NOTE: This project is no longer maintained. Please take a look at osxphotos which is maintained and includes much more functionality for working with Mac Photos than this project did.
This script will extract known metadata from Apple's Photos library and write this metadata to EXIF/IPTC/XMP fields in the photo file. For example: Photos knows about Faces (personInImage) but does not preserve this data when exporting the original photo. Using photosmeta, you can export photos while preserving the metadata such as Faces, keywords, etc. This script can also be run to modify your Photos library in place and add metadata to Mac extended attributes so that you can find photos in your Photos database using Spotlight. For example, after installing, run:
python3 -m photosmeta --inplace --all --xattrtag
or
photosmeta --inplace --all --xattrtag
then in the Spotlight bar, searching for "tag:kids" will find all photos in Photos with keyword="kids" and open those files directly in Photos.
Metadata currently extracted and where it is placed:
Photos Faces --> XMP:PersonInImage (and optionally XMP:TagsList, IPTC:Keywords, XMP:Subject)
Photos keywords --> XMP:TagsList, IPTC:Keywords, XMP:Subject
Photos title --> XMP:Title
Photos description --> IPTC:Caption-Abstract, EXIF:ImageDescription, XMP:Description
Photos albums --> optionally XMP:TagsList, IPTC:Keywords, XMP:Subject
title and description are overwritten in the destination file faces and keywords are merged with any data found in destination file (removing duplicates)
Optionally, will write keywords and/or faces (persons) to Mac OS native keywords/tags (xattr kMDItemUserTags)
If you only want to export photos, I strongly recommend you use the companion project osxphotos which provides more control over the export process.
Requires Python 3.8
I recommend using pipx
pipx install git+https://github.com/RhetTbull/photosmeta.git
or install using setup.py:
python3 setup.py install
usage: photosmeta [-h] [--database DATABASE] [--verbose] [-f] [--test]
[--keyword KEYWORD] [--album ALBUM] [--person PERSON]
[--uuid UUID] [--all] [--inplace] [--showmissing]
[--noprogress] [-v] [--xattrtag] [--xattrperson]
[--list {keyword,album,person}] [--export EXPORT]
[--export-by-date] [--edited] [--original-name]
optional arguments:
-h, --help show this help message and exit
--database DATABASE database file [will default to database last opened by
Photos]
--verbose print verbose output
-f, --force Do not prompt before processing
--test list files to be updated but do not actually udpate
meta data; most useful with --verbose
--keyword KEYWORD only process files containing keyword
--album ALBUM only process files contained in album
--person PERSON only process files tagged with person
--uuid UUID only process file matching UUID
--all process all photos in the database
--inplace modify all photos in place (don't create backups). If
you don't use this option, exiftool will create a
backup image with format filename.extension_original
in the same folder as the original image
--showmissing show photos which are in the database but missing from
disk. Will *not* process other photos--e.g. will not
modify metadata.For example, this can happen because
the photo has not been downloaded from iCloud.
--noprogress do not show progress bar; helpful with --verbose
-v, --version show version number and exit
--xattrtag write tags/keywords to file's extended attributes
(kMDItemUserTags) so you can search in spotlight using
'tag:' May be combined with -xattrperson CAUTION: this
overwrites all existing kMDItemUserTags (to be fixed
in future release)
--xattrperson write person (faces) to file's extended attributes
(kMDItemUserTags) so you can search in spotlight using
'tag:' May be combined with --xattrtag CAUTION: this
overwrites all existing kMDItemUserTags (to be fixed
in future release)
--list {keyword,album,person}
list keywords, albums, persons found in database then
exit: --list=keyword, --list=album, --list=person
--export EXPORT export photos before applying metadata; set EXPORT to
the export path; will leave photos in the Photos
library unchanged and only add metadata to the
exported photos
--export-by-date Automatically create output folders to organize photos
by date created (e.g. DEST/2019/12/20/photoname.jpg).
--edited Also update or export edited version of photo if one
exists; if exported, edited version will be named
photoname_edited.ext where photoname is name of
original photo and ext is extension of original photo.
Warning: recommend --edited not be used with --inplace
as it can cause errors when opening the photo in
Photos.app
--original-name Use photo's original filename instead of current
filename for export
--albums-as-keywords Store album names as keywords
--persons-as-keywords Store person names as keywordsUpdate metadata for all photos in the Photos database. Do not create backups of the image files (modify inplace):
photosmeta --all --inplaceExport all photos with keywords "Kids" to the Desktop and update their metadata. Also set the OS X file tag so keywords/tags can be searched/seen in the Finder:
photosmeta --keyword Kids --xattrtag --export ~/DesktopExport all photos to ~/Desktop/export and update their metadata. Add person name as a spotlight tag. Also export edited versions of the photos. Use original name instead of current name for exported photos. Organize exported photos in folders by creation date (e.g. ~/Desktop/export/2019/12/20/photo.jpg)
photosmeta --all --xattrtag --xattrperson --edited --original-name --export-by-date --export ~/Desktop/exportexiftool by Phil Harvey:
This code was inspired by photo-export Copyright (c) 2015 Patrik Fältström paf@frobbit.se
osxphotos python module for manipulating Apple's Photos library. Used by photosmeta to read the Photos database.
photos-export does something similar for older versions of the Photos database.
pyexifinfo Python wrapper for exiftool
This script may modify files in your Photos library. Though I've done extensive testing, it's quite possible this could lead to data corruption or loss. I highly recomend you have a complete backup of your Photos library before using this script, especially if using --inplace and not using --export. See license: this software is "provided \"as-is\", without warranty of any kind..."
Tested with MacOS 10.13.6 / Photos Version 3.0 (3291.13.210), MacOS 10.14.6 / Photos Version 4.0 (3461.7.140), and MacOS 10.15.1 / Photos 5.0 (111.16.180).