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Batch renaming of photos

V

vjaaan

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Oct 13, 2010
346
8
As much as I enjoy using iPhoto, I also have a need to have my photos named in a logical way ---- not just by image name. I want the actual filename, not just the Description within iPhoto, to describe them better.

I tried adding a name to a photo along with the img name, but when I go into Finder and Show Package to see the Masters, there is no file listed with my name. Also, there is no file at all on that particular date. I am not going to change any names of files from within Finder, but I wanted to see if the photo I named would show up with my new name.

I also want to change a batch of photos from a single occasion, so they all have the same name with a 1 and 2 etc attached to them.

How do I handle this? Thanks.

----------

Also, I just checked my Masters folder in Finder again, and there are a bunch of photos I spent the morning deleting from iPhoto to clear up space, and they are all still there!! How do I delete these things from my hard drive from iPhoto!

Speaking of which, I tried empting my Trash the other day, and it locks up and won't work. This is a different issue, but any ideas?

Thanks.
 
you have to do this before you import them into iphoto. i personally do most of my post processing in lightroom and rename them from there.
 
Most of my photos these days are coming directly into iPhoto thru Photo Stream, from my iPhone.
 
On the trash issue, I thought I had just fixed the problem. I first emptied the iPhoto trash from within that program, then went back to Finder to empty all trash. This time it started working faster, but only got about 1/3 way through and once again got stuck there.
I can try asking this question in a different section later.
 
vjaaan said:
As much as I enjoy using iPhoto, I also have a need to have my photos named in a logical way ---- not just by image name. ...
Click to expand...


Can you explain. You will never see the file name why care what it is if you never see it?

But if you do want to do this there are two ways
1) many cameras allow o to specify a prefix to be appeanded to all the file names. You can put in a few letters and change it as required.

2) you can do the import in three steps...
a) drag all the photos into a folder on the desktop
b) change the names of the files to whatever you like
c) import the folder to iPhoto

step "b" can be hard if there are many files. You can do it in the termal using a foreach loop. Something like "foreach X in *.img; mv $X foobar$X;end
but if you are unable to type in terminal windows you can buy an app in the App Store the do step 2 for you.
 
One of my backups is via Time Machine and can of course be restored the Apple way. But another is just photos and videos onto an external that needs to be available to family over the years, regardless of their computer type. If all the filenames are meaningless, it will be a nightmare to identify and use photos.

I will look into these suggestions. Thank you all for your replies.
 
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