Importing files from directories into iPhoto albums?

May 29, 2007 6:07 PM

Will iPhoto use directory names as album names when importing photos from a Windows machine?

I'm planning to move digital photos from a Windows machine to iPhoto on a new Mac. The files on the Windows box are organized into named directories (by Picasa). Will iPhoto automatically create albums from those directory names and assign the pictures to them properly? If not, is there any way I can avoid having to recategorize thousands of photos? Thanks!

posted by jgarbers to Computers & Internet (4 answers total)

It will create film rolls that are named from the directory name. If you view your library by film roll, then this may be what you want. That is the way I use it for whatever that's worth.
posted by willnot at 8:32 PM on May 29, 2007

if you drag each individual directory to the empty space in the left sidebar of iPhoto it will import the photos into your main library as well ass create a new album based on the name of the directory you dragged over.

but you have to do this for each folder that you want turned into an album. you can't drag the parent folder over and expect iPhoto to create albums based on subfolders, just doesn't work like that which kinda sucks.
posted by hummercash at 8:52 PM on May 29, 2007

I just got an iMac a few weeks ago, and did what hummercash said you can't do - point it at the parent folder and expect things to work. On my PC, I was using Picasa, and every "import" from my camera was represented with a separate named folder...but when I imported everything into iPhoto by pointing at that shared parent folder, I ended up with a giant flat list of photos and no "albums." At that point in time I said "bugger" and haven't touched it since, dreading having to re-organize things into Albums.

That's probably the "worst" experience I had with the switch from PC to Mac - so maybe if they are organized in film rolls like willnot said, and you can easily convert them to albums from that organization?
posted by JibberJabber at 12:54 PM on May 30, 2007

JibberJabber, just do it folder by folder... it works but it can be time consuming if you have a lot of folders.
posted by hummercash at 6:54 PM on May 30, 2007