[v0.67.0] - 2023-12-23

Several enhancements to osxphotos import that now allow it to be used to import a Google Takeout archive into Photos.app. Enhancements to osxphotos export to store the history of exported photos and videos in the export database and to allow checking and repairing the export database with osxphotos exportdb.

For example, to import a Google Takeout archive into Photos.app:

Download the Google Photos Takeout archive from Google and unzip it. This will create a folder with a name like Takeout. Inside this folder will be a folder named Google Photos which contains all the photos and videos. You can import the photos and videos into Photos.app using the following command (assuming you unzipped the Takeout file in your Downloads folder):

osxphotos import ~/Downloads/Takeout/Google\ Photos --walk --album "{filepath.parent.name}" --skip-dups --dup-albums --sidecar --verbose --sidecar-ignore-date --keyword "{person}" --report takeout_import.csv

This will import all the photos and videos into Photos.app, creating albums with the same name as the folder they were in in the Takeout archive (which is how Google Takeout stores photos in albums). It will skip duplicates (Google Takeout exports duplicate copies of photos that are in more than one album) but add the duplicate photo that's already in the library to the albums it would have been added to if it were imported (--skip-dups --dup-albums). It will also import metadata from the sidecar files (Google Takeout exports metadata in JSON format) (--sidecar).

The --sidecar-ignore-date option is optional but prevents osxphotos from setting the photo's date from the sidecar metadata. This is helpful because Google Takeout does not preserve the timezone of the photo in the Takeout metadata but converts all times to UTC. This will be handled by osxphotos by converting to local timezone upon import. However, if the photo's already have correct time in the EXIF data, --sidecar-ignore-date will prevent osxphotos from setting the date from the sidecar metadata, allowing Photos to set the date from the image.

The --keyword "{person}" option will add any people in the photo to the photo's keywords. The osxphotos import command cannot set person info in Photos (this is a limitation of Photos) but Google will preserve the person names if you've used the face naming feature. You can optionally include --keyword "{person}" to add keywords for the persons found in each image.

The --report takeout_import.csv option will create a report of the import in CSV format.

, adding keywords for any people in the photo, and importing metadata from any sidecar files (XMP, osxphotos JSON, exiftool JSON, or Google Takeout JSON). The --sidecar-ignore-date flag is needed because Google Takeout does not preserve the original date of the photo in the sidecar file. The --report flag will create a report of the import in CSV format.

Added

• Added --sidecar and --sidecar-template to osxphotos import to import metadata from sidecar files during import. Supported sidecar formats are XMP, osxphotos JSON, exiftool JSON, and Google Takeout JSON. --sidecar will automatically find the sidecar (even with Google Takeout's weird naming scheme) and --sidecar-template allows to specify the sidecar file name using a template.
• Added --dup-albums to osxphotos import to add photos to the appropriate albums even if photo is skipped due to --skip-dups. This will add the duplicate photo already in the library to the albums the photo would have been added to if it were imported.
• Added --parse-folder-date to osxphotos import to parse date from folder name just as --parse-date can parse date from the filename. --parse-folder-date and --parse-date can be used together if part of the date is in the filename and part in the folder name. For example --parse-folder-date "%Y/%m/%d" --parse-date "%H%M%S" would parse a date from a folder name like 2021/01/01 and time from filename like IMG_1234_125600.jpg.
• Added --check, --repair to osxphotos exportdb to check and repair database
• Added --history to osxphotos exportdb to show history of exported photos and videos

Removed

Changed

• Export database now stores history of exported photos and videos which can be used with osxphotos exportdb --history to see why a specific file or UUID was exported or skipped and the history of the file.
• The report format for osxphotos import has changed (added photo date to report), thus if you use --report --append you'll need to archive the existing reports and start fresh with this version.

Fixed

Contributors

• @RhetTbull @RhetTbull for code
• @finestream @finestream for the idea to add --sidecar to osxphotos import
• @mikekenyon99 @mikekenyon99 for the idea to add a repair option to osxphotos exportdb