Steve Jobs is holding my pictures for ransom.

December 29, 2007 2:43 PM

I have a bunch of pictures in Iphoto on my mac. Unfortunately, Iphoto uses a really wacky file structure. How do I get the photos out of itunes and sort them into folders labeled by date without including all the weird little dupes and thumbnails that Iphoto generates?

Does that make sense?

posted by mecran01 to Media & Arts (8 answers total)

You can select all the pictures in iPhoto and drag them to another folder. Sorting by exif date is an exercise left to the reader.
posted by stereo at 2:50 PM on December 29, 2007

Another folder in the Finder, that is.
posted by stereo at 2:50 PM on December 29, 2007

I'm in over my head here, but there may be a way to record an Automator script as you go through the actions of copying folder and deleting the non-essential contents, then running that script on the other folders.

(Disclaimer: I have never used Automator.)
posted by The Deej at 3:02 PM on December 29, 2007

Best answer: I'm using an older version of iPhoto, which has a y/m/d/ hierarchy. I'm not sure, but I think they've changed the hierarchical organization in the newer version. However (with the version I've got) you should be able to open Terminal, type
cd ~/Pictures/iPhoto Library/
rm -r */*/*/Thumbs
rm -r */*/*/ Originals

to get rid of the thumbnails and originals while preserving the rest of the hierarchy.

You also might want to look into iPhoto Diet.
posted by adamrice at 4:37 PM on December 29, 2007

do not rm anything from the iPhoto Library folders if you want to keep using iPhoto. it's very touchy about the structure of that folder. anyway, stereo has it - just drag them from iPhoto to somewhere else (a folder on your desktop, an e-mail, Word, your cat, etc.).
posted by mrg at 5:26 PM on December 29, 2007

You don't mention what version of iPhoto you are using, so it can be difficult to help. I would hesitate quite a lot before fiddling with the thumbs and especially the Originals of the iPhoto library, as this can lead to a number of problems not foreseen later.

If I were you, I would learn more about how to sort things by date, search by date, use events, batch-update photos with correct dates(if that is a problem), add keywords, titles and the like.

One reason that I would do that, is that when you are in another application that needs a photo, then more and more applications use a media browser that links directly to your iPhoto Library and that lets you search and find your photo faster than you can by trying to remember the date of your event.
posted by KimG at 7:38 PM on December 29, 2007

i don't have it yet, but the 'missing manual' for leopard may have an answer.

no reality to base it on, but if someone has the book already, you may already have the secret (maybe just a few pages ahead?)
posted by KenManiac at 9:34 PM on December 29, 2007

Response by poster: Well, I did a poor job of asking the question--I actually have an old iphoto library on a machine that doesn't have Iphoto, and wanted to export or scrape the base images and get them in date-labeled folders so my wife can review them in Picasa2 on her windows laptop.
posted by mecran01 at 11:40 PM on December 30, 2007