Don't trust Apple Photos. What are my offline alternatives?
October 27, 2021 4:18 AM Subscribe
I want my very unwieldy offline Photos library to become a regular file structure of image files so I can open what I want, instead of the whole thing each time. I also want to be able to back it up regularly from my iphone Photos library. I also need to be able to get that iphone library back under control by bulk deleting pictures once backed up (Photos can't do this, on either the Macbook or iphone). What software do I need?
I don't use iCloud and instead backup my Photos library onto an external disk. For non-cloud-based solutions, what are the alternatives to Photos - stupid unsearchable name! - how do I go about moving my pictures without losing them and how do I keep this updated?
Here's why I don't trust Photos.
Reason #1: I use a Macbook Air and iphone. I shoot a lot of pictures with my iphone. It fills up (128GB) and I have found no way of reliably bulk deleting these photos using the Photos app on either Macbook OR iphone, except by individually selecting them on the iphone. I've tried lots of tips found online, but the only thing that works is literally need to select them photo-by-photo (the "day-by-day" tip doesn't work) and tell the phone to delete them. That's time consuming for 20,000+ images, and...
Reason #2: ...I'm not necessarily convinced that they're properly backing up in Photos on my external disk before deletion. I'll plug in the phone, it'll say "Oh, I recognise 15,000 of these; 5,000 are new!" then I'll say "OK, go ahead and download those 5,000. Also please delete them when you're done!". It'll then take hours downloading those - it won't delete any of them, of course... - and will then say something like "All done! Now I recognise 18,000 photos. Want me to download these 2,000 new ones?" etc. So it doesn't seem to be doing a very basic part of its job correctly. Two basic parts, if you also count deleting them afterwards.
Reason #3: Fundamentally I don't trust Apple with this data. They want it on iCloud, I don't want it there, someday there'll be an innocuous update and that will be that, my current workaround will break and I'll lose access to a decade of photos.
Reason #4: As mentioned earlier, opening the offline Photos library is a nerve-wracking, time-consuming process, because it opens all of it each time (tens of thousands of pictures) and makes preview images. That's just stupid, and makes me feel like I could lose this data just through a big spectacular crash caused by trying to do something heroic that I didn't want it to do in the first place.
What are my offline photo management alternatives? Especially stuff that can actually make Photos on my phone behave? I just want something like Foobar for music that will let me save, manage and view my photos. Really I just want a library of image files on disk; what software will let me get several hundred / a couple of thousand images a month off my phone and on to a disk, as images? Not fussed about editing them, this is really a question about file management and export.
I don't use iCloud and instead backup my Photos library onto an external disk. For non-cloud-based solutions, what are the alternatives to Photos - stupid unsearchable name! - how do I go about moving my pictures without losing them and how do I keep this updated?
Here's why I don't trust Photos.
Reason #1: I use a Macbook Air and iphone. I shoot a lot of pictures with my iphone. It fills up (128GB) and I have found no way of reliably bulk deleting these photos using the Photos app on either Macbook OR iphone, except by individually selecting them on the iphone. I've tried lots of tips found online, but the only thing that works is literally need to select them photo-by-photo (the "day-by-day" tip doesn't work) and tell the phone to delete them. That's time consuming for 20,000+ images, and...
Reason #2: ...I'm not necessarily convinced that they're properly backing up in Photos on my external disk before deletion. I'll plug in the phone, it'll say "Oh, I recognise 15,000 of these; 5,000 are new!" then I'll say "OK, go ahead and download those 5,000. Also please delete them when you're done!". It'll then take hours downloading those - it won't delete any of them, of course... - and will then say something like "All done! Now I recognise 18,000 photos. Want me to download these 2,000 new ones?" etc. So it doesn't seem to be doing a very basic part of its job correctly. Two basic parts, if you also count deleting them afterwards.
Reason #3: Fundamentally I don't trust Apple with this data. They want it on iCloud, I don't want it there, someday there'll be an innocuous update and that will be that, my current workaround will break and I'll lose access to a decade of photos.
Reason #4: As mentioned earlier, opening the offline Photos library is a nerve-wracking, time-consuming process, because it opens all of it each time (tens of thousands of pictures) and makes preview images. That's just stupid, and makes me feel like I could lose this data just through a big spectacular crash caused by trying to do something heroic that I didn't want it to do in the first place.
What are my offline photo management alternatives? Especially stuff that can actually make Photos on my phone behave? I just want something like Foobar for music that will let me save, manage and view my photos. Really I just want a library of image files on disk; what software will let me get several hundred / a couple of thousand images a month off my phone and on to a disk, as images? Not fussed about editing them, this is really a question about file management and export.
Best answer: I do something similar. Ages ago, I set up an active link between Apple Photos to my (free) Dropbox account. About once every month or two, I move all of those photos from the "camera uploads" folder into my own local hard drive. It's worked well for several years this way. It's an old article, but you can get the gist of it here. Ironically, using free Dropbox is part of the beauty of the plan. Anytime my storage fills up, I get an email that my Dropbox stopped synching. That's a helpful trigger to remind me to backup photos if it's slipped my mind.
posted by hessie at 6:10 AM on October 27, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by hessie at 6:10 AM on October 27, 2021 [2 favorites]
Best answer: Another possibility: you can try using the Image Capture app that comes with macOS. Just plug your iPhone into your Mac and Image Capture should treat your phone like a regular digital camera. You should be able to import your images into a regular old directory tree of your choice and then backup however you like from there.
posted by alidarbac at 6:56 AM on October 27, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by alidarbac at 6:56 AM on October 27, 2021 [3 favorites]
Best answer: I use Adobe Bridge (which may actually be free now,) download from device, make folders and names that make sense and download away. BTW, thanks for the mass delete tip. I needed that.
And I too hate that useless Photos program.
posted by cccorlew at 12:31 PM on October 27, 2021 [2 favorites]
And I too hate that useless Photos program.
posted by cccorlew at 12:31 PM on October 27, 2021 [2 favorites]
This thread is closed to new comments.
1) Get all photos off the iphone and on to my offline backup by letting Macbook Photos do its thing (several times) and then checking to confirm everything is there.
2) Deleting photos on the iphone Photos app to a manageable number by going to "photos" tab > "all photos" > zoom all the way out > drag to select hundreds at once and then "delete all". I hadn't seen this tip before but got it from an old Ask here about ipads (which I now can't find - I'm having a Bad Tech Day in general).
3) Buying a new hard drive or two tomorrow.
4) Exporting all photos (probably month-by-month) from my external library to my new hard drive, so I have the individual images.
5) Using this workflow on a regular basis in the future to move photos from Photos (iphone) > Photos library (external drive) > actual images on a second external drive.
I'm at Step 2) so far. Am I likely to make it to Step 5 without issue?
posted by chappell, ambrose at 5:38 AM on October 27, 2021 [1 favorite]