 4, returns empty list.
Returns True if the original image file is a referenced file (imported without copying to the Photos library) otherwise returns False.
Returns True if type is photo/still image, otherwise False
Returns True if type is movie/video, otherwise False
Returns True if photo is a cloud asset, that is, it is in a library synched to iCloud. See also incloud
Returns True if photo is a cloud asset and is synched to iCloud otherwise False if photo is a cloud asset and not yet synched to iCloud. Returns None if photo is not a cloud asset.
Note: Applies to master (original) photo only. It's possible for the master to be in iCloud but a local edited version is not yet synched to iCloud. incloud provides status of only the master photo. osxphotos does not yet provide a means to determine if the edited version is in iCloud. If you need this feature, please open an issue.
Returns Uniform Type Identifier (UTI) for the current version of the image, for example: 'public.jpeg' or 'com.apple. quicktime-movie'. If the image has been edited, uti will return the UTI for the edited image, otherwise it will return the UTI for the original image.
Returns Uniform Type Identifier (UTI) for the original unedited image, for example: 'public.jpeg' or 'com.apple.quicktime-movie'.
Returns Uniform Type Identifier (UTI) for the edited image, for example: 'public.jpeg'. Returns None if the photo does not have adjustments.
Returns Uniform Type Identifier (UTI) for the associated raw image, if there is one; for example, 'com.canon.cr2-raw-image'. If the image is raw but not part of a RAW+JPEG pair, uti_raw returns None. In this case, use uti, or uti_original. See also has_raw and notes on Raw Photos.
Returns True if photos is a burst image (e.g. part of a set of burst images), otherwise False. See burst_photos
Returns True if photo is a burst photo and has been selected from the burst set by the user, otherwise False.
Returns True if photo is a burst photo and is the key image for the burst set (the image that Photos shows on top of the burst stack), otherwise False.
Returns True if photo is a burst image and is the photo that Photos selected as the default image for the burst set, otherwise False.
If photo is a burst image (see burst), returns a list of PhotoInfo objects for all other photos in the same burst set. If not a burst image, returns empty list.
Example below gets list of all photos that are bursts, selects one of of them and prints out the names of the other images in the burst set. PhotosDB.photos() will only return the photos in the burst set that the user selected using "Make a Selection..." in Photos or the key image Photos selected if the user has not yet made a selection. This is similar to how Photos displays and counts burst photos. Using burst_photos you can access the other images in the burst set to export them, etc.
>>> import osxphotos
>>> photosdb = osxphotos.PhotosDB("/Users/smith/Pictures/Photos Library.photoslibrary")
>>> bursts = [p for p in photosdb.photos() if p.burst]
>>> burst_photo = bursts[5]
>>> len(burst_photo.burst_photos)
4
>>> burst_photo.original_filename
'IMG_9851.JPG'
>>> for photo in burst_photo.burst_photos:
... print(photo.original_filename)
...
IMG_9853.JPG
IMG_9852.JPG
IMG_9854.JPG
IMG_9855.JPGIf photo is burst photo, returns list of albums it is contained in as well as any albums the key photo is contained in, otherwise returns PhotoInfo.albums.
If a burst photo which has unselected burst images (e.g. the burst images are in the library but haven't been selected by the user using the "Make a selection" feature) is placed in a an album, Photos treats only the selected "key" photo as in the album. The unselected burst images, while associated with the photo in the album, are not technically in the album. If you are handling one of these unselected burst photos and want to know which album it would be in based on which albums it's selected key images are in, use burst_albums. See also burst_album_info and albums.
If photo is non-selected burst photo, teturns a list of AlbumInfo objects representing the albums any other photos in the same burst set are contained in. Otherwise, returns PhotoInfo.album_info. See also burst_albums and album_info.
Returns True if photo is an Apple live photo (ie. it has an associated "live" video component), otherwise returns False. See path_live_photo.
Returns the path to the live video component of a live photo. If photo is not a live photo, returns None.
Note: will also return None if the live video component is missing on disk. It's possible that the original photo may be on disk (ismissing==False) but the video component is missing, likely because it has not been downloaded from iCloud.
Returns the path to the edited live video component of an edited live photo. If photo is not a live photo or not edited, returns None.
Returns True if photo was taken in iPhone portrait mode, otherwise False.
Returns True if photo was taken in High Dynamic Range (HDR) mode, otherwise False.
Returns True if photo is a selfie (taken with front-facing camera), otherwise False.
Note: Only implemented for Photos version 3.0+. On Photos version < 3.0, returns None.
Returns True if photo is a time lapse video, otherwise False.
Returns True if photo is a panorama, otherwise False.
Note: The result of PhotoInfo.panorama will differ from the "Panoramas" Media Types smart album in that it will also identify panorama photos from older phones that Photos does not recognize as panoramas.
Returns True if photo is a slow motion video, otherwise False
Returns image categorization labels associated with the photo as list of str.
Note: Only valid on Photos 5; on earlier versions, returns empty list. In Photos 5, Photos runs machine learning image categorization against photos in the library and automatically assigns labels to photos such as "People", "Dog", "Water", etc. A photo may have zero or more labels associated with it. See also labels_normalized.
Returns image categorization labels associated with the photo as list of str. Labels are normalized (e.g. converted to lower case). Use of normalized strings makes it easier to search if you don't how Apple capitalizes a label. For example:
import osxphotos
photosdb = osxphotos.PhotosDB()
for photo in photosdb.photos():
if "statue" in photo.labels_normalized:
print(f"I found a statue! {photo.original_filename}")Note: Only valid on Photos 5+; on earlier versions, returns empty list. In Photos 5+, Photos runs machine learning image categorization against photos in the library and automatically assigns labels to photos such as "People", "Dog", "Water", etc. A photo may have zero or more labels associated with it. See also labels.
Returns SearchInfo object that represents search metadata for the photo.
Note: Only valid on Photos 5+; on ealier versions, returns None.
Returns SearchInfo object that represents normalized search metadata for the photo. This returns a SearchInfo object just as search_info but all the properties of the object return normalized text (converted to lowercase).
Note: Only valid on Photos 5+; on ealier versions, returns None.
Returns an ExifInfo object with EXIF details from the Photos database. See ExifInfo for additional details.
Note: Only valid on Photos 5+; on earlier versions, returns None. The EXIF details returned are a subset of the actual EXIF data in a typical image. At import Photos stores this subset in the database and it's this stored data that exif_info returns.
See also exiftool.
Returns an ExifToolCaching object for the photo which provides an interface to exiftool allowing you to read the actual EXIF data in the image file inside the Photos library. If exif_info doesn't give you all the data you need, you can use exiftool to read the entire EXIF contents of the image.
If the file is missing from the library (e.g. not downloaded from iCloud), returns None.
exiftool must be installed in the path for this to work. If exiftool cannot be found in the path, calling exiftool will log a warning and return None. You can check the exiftool path using osxphotos.exiftool.get_exiftool_path which will raise FileNotFoundError if exiftool cannot be found.
>>> import osxphotos
>>> osxphotos.exiftool.get_exiftool_path()
'/usr/local/bin/exiftool'
>>>ExifToolCaching provides the following methods:
asdict(tag_groups=True): returns all EXIF metadata found in the file as a dictionary in following form (Note: this shows just a subset of available metadata). See exiftool documentation to understand which metadata keys are available. Iftag_groupsis True (default) dict keys are in form "GROUP:TAG", e.g. "IPTC:Keywords". Iftag_groupsis False, dict keys do not have group names, e.g. "Keywords".
{'Composite:Aperture': 2.2,
'Composite:GPSPosition': '-34.9188916666667 138.596861111111',
'Composite:ImageSize': '2754 2754',
'EXIF:CreateDate': '2017:06:20 17:18:56',
'EXIF:LensMake': 'Apple',
'EXIF:LensModel': 'iPhone 6s back camera 4.15mm f/2.2',
'EXIF:Make': 'Apple',
'XMP:Title': 'Elder Park',
}json(): returns same information asasdict()but as a serialized JSON string.
The ExifToolCaching class caches values read from the photo via exiftool and is read-only. This speeds access to the underlying EXIF data but any changes made to the EXIF data in the image will not be reflected in subsequent calls to exiftool. In practice, the images in the Photos Library should not be modified after import so this is unlikely to cause any issues.
Caution: I caution against writing new EXIF data to photos in the Photos library because this will overwrite the original copy of the photo and could adversely affect how Photos behaves. exiftool.asdict() is useful for getting access to all the photos information but if you want to write new EXIF data, I recommend you export the photo first then write the data. PhotoInfo.export() does this if called with exiftool=True.
Returns a ScoreInfo data class object which provides access to the computed aesthetic scores for each photo.
Note: Valid only for Photos 5; returns None for earlier Photos versions.
Returns list of PhotoInfo objects for possible duplicates or empty list if no matching duplicates. Photos are considered possible duplicates if the photo's original file size, date created, height, and width match another those of another photo. This does not do a byte-for-byte comparison or compute a hash which makes it fast and allows for identification of possible duplicates even if originals are not downloaded from iCloud. The signature-based approach should be robust enough to match duplicates created either through the "duplicate photo" menu item or imported twice into the library but you should not rely on this 100% for identification of all duplicates.
Returns a JSON representation of all photo info.
Returns a dictionary representation of all photo info.
export(dest, filename=None, edited=False, live_photo=False, export_as_hardlink=False, overwrite=False, increment=True, sidecar_json=False, sidecar_exiftool=False, sidecar_xmp=False, download_missing=False, use_photos_export=False, use_photokit=True, timeout=120, exiftool=False, use_albums_as_keywords=False, use_persons_as_keywords=False)
Export photo from the Photos library to another destination on disk.
- dest: must be valid destination path as str (or exception raised).
- filename (optional): name of picture as str; if not provided, will use current filename. NOTE: if provided, user must ensure file extension (suffix) is correct. For example, if photo is .CR2 file, edited image may be .jpeg. If you provide an extension different than what the actual file is, export will print a warning but will happily export the photo using the incorrect file extension. e.g. to get the extension of the edited photo, look at PhotoInfo.path_edited.
- edited: bool; if True (default=False), will export the edited version of the photo (or raise exception if no edited version)
- export_as_hardlink: bool; if True (default=False), will hardlink files instead of copying them
- overwrite: bool; if True (default=False), will overwrite files if they alreay exist
- live_photo: bool; if True (default=False), will also export the associted .mov for live photos; exported live photo will be named filename.mov
- increment: bool; if True (default=True), will increment file name until a non-existent name is found
- sidecar_json: (bool, default = False); if True will also write a json sidecar with metadata in format readable by exiftool; sidecar filename will be dest/filename.json where filename is the stem of the photo name
- sidecar_json: (bool, default = False); if True will also write a json sidecar with metadata in format readable by exiftool; sidecar filename will be dest/filename.json where filename is the stem of the photo name; resulting json file will include tag group names (e.g.
exiftool -G -j) - sidecar_exiftool: (bool, default = False); if True will also write a json sidecar with metadata in format readable by exiftool; sidecar filename will be dest/filename.json where filename is the stem of the photo name; resulting json file will not include tag group names (e.g.
exiftool -j) - sidecar_xmp: (bool, default = False); if True will also write a XMP sidecar with metadata; sidecar filename will be dest/filename.xmp where filename is the stem of the photo name
- use_photos_export: (bool, default=False); if True will attempt to export photo via AppleScript or PhotoKit interaction with Photos
- download_missing: (bool, default=False); if True will attempt to export photo via AppleScript or PhotoKit interaction with Photos if missing
- use_photokit: (bool, default=True); if True will attempt to export photo via photokit instead of AppleScript when used with use_photos_export or download_missing
- timeout: (int, default=120) timeout in seconds used with use_photos_export
- exiftool: (bool, default = False) if True, will use exiftool to write metadata directly to the exported photo; exiftool must be installed and in the system path
- use_albums_as_keywords: (bool, default = False); if True, will use album names as keywords when exporting metadata with exiftool or sidecar
- use_persons_as_keywords: (bool, default = False); if True, will use person names as keywords when exporting metadata with exiftool or sidecar
Returns: list of paths to exported files. More than one file could be exported, for example if live_photo=True, both the original image and the associated .mov file will be exported
The json sidecar file can be used by exiftool to apply the metadata from the json file to the image. For example:
import osxphotos
photosdb = osxphotos.PhotosDB("/Users/smith/Pictures/Photos Library.photoslibrary")
photos = photosdb.photos()
photos[0].export("/tmp","photo_name.jpg",sidecar_json=True)Then
exiftool -j=photo_name.json photo_name.jpg
If overwrite=False and increment=False, export will fail if destination file already exists
Render template string for photo. none_str is used if template substitution results in None value and no default specified.
template_str: str in metadata template language (MTL) format. See also Template System table. See notes below regarding specific details of the syntax.options: an optional osxphotos.phototemplate.RenderOptions object specifying the options to pass to the rendering engine.
RenderOptions has the following properties:
- template: str template
- none_str: str to use default for None values, default is '_'
- path_sep: optional string to use as path separator, default is os.path.sep
- expand_inplace: expand multi-valued substitutions in-place as a single string instead of returning individual strings
- inplace_sep: optional string to use as separator between multi-valued keywords with expand_inplace; default is ','
- filename: if True, template output will be sanitized to produce valid file name
- dirname: if True, template output will be sanitized to produce valid directory name
- strip: if True, strips leading/trailing whitespace from rendered templates
- edited_version: set to True if you want {edited_version} to resolve to True (e.g. exporting edited version of photo)
- export_dir: set to the export directory if you want to evalute {export_dir} template
- filepath: set to value for filepath of the exported photo if you want to evaluate {filepath} template
- quote: quote path templates for execution in the shell
Returns a tuple of (rendered, unmatched) where rendered is a list of rendered strings with all substitutions made and unmatched is a list of any strings that resembled a template substitution but did not match a known substitution. E.g. if template contained "{foo}", unmatched would be ["foo"]. If there are unmatched strings, rendered will be []. E.g. a template statement must fully match or will result in error and return all unmatched fields in unmatched.
e.g. photo.render_template("{created.year}/{foo}") would return ([],["foo"])
Some substitutions, notably album, keyword, and person could return multiple values, hence a new string will be return for each possible substitution (hence why a list of rendered strings is returned). For example, a photo in 2 albums: 'Vacation' and 'Family' would result in the following rendered values if template was "{created.year}/{album}" and created.year == 2020: ["2020/Vacation","2020/Family"]
See Template System for additional details.
Detects text in photo and returns lists of results as (detected text, confidence)
confidence_threshold: float between 0.0 and 1.0. If text detection confidence is below this threshold, text will not be returned. Default isosxphotos._constants.TEXT_DETECTION_CONFIDENCE_THRESHOLD
If photo is edited, uses the edited photo, otherwise the original; falls back to the preview image if neither edited or original is available.
Returns: list of (detected text, confidence) tuples.
Note: This is not the same as Live Text in macOS Monterey. When using detected_text(), osxphotos will use Apple's Vision framework to perform text detection on the image. On my circa 2013 MacBook Pro, this takes about 2 seconds per image. detected_text() does memoize the results for a given confidence_threshold so repeated calls will not re-process the photo. This works only on macOS Catalina (10.15) or later.
See also Text Detection.
PhotosInfo.exif_info returns an ExifInfo object with some EXIF data about the photo (Photos 5 only). ExifInfo contains the following properties:
flash_fired: bool
iso: int
metering_mode: int
sample_rate: int
track_format: int
white_balance: int
aperture: float
bit_rate: float
duration: float
exposure_bias: float
focal_length: float
fps: float
latitude: float
longitude: float
shutter_speed: float
camera_make: str
camera_model: str
codec: str
lens_model: strFor example:
import osxphotos
nikon_photos = [
p
for p in osxphotos.PhotosDB().photos()
if p.exif_info.camera_make and "nikon" in p.exif_info.camera_make.lower()
]PhotosDB.album_info and PhotoInfo.album_info return a list of AlbumInfo objects. Each AlbumInfo object represents a single album in the Photos library.
Returns the universally unique identifier (uuid) of the album. This is how Photos keeps track of individual objects within the database.
Returns the title or name of the album.
Returns a list of PhotoInfo objects representing each photo contained in the album sorted in the same order as in Photos. (e.g. if photos were manually sorted in the Photos albums, photos returned by photos will be in same order as they appear in the Photos album)
Returns the creation date as a timezone aware datetime.datetime object of the album.
Returns the date of earliest photo in the album as a timezone aware datetime.datetime object.
Returns the date of latest photo in the album as a timezone aware datetime.datetime object.
Returns a hierarchical list of FolderInfo objects representing the folders the album is contained in. For example, if album "AlbumInFolder" is in SubFolder2 of Folder1 as illustrated below, would return a list of FolderInfo objects representing ["Folder1", "SubFolder2"]
Photos Library
├── Folder1
├── SubFolder1
├── SubFolder2
└── AlbumInFolderReturns a hierarchical list of names of the folders the album is contained in. For example, if album is in SubFolder2 of Folder1 as illustrated below, would return ["Folder1", "SubFolder2"].
Photos Library
├── Folder1
├── SubFolder1
├── SubFolder2
└── AlbumInFolderReturns a FolderInfo object representing the albums parent folder or None if album is not a in a folder.
Returns full name of the album owner (person who shared the album) for shared albums or None if album is not shared.
Note: *Only valid on Photos 5 / MacOS 10.15+; on Photos <= 4, returns None.
PhotosDB.import_info returns a list of ImportInfo objects. Each ImportInfo object represents an import session in the library. PhotoInfo.import_info returns a single ImportInfo object representing the import session for the photo (or None if no associated import session).
Note: Photos 5+ only. Not implemented for Photos version <= 4.
Returns the universally unique identifier (uuid) of the import session. This is how Photos keeps track of individual objects within the database.
Returns a list of PhotoInfo objects representing each photo contained in the import session.
Returns the creation date as a timezone aware datetime.datetime object of the import session.
Returns the start date as a timezone aware datetime.datetime object for when the import session bega.
Returns the end date as a timezone aware datetime.datetime object for when the import session completed.
PhotosDB.projcet_info returns a list of ProjectInfo objects. Each ProjectInfo object represents a project in the library. PhotoInfo.project_info returns a list of ProjectInfo objects for each project the photo is contained in.
Projects (found under "My Projects" in Photos) are projects or creations such as cards, calendars, and slideshows created in Photos. osxphotos provides only very basic information about projects and projects created with third party plugins may not accessible to osxphotos.
Returns the universally unique identifier (uuid) of the project. This is how Photos keeps track of individual objects within the database.
Returns the title or name of the project.
Returns a list of PhotoInfo objects representing each photo contained in the project.
Returns the creation date as a timezone aware datetime.datetime object of the project.
PhotosDB.folder_info returns a list of FolderInfo objects representing the top level folders in the library. Each FolderInfo object represents a single folder in the Photos library.
Returns the universally unique identifier (uuid) of the folder. This is how Photos keeps track of individual objects within the database.
Returns the title or name of the folder.
Returns a list of AlbumInfo objects representing each album contained in the folder.
Returns a list of AlbumInfo objects for each shared album in the photos database.
Note: Only valid for Photos 5+; on Photos <= 4, prints warning and returns empty list.
Returns a list of FolderInfo objects representing the sub-folders of the folder.
Returns a FolderInfo object representing the folder's parent folder or None if album is not a in a folder.
Returns album sort order (as AlbumSortOrder enum). On Photos <=4, always returns AlbumSortOrder.MANUAL.
AlbumSortOrder has following values:
UNKNOWNMANUALNEWEST_FIRSTOLDEST_FIRSTTITLE
Returns index of photo in album (based on album sort order).
Note: FolderInfo and AlbumInfo objects effectively work as a linked list. The children of a folder are contained in subfolders and album_info and the parent object of both AlbumInfo and FolderInfo is represented by parent. For example:
>>> import osxphotos
>>> photosdb = osxphotos.PhotosDB()
>>> photosdb.folder_info
[<osxphotos.albuminfo.FolderInfo object at 0x10fcc0160>]
>>> photosdb.folder_info[0].title
'Folder1'
>>> photosdb.folder_info[0].subfolders[1].title
'SubFolder2'
>>> photosdb.folder_info[0].subfolders[1].album_info[0].title
'AlbumInFolder'
>>> photosdb.folder_info[0].subfolders[1].album_info[0].parent.title
'SubFolder2'
>>> photosdb.folder_info[0].subfolders[1].album_info[0].parent.album_info[0].title
'AlbumInFolder'PhotoInfo.place returns a PlaceInfo object if the photo contains valid reverse geolocation information. PlaceInfo has the following properties.
Note For Photos versions <= 4, only name, names, and country_code properties are defined. All others return None. This is because older versions of Photos do not store the more detailed reverse geolocation information.
Returns True if photo place is user's home address, otherwise False.
Returns the name of the local place as str. This is what Photos displays in the Info window. Note Photos 5 uses a different algorithm to determine the name than earlier versions which means the same Photo may have a different place name in Photos 4 and Photos 5. PhotoInfo.name will return the name Photos would have shown depending on the version of the library being processed. In Photos 5, the place name is generally more detailed than in earlier versions of Photos.
For example, I have photo in my library that under Photos 4, has place name of "Mayfair Shopping Centre, Victoria, Canada" and under Photos 5 the same photo has place name of "Mayfair, Vancouver Island, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada".
Returns None if photo does not contain a name.
Returns a PlaceNames namedtuple with the following fields. Each field is a list with zero or more values, sorted by area in ascending order. E.g. names.area_of_interest could be ['Gulf Islands National Seashore', 'Santa Rosa Island'], ["Knott's Berry Farm"], or [] if area_of_interest not defined. The value shown in Photos is the first value in the list. With the exception of body_of_water each of these field corresponds to an attribute of a CLPlacemark object. Note The PlaceNames namedtuple contains reserved fields not listed below (see implementation for details), thus it should be referenced only by name (e.g. names.city) and not by index.
country; the name of the country associated with the placemark.state_province; administrativeArea, The state or province associated with the placemark.sub_administrative_area; additional administrative area information for the placemark.city; locality; the city associated with the placemark.additional_city_info; subLocality, Additional city-level information for the placemark.ocean; the name of the ocean associated with the placemark.area_of_interest; areasOfInterest, The relevant areas of interest associated with the placemark.inland_water; the name of the inland water body associated with the placemark.region; the geographic region associated with the placemark.sub_throughfare; additional street-level information for the placemark.postal_code; the postal code associated with the placemark.street_address; throughfare, The street address associated with the placemark.body_of_water; in Photos 4, any body of water; in Photos 5 contains the union of ocean and inland_water
Note: In Photos <= 4.0, only the following fields are defined; all others are set to empty list:
countrystate_provincesub_administrative_areacityadditional_city_infoarea_of_interestbody_of_water
Returns the country_code of place, for example "GB". Returns None if PhotoInfo contains no country code.
Returns the full postal address as a string if defined, otherwise None.
For example: "2038 18th St NW, Washington, DC 20009, United States"
Returns a PostalAddress namedtuple with details of the postal address containing the following fields:
citycountrypostal_codestatestreetsub_administrative_areasub_localityiso_country_code
For example:
>>> photo.place.address
PostalAddress(street='3700 Wailea Alanui Dr', sub_locality=None, city='Kihei', sub_administrative_area='Maui', state='HI', postal_code='96753', country='United States', iso_country_code='US')
>>> photo.place.address.postal_code
'96753'PhotoInfo.score returns a ScoreInfo object that exposes the computed aesthetic scores for each photo (Photos 5+ only). I have not yet reverse engineered the meaning of each score. The overall score seems to the most useful and appears to be a composite of the other scores. The following score properties are currently available:
overall: float
curation: float
promotion: float
highlight_visibility: float
behavioral: float
failure: float
harmonious_color: float
immersiveness: float
interaction: float
interesting_subject: float
intrusive_object_presence: float
lively_color: float
low_light: float
noise: float
pleasant_camera_tilt: float
pleasant_composition: float
pleasant_lighting: float
pleasant_pattern: float
pleasant_perspective: float
pleasant_post_processing: float
pleasant_reflection: float
pleasant_symmetry: float
sharply_focused_subject: float
tastefully_blurred: float
well_chosen_subject: float
well_framed_subject: float
well_timed_shot: floatExample: find your "best" photo of food
>>> import osxphotos
>>> photos = osxphotos.PhotosDB().photos()
>>> best_food_photo = sorted([p for p in photos if "food" in p.labels_normalized], key=lambda p: p.score.overall, reverse=True)[0]PhotoInfo.search_info and PhotoInfo.search_info_normalized return a SearchInfo object that exposes various metadata that Photos uses when searching for photos such as labels, associated holiday, etc. (Photos 5+ only).
The following properties are available:
Returns list of labels applied to photo by Photos image categorization algorithms.
Returns list of place names associated with the photo.
Returns list of street names associated with the photo. (e.g. reverse geolocation of where the photo was taken)
Returns list of neighborhood names associated with the photo.
Returns list of locality names associated with the photo.
Returns str of city/town/municipality associated with the photo.
Returns str of state name associated with the photo.
Returns str of state abbreviation associated with the photo.
Returns str of country name associated with the photo.
Returns str of month name associated witht the photo (e.g. month in which the photo was taken)
Returns year associated with the photo.
Returns list of bodies of water associated with the photo.
Returns list of holiday names associated with the photo.
Returns list of activities associated with the photo.
Returns str of season name associated with the photo.
Returns list of venue names associated with the photo.
Returns list of venue types associated with the photoo.
Returns list of media types associated with the photo.
Returns all search_info properties as a single list of strings.
Returns all associated search_info metadata as a dict.
PhotosDB.person_info and PhotoInfo.person_info return a list of PersonInfo objects represents persons in the database and in a photo, respectively. The PersonInfo class has the following properties and methods.
Returns the full name of the person represented in the photo. For example, "Maria Smith".
Returns the display name of the person represented in the photo. For example, "Maria".
Returns the UUID of the person as stored in the Photos library database.
Returns a PhotoInfo instance for the photo designated as the key photo for the person. This is the Photos uses to display the person's face thumbnail in Photos' "People" view.
Returns a count of how many times this person appears in images in the database.
Returns a list of PhotoInfo objects representing all photos the person appears in.
Returns a list of FaceInfo objects associated with this person sorted by quality score. Highest quality face is result[0] and lowest quality face is result[n].
Returns a json string representation of the PersonInfo instance.
Returns a dictionary representation of the PersonInfo instance.
PhotoInfo.face_info return a list of FaceInfo objects representing detected faces in a photo. The FaceInfo class has the following properties and methods.
UUID of the face.
Full name of the person represented by the face or None if person hasn't been given a name in Photos. This is a shortcut for FaceInfo.person_info.name.
UUID of the photo this face is associated with.
PersonInfo object associated with this face.
PhotoInfo object representing the photo that contains this face.
Returns named tuple with following coordinates as used in Metdata Working Group (mwg) face regions in XMP files.
x=stArea:xy=stArea:yh=stArea:hw=stArea:w
Returnes named tuple with following coordinates as used in Microsoft Photo Region Rectangle (mpri) in XMP files.
x= x coordinate of top left corner of rectangley= y coordinate of top left corner of rectangleh= height of rectanglew= width of rectangle
Returns list of x, y coordinates as tuples [(x0, y0), (x1, y1)] representing the corners of rectangular region that contains the face. Coordinates are in same format and reference frame as used by Pillow imaging library. Note: face_rect() and all other properties/methods that return coordinates refer to the current version of the image. E.g. if the image has been edited (PhotoInfo.hasadjustments), these refer to PhotoInfo.path_edited. If the image has no adjustments, these coordinates refer to the original photo (PhotoInfo.path).
Coordinates as (x, y) tuple for the center of the detected face.
Coordinates as (x, y) tuple for the mouth of the detected face.
Coordinates as (x, y) tuple for the left eye of the detected face.
Coordinates as (x, y) tuple for the right eye of the detected face.
Diameter of detected face region in pixels.
Roll, pitch, and yaw of face region in radians. Returns a tuple of (roll, pitch, yaw)
Roll of face region in radians.
Pitch of face region in radians.
Yaw of face region in radians.
The following additional properties are also available but are not yet fully documented.
center_x: x coordinate of center of face in Photos' internal reference framecenter_y: y coordinate of center of face in Photos' internal reference framemouth_x: x coordinate of mouth in Photos' internal reference framemouth_y: y coordinate of mouth in Photos' internal reference frameleft_eye_x: x coordinate of left eye in Photos' internal reference frameleft_eye_y: y coordinate of left eye in Photos' internal reference frameright_eye_x: x coordinate of right eye in Photos' internal reference frameright_eye_y: y coordinate of right eye in Photos' internal reference framesize: size of face region in Photos' internal reference framequality: quality measure of detected facesource_width: width in pixels of photosource_height: height in pixels of photohas_smile:left_eye_closed:right_eye_closed:manual:face_type:age_type:eye_makeup_type:eye_state:facial_hair_type:gender_type:glasses_type:hair_color_type:lip_makeup_type:smile_type:
Returns a dictionary representation of the FaceInfo instance.
Returns a JSON representation of the FaceInfo instance.
PhotoInfo.comments returns a list of CommentInfo objects for comments on shared photos. (Photos 5/MacOS 10.15+ only). The list of CommentInfo objects will be sorted in ascending order by date comment was made. CommentInfo contains the following fields:
datetime:datetime.datetime, date/time comment was madeuser:str, name of user who made the commentismine:bool, True if comment was made by person who owns the Photos library being operated ontext:str, text of the actual comment
PhotoInfo.likes returns a list of LikeInfo objects for "likes" on shared photos. (Photos 5/MacOS 10.15+ only). The list of LikeInfo objects will be sorted in ascending order by date like was made. LikeInfo contains the following fields:
datetime:datetime.datetime, date/time like was madeuser:str, name of user who made the likeismine:bool, True if like was made by person who owns the Photos library being operated on
PhotoInfo.adjustments returns an AdjustmentsInfo object, if the photo has adjustments, or None if the photo does not have adjusments. AdjustmentsInfo has the following properties and methods:
plist: The adjustments plist file maintained by Photos as a dict.data: The raw, undecoded adjustments info as binary blob.editor: The editor bundle ID of the app which made the edits, e.g.com.apple.photos.format_id: The format identifier set by the app which made the edits, e.g.com.apple.photos.base_version: Version info set by the app which made the edits.format_version: Version info set by the app which made the edits.timestamp: Time stamp of the adjustment as a timezone-aware datetime.datetime object; None if no timestamp is set.adjustments: a list of dicts containing information about the decoded adjustments to the photo or None if adjustments could not be decoded. AdjustmentsInfo can decode adjustments made by Photos but cannot decode adjustments made by external plugins or apps.adj_metadata: a dict containing additional data about the photo decoded from the adjustment data.adj_orientation: the EXIF orientation of the edited photo decoded from the adjustment metadata.adj_format_version: version for adjustments format decoded from the adjustment data.adj_version_info: version info for the application which made the adjustments to the photo decoded from the adjustments data.asdict(): dict representation of the AdjustmentsInfo object; contains all properties with exception ofplist.
Handling raw photos in osxphotos requires a bit of extra work. Raw photos in Photos can be imported in two different ways: 1) a single raw photo with no associated JPEG image is imported 2) a raw+JPEG pair is imported -- two separate images with same file stem (e.g. IMG_0001.CR2 and IMG_001.JPG) are imported.
The latter are treated by Photos as a single image. By default, Photos will treat these as a JPEG image. They are denoted in the Photos interface with a "J" icon superimposed on the image. In Photos, the user can select "Use RAW as original" in which case the "J" icon changes to an "R" icon and all subsequent edits will use the raw image as the original. To further complicate this, different versions of Photos handle these differently in their internal logic.
osxphotos attempts to simplify the handling of these raw+JPEG pairs by providing a set of attributes for accessing both the JPEG and the raw version. For example, PhotoInfo.has_raw will be True if the photo has an associated raw image but False otherwise and PhotoInfo.path_raw provides the path to the associated raw image. Reference the following table for the various attributes useful for dealing with raw images. Given the different ways Photos deals with raw images I've struggled with how to represent these in a logical and consistent manner. If you have suggestions for a better interface, please open an issue!
PhotoInfo attribute |
IMG_0001.CR2 imported without raw+JPEG pair |
IMG_0001.CR2 + IMG_0001.JPG raw+JPEG pair, JPEG is original |
IMG_0001.CR2 + IMG_0001.JPG raw+jpeg pair, raw is original |
|---|---|---|---|
| israw | True | False | False |
| has_raw | False | True | True |
| uti | com.canon.cr2-raw-image |
public.jpeg |
public.jpeg |
| uti_raw | None | com.canon.cr2-raw-image |
com.canon.cr2-raw-image |
| raw_original | False | False | True |
| path | /path/to/IMG_0001.CR2 |
/path/to/IMG_0001.JPG |
/path/to/IMG_0001.JPG |
| path_raw | None | /path/to/IMG_0001.CR2 |
/path/to/IMG_0001.CR2 |
To get the path of every raw photo, whether it's a single raw photo or a raw+JPEG pair, one could do something like this:
>>> import osxphotos
>>> photosdb = osxphotos.PhotosDB()
>>> photos = photosdb.photos()
>>> all_raw = [p for p in photos if p.israw or p.has_raw]
>>> for raw in all_raw:
... path = raw.path if raw.israw else raw.path_raw
... print(path)The templating system converts one or template statements, written in osxphotos metadata templating language, to one or more rendered values using information from the photo being processed.
In its simplest form, a template statement has the form: "{template_field}", for example "{title}" which would resolve to the title of the photo.
Template statements may contain one or more modifiers. The full syntax is:
"pretext{delim+template_field:subfield|filter(path_sep)[find,replace] conditional?bool_value,default}posttext"
Template statements are white-space sensitive meaning that white space (spaces, tabs) changes the meaning of the template statement.
pretext and posttext are free form text. For example, if a photo has title "My Photo Title". the template statement "The title of the photo is {title}", resolves to "The title of the photo is My Photo Title". The pretext in this example is "The title if the photo is " and the template_field is {title}.
delim: optional delimiter string to use when expanding multi-valued template values in-place
+: If present before template name, expands the template in place. If delim not provided, values are joined with no delimiter.
e.g. if Photo keywords are ["foo","bar"]:
"{keyword}"renders to"foo", "bar""{,+keyword}"renders to:"foo,bar""{; +keyword}"renders to:"foo; bar""{+keyword}"renders to"foobar"
template_field: The template field to resolve. See Template Substitutions for full list of template fields.
:subfield: Some templates have sub-fields, For example, {exiftool:IPTC:Make}; the template_field is exiftool and the sub-field is IPTC:Make.
|filter: You may optionally append one or more filter commands to the end of the template field using the vertical pipe ('|') symbol. Filters may be combined, separated by '|' as in: {keyword|capitalize|parens}.
Valid filters are:
- lower: Convert value to lower case, e.g. 'Value' => 'value'.
- upper: Convert value to upper case, e.g. 'Value' => 'VALUE'.
- strip: Strip whitespace from beginning/end of value, e.g. ' Value ' => 'Value'.
- titlecase: Convert value to title case, e.g. 'my value' => 'My Value'.
- capitalize: Capitalize first word of value and convert other words to lower case, e.g. 'MY VALUE' => 'My value'.
- braces: Enclose value in curly braces, e.g. 'value => '{value}'.
- parens: Enclose value in parentheses, e.g. 'value' => '(value')
- brackets: Enclose value in brackets, e.g. 'value' => '[value]'
- shell_quote: Quotes the value for safe usage in the shell, e.g. My file.jpeg => 'My file.jpeg'; only adds quotes if needed.
- function: Run custom python function to filter value; use in format 'function:/path/to/file.py::function_name'. See example at https://github.com/RhetTbull/osxphotos/blob/master/examples/template_filter.py
e.g. if Photo keywords are ["FOO","bar"]:
"{keyword|lower}"renders to"foo", "bar""{keyword|upper}"renders to:"FOO", "BAR""{keyword|capitalize}"renders to:"Foo", "Bar""{keyword|lower|parens}"renders to:"(foo)", "(bar)"
e.g. if Photo description is "my description":
"{descr|titlecase}"renders to:"My Description"
(path_sep): optional path separator to use when joining path-like fields, for example {folder_album}. Default is "/".
e.g. If Photo is in Album1 in Folder1:
"{folder_album}"renders to["Folder1/Album1"]"{folder_album(>)}"renders to["Folder1>Album1"]"{folder_album()}"renders to["Folder1Album1"]
[find,replace]: optional text replacement to perform on rendered template value. For example, to replace "/" in an album name, you could use the template "{album[/,-]}". Multiple replacements can be made by appending "|" and adding another find|replace pair. e.g. to replace both "/" and ":" in album name: "{album[/,-|:,-]}". find/replace pairs are not limited to single characters. The "|" character cannot be used in a find/replace pair.
conditional: optional conditional expression that is evaluated as boolean (True/False) for use with the ?bool_value modifier. Conditional expressions take the form ' not operator value' where not is an optional modifier that negates the operator. Note: the space before the conditional expression is required if you use a conditional expression. Valid comparison operators are:
contains: template field contains value, similar to python'sinmatches: template field contains exactly value, unlikecontains: does not match partial matchesstartswith: template field starts with valueendswith: template field ends with value<=: template field is less than or equal to value>=: template field is greater than or equal to value<: template field is less than value>: template field is greater than value==: template field equals value!=: template field does not equal value
The value part of the conditional expression is treated as a bare (unquoted) word/phrase. Multiple values may be separated by '|' (the pipe symbol). value is itself a template statement so you can use one or more template fields in value which will be resolved before the comparison occurs.
For example:
{keyword matches Beach}resolves to True if 'Beach' is a keyword. It would not match keyword 'BeachDay'.{keyword contains Beach}resolves to True if any keyword contains the word 'Beach' so it would match both 'Beach' and 'BeachDay'.{photo.score.overall > 0.7}resolves to True if the photo's overall aesthetic score is greater than 0.7.{keyword|lower contains beach}uses the lower case filter to do case-insensitive matching to match any keyword that contains the word 'beach'.{keyword|lower not contains beach}uses thenotmodifier to negate the comparison so this resolves to True if there is no keyword that matches 'beach'.
Examples: to export photos that contain certain keywords with the osxphotos export command's --directory option:
--directory "{keyword|lower matches travel|vacation?Travel-Photos,Not-Travel-Photos}"
This exports any photo that has keywords 'travel' or 'vacation' into a directory 'Travel-Photos' and all other photos into directory 'Not-Travel-Photos'.
This can be used to rename files as well, for example:
--filename "{favorite?Favorite-{original_name},{original_name}}"
This renames any photo that is a favorite as 'Favorite-ImageName.jpg' (where 'ImageName.jpg' is the original name of the photo) and all other photos with the unmodified original name.
?bool_value: Template fields may be evaluated as boolean (True/False) by appending "?" after the field name (and following "(path_sep)" or "[find/replace]". If a field is True (e.g. photo is HDR and field is "{hdr}") or has any value, the value following the "?" will be used to render the template instead of the actual field value. If the template field evaluates to False (e.g. in above example, photo is not HDR) or has no value (e.g. photo has no title and field is "{title}") then the default value following a "," will be used.
e.g. if photo is an HDR image,
"{hdr?ISHDR,NOTHDR}"renders to"ISHDR"
and if it is not an HDR image,
"{hdr?ISHDR,NOTHDR}"renders to"NOTHDR"
,default: optional default value to use if the template name has no value. This modifier is also used for the value if False for boolean-type fields (see above) as well as to hold a sub-template for values like {created.strftime}. If no default value provided, "_" is used.
e.g., if photo has no title set,
"{title}"renders to "_""{title,I have no title}"renders to"I have no title"
Template fields such as created.strftime use the default value to pass the template to use for strftime.
e.g., if photo date is 4 February 2020, 19:07:38,
"{created.strftime,%Y-%m-%d-%H%M%S}"renders to"2020-02-04-190738"
Some template fields such as "{media_type}" use the default value to allow customization of the output. For example, "{media_type}" resolves to the special media type of the photo such as panorama or selfie. You may use the default value to override these in form: "{media_type,video=vidéo;time_lapse=vidéo_accélérée}". In this example, if photo was a time_lapse photo, media_type would resolve to vidéo_accélérée instead of time_lapse.
Either or both bool_value or default (False value) may be empty which would result in empty string "" when rendered.
If you want to include "{" or "}" in the output, use "{openbrace}" or "{closebrace}" template substitution.
e.g. "{created.year}/{openbrace}{title}{closebrace}" would result in "2020/{Photo Title}".
The following template field substitutions are availabe for use the templating system.
| Substitution | Description |
|---|---|
| {name} | Current filename of the photo |
| {original_name} | Photo's original filename when imported to Photos |
| {title} | Title of the photo |
| {descr} | Description of the photo |
| {media_type} | Special media type resolved in this precedence: selfie, time_lapse, panorama, slow_mo, screenshot, portrait, live_photo, burst, photo, video. Defaults to 'photo' or 'video' if no special type. Customize one or more media types using format: '{media_type,video=vidéo;time_lapse=vidéo_accélérée}' |
| {photo_or_video} | 'photo' or 'video' depending on what type the image is. To customize, use default value as in '{photo_or_video,photo=fotos;video=videos}' |
| {hdr} | Photo is HDR?; True/False value, use in format '{hdr?VALUE_IF_TRUE,VALUE_IF_FALSE}' |
| {edited} | True if photo has been edited (has adjustments), otherwise False; use in format '{edited?VALUE_IF_TRUE,VALUE_IF_FALSE}' |
| {edited_version} | True if template is being rendered for the edited version of a photo, otherwise False. |
| {favorite} | Photo has been marked as favorite?; True/False value, use in format '{favorite?VALUE_IF_TRUE,VALUE_IF_FALSE}' |
| {created.date} | Photo's creation date in ISO format, e.g. '2020-03-22' |
| {created.year} | 4-digit year of photo creation time |
| {created.yy} | 2-digit year of photo creation time |
| {created.mm} | 2-digit month of the photo creation time (zero padded) |
| {created.month} | Month name in user's locale of the photo creation time |
| {created.mon} | Month abbreviation in the user's locale of the photo creation time |
| {created.dd} | 2-digit day of the month (zero padded) of photo creation time |
| {created.dow} | Day of week in user's locale of the photo creation time |
| {created.doy} | 3-digit day of year (e.g Julian day) of photo creation time, starting from 1 (zero padded) |
| {created.hour} | 2-digit hour of the photo creation time |
| {created.min} | 2-digit minute of the photo creation time |
| {created.sec} | 2-digit second of the photo creation time |
| {created.strftime} | Apply strftime template to file creation date/time. Should be used in form {created.strftime,TEMPLATE} where TEMPLATE is a valid strftime template, e.g. {created.strftime,%Y-%U} would result in year-week number of year: '2020-23'. If used with no template will return null value. See https://strftime.org/ for help on strftime templates. |
| {modified.date} | Photo's modification date in ISO format, e.g. '2020-03-22'; uses creation date if photo is not modified |
| {modified.year} | 4-digit year of photo modification time; uses creation date if photo is not modified |
| {modified.yy} | 2-digit year of photo modification time; uses creation date if photo is not modified |
| {modified.mm} | 2-digit month of the photo modification time (zero padded); uses creation date if photo is not modified |
| {modified.month} | Month name in user's locale of the photo modification time; uses creation date if photo is not modified |
| {modified.mon} | Month abbreviation in the user's locale of the photo modification time; uses creation date if photo is not modified |
| {modified.dd} | 2-digit day of the month (zero padded) of the photo modification time; uses creation date if photo is not modified |
| {modified.dow} | Day of week in user's locale of the photo modification time; uses creation date if photo is not modified |
| {modified.doy} | 3-digit day of year (e.g Julian day) of photo modification time, starting from 1 (zero padded); uses creation date if photo is not modified |
| {modified.hour} | 2-digit hour of the photo modification time; uses creation date if photo is not modified |
| {modified.min} | 2-digit minute of the photo modification time; uses creation date if photo is not modified |
| {modified.sec} | 2-digit second of the photo modification time; uses creation date if photo is not modified |
| {modified.strftime} | Apply strftime template to file modification date/time. Should be used in form {modified.strftime,TEMPLATE} where TEMPLATE is a valid strftime template, e.g. {modified.strftime,%Y-%U} would result in year-week number of year: '2020-23'. If used with no template will return null value. Uses creation date if photo is not modified. See https://strftime.org/ for help on strftime templates. |
| {today.date} | Current date in iso format, e.g. '2020-03-22' |
| {today.year} | 4-digit year of current date |
| {today.yy} | 2-digit year of current date |
| {today.mm} | 2-digit month of the current date (zero padded) |
| {today.month} | Month name in user's locale of the current date |
| {today.mon} | Month abbreviation in the user's locale of the current date |
| {today.dd} | 2-digit day of the month (zero padded) of current date |
| {today.dow} | Day of week in user's locale of the current date |
| {today.doy} | 3-digit day of year (e.g Julian day) of current date, starting from 1 (zero padded) |
| {today.hour} | 2-digit hour of the current date |
| {today.min} | 2-digit minute of the current date |
| {today.sec} | 2-digit second of the current date |
| {today.strftime} | Apply strftime template to current date/time. Should be used in form {today.strftime,TEMPLATE} where TEMPLATE is a valid strftime template, e.g. {today.strftime,%Y-%U} would result in year-week number of year: '2020-23'. If used with no template will return null value. See https://strftime.org/ for help on strftime templates. |
| {place.name} | Place name from the photo's reverse geolocation data, as displayed in Photos |
| {place.country_code} | The ISO country code from the photo's reverse geolocation data |
| {place.name.country} | Country name from the photo's reverse geolocation data |
| {place.name.state_province} | State or province name from the photo's reverse geolocation data |
| {place.name.city} | City or locality name from the photo's reverse geolocation data |
| {place.name.area_of_interest} | Area of interest name (e.g. landmark or public place) from the photo's reverse geolocation data |
| {place.address} | Postal address from the photo's reverse geolocation data, e.g. '2007 18th St NW, Washington, DC 20009, United States' |
| {place.address.street} | Street part of the postal address, e.g. '2007 18th St NW' |
| {place.address.city} | City part of the postal address, e.g. 'Washington' |
| {place.address.state_province} | State/province part of the postal address, e.g. 'DC' |
| {place.address.postal_code} | Postal code part of the postal address, e.g. '20009' |
| {place.address.country} | Country name of the postal address, e.g. 'United States' |
| {place.address.country_code} | ISO country code of the postal address, e.g. 'US' |
| {searchinfo.season} | Season of the year associated with a photo, e.g. 'Summer'; (Photos 5+ only, applied automatically by Photos' image categorization algorithms). |
| {exif.camera_make} | Camera make from original photo's EXIF information as imported by Photos, e.g. 'Apple' |
| {exif.camera_model} | Camera model from original photo's EXIF information as imported by Photos, e.g. 'iPhone 6s' |
| {exif.lens_model} | Lens model from original photo's EXIF information as imported by Photos, e.g. 'iPhone 6s back camera 4.15mm f/2.2' |
| {uuid} | Photo's internal universally unique identifier (UUID) for the photo, a 36-character string unique to the photo, e.g. '128FB4C6-0B16-4E7D-9108-FB2E90DA1546' |
| {id} | A unique number for the photo based on its primary key in the Photos database. A sequential integer, e.g. 1, 2, 3...etc. Each asset associated with a photo (e.g. an image and Live Photo preview) will share the same id. May be formatted using a python string format code. For example, to format as a 5-digit integer and pad with zeros, use '{id:05d}' which results in 00001, 00002, 00003...etc. |
| {album_seq} | An integer, starting at 0, indicating the photo's index (sequence) in the containing album. Only valid when used in a '--filename' template and only when '{album}' or '{folder_album}' is used in the '--directory' template. For example '--directory "{folder_album}" --filename "{album_seq}_{original_name}"'. To start counting at a value other than 0, append append a period and the starting value to the field name. For example, to start counting at 1 instead of 0: '{album_seq.1}'. May be formatted using a python string format code. For example, to format as a 5-digit integer and pad with zeros, use '{album_seq:05d}' which results in 00000, 00001, 00002...etc. This may result in incorrect sequences if you have duplicate albums with the same name; see also '{folder_album_seq}'. |
| {folder_album_seq} | An integer, starting at 0, indicating the photo's index (sequence) in the containing album and folder path. Only valid when used in a '--filename' template and only when '{folder_album}' is used in the '--directory' template. For example '--directory "{folder_album}" --filename "{folder_album_seq}_{original_name}"'. To start counting at a value other than 0, append append a period and the starting value to the field name. For example, to start counting at 1 instead of 0: '{folder_album_seq.1}' May be formatted using a python string format code. For example, to format as a 5-digit integer and pad with zeros, use '{folder_album_seq:05d}' which results in 00000, 00001, 00002...etc. This may result in incorrect sequences if you have duplicate albums with the same name in the same folder; see also '{album_seq}'. |
| {comma} | A comma: ',' |
| {semicolon} | A semicolon: ';' |
| {questionmark} | A question mark: '?' |
| {pipe} | A vertical pipe: ' |
| {openbrace} | An open brace: '{' |
| {closebrace} | A close brace: '}' |
| {openparens} | An open parentheses: '(' |
| {closeparens} | A close parentheses: ')' |
| {openbracket} | An open bracket: '[' |
| {closebracket} | A close bracket: ']' |
| {newline} | A newline: '\n' |
| {lf} | A line feed: '\n', alias for {newline} |
| {cr} | A carriage return: '\r' |
| {crlf} | a carriage return + line feed: '\r\n' |
| {osxphotos_version} | The osxphotos version, e.g. '0.44.13' |
| {osxphotos_cmd_line} | The full command line used to run osxphotos |
| {album} | Album(s) photo is contained in |
| {folder_album} | Folder path + album photo is contained in. e.g. 'Folder/Subfolder/Album' or just 'Album' if no enclosing folder |
| {project} | Project(s) photo is contained in (such as greeting cards, calendars, slideshows) |
| {album_project} | Album(s) and project(s) photo is contained in; treats projects as regular albums |
| {folder_album_project} | Folder path + album (includes projects as albums) photo is contained in. e.g. 'Folder/Subfolder/Album' or just 'Album' if no enclosing folder |
| {keyword} | Keyword(s) assigned to photo |
| {person} | Person(s) / face(s) in a photo |
| {label} | Image categorization label associated with a photo (Photos 5+ only). Labels are added automatically by Photos using machine learning algorithms to categorize images. These are not the same as {keyword} which refers to the user-defined keywords/tags applied in Photos. |
| {label_normalized} | All lower case version of 'label' (Photos 5+ only) |
| {comment} | Comment(s) on shared Photos; format is 'Person name: comment text' (Photos 5+ only) |
| {exiftool} | Format: '{exiftool:GROUP:TAGNAME}'; use exiftool (https://exiftool.org) to extract metadata, in form GROUP:TAGNAME, from image. E.g. '{exiftool:EXIF:Make}' to get camera make, or {exiftool:IPTC:Keywords} to extract keywords. See https://exiftool.org/TagNames/ for list of valid tag names. You must specify group (e.g. EXIF, IPTC, etc) as used in exiftool -G. exiftool must be installed in the path to use this template. |
| {searchinfo.holiday} | Holiday names associated with a photo, e.g. 'Christmas Day'; (Photos 5+ only, applied automatically by Photos' image categorization algorithms). |
| {searchinfo.activity} | Activities associated with a photo, e.g. 'Sporting Event'; (Photos 5+ only, applied automatically by Photos' image categorization algorithms). |
| {searchinfo.venue} | Venues associated with a photo, e.g. name of restaurant; (Photos 5+ only, applied automatically by Photos' image categorization algorithms). |
| {searchinfo.venue_type} | Venue types associated with a photo, e.g. 'Restaurant'; (Photos 5+ only, applied automatically by Photos' image categorization algorithms). |
| {photo} | Provides direct access to the PhotoInfo object for the photo. Must be used in format '{photo.property}' where 'property' represents a PhotoInfo property. For example: '{photo.favorite}' is the same as '{favorite}' and '{photo.place.name}' is the same as '{place.name}'. '{photo}' provides access to properties that are not available as separate template fields but it assumes some knowledge of the underlying PhotoInfo class. See https://rhettbull.github.io/osxphotos/ for additional documentation on the PhotoInfo class. |
| {detected_text} | List of text strings found in the image after performing text detection. Using '{detected_text}' will cause osxphotos to perform text detection on your photos using the built-in macOS text detection algorithms which will slow down your export. The results for each photo will be cached in the export database so that future exports with '--update' do not need to reprocess each photo. You may pass a confidence threshold value between 0.0 and 1.0 after a colon as in '{detected_text:0.5}'; The default confidence threshold is 0.75. '{detected_text}' works only on macOS Catalina (10.15) or later. Note: this feature is not the same thing as Live Text in macOS Monterey, which osxphotos does not yet support. |
| {shell_quote} | Use in form '{shell_quote,TEMPLATE}'; quotes the rendered TEMPLATE value(s) for safe usage in the shell, e.g. My file.jpeg => 'My file.jpeg'; only adds quotes if needed. |
| {strip} | Use in form '{strip,TEMPLATE}'; strips whitespace from begining and end of rendered TEMPLATE value(s). |
| {function} | Execute a python function from an external file and use return value as template substitution. Use in format: {function:file.py::function_name} where 'file.py' is the name of the python file and 'function_name' is the name of the function to call. The function will be passed the PhotoInfo object for the photo. See https://github.com/RhetTbull/osxphotos/blob/master/examples/template_function.py for an example of how to implement a template function. |
osxphotos includes its own exiftool library that can be accessed via osxphotos.exiftool:
>>> from osxphotos.exiftool import ExifTool
>>> exiftool = ExifTool("/Users/rhet/Downloads/test.jpeg")
>>> exifdict = exiftool.asdict()
>>> exifdict["EXIF:Make"]
'Canon'
>>> exiftool.setvalue("IPTC:Keywords","Keyword1")
True
>>> exiftool.asdict()["IPTC:Keywords"]
'Keyword1'
>>> exiftool.addvalues("IPTC:Keywords","Keyword2","Keyword3")
True
>>> exiftool.asdict()["IPTC:Keywords"]
['Keyword1', 'Keyword2', 'Keyword3']ExifTool(filepath, exiftool=None)
filepath: str, path to photoexiftool: str, optional path toexiftool; if not provided, will look forexiftoolin the system path
asdict(tag_groups=True): returns all EXIF metadata found in the file as a dictionary in following form (Note: this shows just a subset of available metadata). See exiftool documentation to understand which metadata keys are available. Iftag_groupsis True (default) dict keys are in form "GROUP:TAG", e.g. "IPTC:Keywords". Iftag_groupsis False, dict keys do not have group names, e.g. "Keywords".
{'Composite:Aperture': 2.2,
'Composite:GPSPosition': '-34.9188916666667 138.596861111111',
'Composite:ImageSize': '2754 2754',
'EXIF:CreateDate': '2017:06:20 17:18:56',
'EXIF:LensMake': 'Apple',
'EXIF:LensModel': 'iPhone 6s back camera 4.15mm f/2.2',
'EXIF:Make': 'Apple',
'XMP:Title': 'Elder Park',
}-
json(): returns same information asasdict()but as a serialized JSON string. -
setvalue(tag, value): write to the EXIF data in the photo file. To delete a tag, use setvalue with value =None. For example:
photo.exiftool.setvalue("XMP:Title", "Title of photo")addvalues(tag, *values): Add one or more value(s) to tag. For a tag that accepts multiple values, like "IPTC:Keywords", this will add the values as additional list values. However, for tags which are not usually lists, such as "EXIF:ISO" this will literally add the new value to the old value which is probably not the desired effect. Be sure you understand the behavior of the individual tag before using this. For example:
photo.exiftool.addvalues("IPTC:Keywords", "vacation", "beach")osxphotos.exiftool also provides an ExifToolCaching class which caches all metadata after the first call to exiftool. This can significantly speed up repeated access to the metadata but should only be used if you do not intend to modify the file's metadata.
PhotoInfo.exiftool returns an ExifToolCaching instance for the original image in the Photos library.
ExifTool() runs exiftool as a subprocess using the -stay_open True flag to keep the process running in the background. The subprocess will be cleaned up when your main script terminates. ExifTool() uses a singleton pattern to ensure that only one instance of exiftool is created. Multiple instances of ExifTool() will all use the same exiftool subprocess.
The PhotoInfo.detected_text() and the {detected_text} template will perform text detection on the photos in your library. Text detection is a slow process so to avoid unnecessary re-processing of photos, osxphotos will cache the results of the text detection process as an extended attribute on the photo image file. Extended attributes do not modify the actual file. The extended attribute is named osxphotos.metadata:detected_text and can be viewed using the built-in xattr command or my osxmetadata tool. If you want to remove the cached attribute, you can do so with osxmetadata as follows:
osxmetadata --clear osxphotos.metadata:detected_text --walk ~/Pictures/Photos\ Library.photoslibrary/
The following functions are located in osxphotos.utils
MacOS 10.15 Only Returns path to System Photo Library as string. On MacOS version < 10.15, returns None.
Returns path to last opened Photo Library as string.
Returns list of Photos libraries found on the system. Note: On MacOS 10.15, this appears to list all libraries. On older systems, it may not find some libraries if they are not located in ~/Pictures. Provided for convenience but do not rely on this to find all libraries on the system.
import osxphotos
def main():
photosdb = osxphotos.PhotosDB("/Users/smith/Pictures/Photos Library.photoslibrary")
print(f"db file = {photosdb.db_path}")
print(f"db version = {photosdb.db_version}")
print(photosdb.keywords)
print(photosdb.persons)
print(photosdb.album_names)
print(photosdb.keywords_as_dict)
print(photosdb.persons_as_dict)
print(photosdb.albums_as_dict)
# find all photos with Keyword = Kids and containing person Katie
photos = photosdb.photos(keywords=["Kids"], persons=["Katie"])
print(f"found {len(photos)} photos")
# find all photos that include Katie but do not contain the keyword wedding
photos = [
p
for p in photosdb.photos(persons=["Katie"])
if p not in photosdb.photos(keywords=["wedding"])
]
# get all photos in the database
photos = photosdb.photos()
for p in photos:
print(
p.uuid,
p.filename,
p.date,
p.description,
p.title,
p.keywords,
p.albums,
p.persons,
p.path,
p.ismissing,
p.hasadjustments,
)
if __name__ == "__main__":
main()- rhettbull/exif2findertags: Read EXIF metadata from image and video files and convert it to macOS Finder tags and/or Finder comments and other extended attributes.
- rhettbull/photos_time_warp: Batch adjust the date, time, or timezone of photos in Apple Photos.
- rhettbull/PhotoScript: python wrapper around Photos' applescript API allowing automation of Photos (including creation/deletion of items) from python.
- ndbroadbent/icloud_photos_downloader: Download photos from iCloud.
Contributing is easy! if you find bugs or want to suggest additional features/changes, please open an issue or join the discussion.
I'll gladly consider pull requests for bug fixes or feature implementations.
If you have an interesting example that shows usage of this package, submit an issue or pull request and i'll include it or link to it.
Testing against "real world" Photos libraries would be especially helpful. If you discover issues in testing against your Photos libraries, please open an issue. I've done extensive testing against my own Photos library but that's a since data point and I'm certain there are issues lurking in various edge cases I haven't discovered yet.
Thanks goes to these wonderful people (emoji key):
This project follows the all-contributors specification. Contributions of any kind welcome!
My goal is make osxphotos as reliable and comprehensive as possible. The test suite currently has over 800 tests--but there are still some bugs or incomplete features lurking. If you find bugs please open an issue. Please consult the list of open bugs before deciding that you want to use this code on your Photos library. Notable issues include:
- Audio-only files are not handled. It is possible to store audio-only files in Photos. osxphotos currently only handles images and videos. See Issue #436
- Face coordinates (mouth, left eye, right eye) may not be correct for images where the head is tilted. See Issue #196.
- Raw images imported to Photos with an associated jpeg preview are not handled correctly by osxphotos. osxphotos query and export will operate on the jpeg preview instead of the raw image as will
PhotoInfo.path. If the user selects "Use RAW as original" in Photos, the raw image will be exported or operated on but the jpeg will be ignored. See Issue #101. Note: Beta version of fix for this bug is implemented in the current version of osxphotos. - The
--download-missingoption forosxphotos exportdoes not work correctly with burst images. It will download the primary image but not the other burst images. See Issue #75.
This package works by creating a copy of the sqlite3 database that photos uses to store data about the photos library. The class PhotosDB then queries this database to extract information about the photos such as persons (faces identified in the photos), albums, keywords, etc. If your library is large, the database can be hundreds of MB in size and the copy read then can take many 10s of seconds to complete. Once copied, the entire database is processed and an in-memory data structure is created meaning all subsequent accesses of the PhotosDB object occur much more quickly. The database processing code is rather ugly (though it works and is well tested). Were I to start this project today, I'd likely use something like SQLAlchemy to map Python objects to the underlying SQL database instead of the way osxphotos does things today.
If apple changes the database format this will likely break.
For additional details about how osxphotos is implemented or if you would like to extend the code, see the wiki.
- PyObjC
- PyYAML
- Click
- Mako
- bpylist2
- pathvalidate
- wurlitzer
- toml
- PhotoScript
- Rich
- textx
- bitmath
- more-itertools
- ptpython
- objexplore
This project was originally inspired by photo-export by Patrick Fältström, Copyright (c) 2015 Patrik Fältström paf@frobbit.se
I use py-applescript by "Raymond Yee / rdhyee" to interact with Photos. Rather than import this package, I included the entire package (which is published as public domain code) in a private package to prevent ambiguity with other applescript packages on PyPi. py-applescript uses a native bridge via PyObjC and is very fast compared to the other osascript based packages.