how to proper backup photos and videos from iPhone

[cocoua]

I'm browsing through some photos backups from early 2000, all are organized in folders by dates and all files have the date attached i.e. "010312_xmast_001.jpg" YYMMDD_filename.jpg

I've been keeping doing this since then, so I can open the CD's in windows or Mac, in any OS version and all them are presented same way, but since some time ago, I'm struggling with this method as I'm not sure how to send iPhone media to computer in the best way, as pics and videos comes with 2 more files, ".AAE" and "the "_E" version, this duplicates files, size and creates this .AAE files that I use to delete right after the import, but the non edited files, I dont know how to delete them at once.

I use Rename X to batch add the date to them, so my 20 years photo library have same structure.

I use to transfer the media files to the mac via Imagecapture.app, when Photos.app size gets too big, Airdrop is not for this as it fails a lot, so Imagecapture creates all this files. Problem is not all files show correct data creation and modify date, some shows wrong time, and therefore, they change the order in the Finder.
Mac's Photos.app copies the files inside a propietary package which is totally opposed to a time proof file system, so is a no go for me, and those libraries are prone to get corrupted with time (several bad experiences with iTunes libraries) I'd like to sit down in 20 years from now and watch my pics without having to connect a 2023 mac in order to watch them.

I'm wondering what options are out there to do this, and what advice you could offer to me.

Thanks!

 

[cocoua]

also, when I backup via Photos.app, the library size is double the Finder's folder size via Image capture...

 

[RhetTbull]

Hello. I don't understand exactly what you are asking but it sounds like you are looking for a way to backup photos out of the Photos.app. I'm not sure what process you're using that creates the .AAE files but these are created by Photos when an image is edited and they contain information needed to recreate the edits to the photo. For backup out of photos, you may want to look at osxphotos which is a free open-source tool I've created to backup my photos. osxphotos does many things but one of the things it can do is export photos (along with the metadata if you like) out of the Photos library. Install it according to these instructions then you can run the following command in the Terminal to backup the photos using the `YYMMDD_filename.jpg` format you mentioned above.

osxphotos export ~/Desktop/export --directory "{created.year}/{created.mm}/{created.dd}" --filename "{created.yy}{created.mm}{created.dd}_{original_name}"

This will export photos in format: `2023/09/20/230929_filename.jpeg`

There are many more options -- see the tutorial or type `osxphotos docs` to open the documentation in your browser after you've installed osxphotos.

Edit: replace `~/Desktop/export` with the to where you backup your files.

 

[cocoua]

thanks, I guess this would work with .MOV also, right?

what I'm looking indeed is for a proper way to backup the camera roll from iPhone as you see it in the iPhone, .movs included, would this method reencoded/compress the original media?

Image capture copies the original files and this was good enough until some time ago. But now it creates lot of extra files, as the .AAE and the "E" version of the pics and videos, and the letter "E" added in the middle of the original name makes the organize by names lokks in wrong order, creation dates also are messed as some cinema videos are processed time after the recording, so files are in between.

I have photos set to 16:9, so when I took a Live pics, I get 4 files in different organization location, the 4:3 origianl file, .AAE, the 19:9 file and the .MOV

This makes impossible to have a tidy folder, the only solution to me right now is not using 16:9, live, and editing color in iPhone anymore, so I get only the original file.

And there is an extra problem: "live" pics have not a proper support in Finder, so you depend on Photos.app libraries for ever, so is a format that probably won't work in 20 years from now.

All this makes the process of backup iPhone's Camera Roll a real nightmare, we are forced to use Photos.app, wich is a nightmare as it duplicates files and creates previews and new clips folder for faces and so on, 45GB in iPhone camera roll is 127 GB is a brand new Photos.app library.

My 2TB disk would be 6TB using Photos.app and I could not watch them in another computer but in a Mac.

Most people are just trapped in the iCloud photos backup forever because this but not many realize this...

All this is nuts, and would be so easy to solve adding an option to Image capture similar to the Airdrop option "include all data" , this way you could choose to backup the edited files or the original plus sidecar files (as airdrop does).

 

[RhetTbull]

> what I'm looking indeed is for a proper way to backup the camera roll from iPhone as you see it in the iPhone, .movs included, would this method reencoded/compress the original media?

osxphotos will backup everything in your Photos library -- live photos, movies, RAW+JPEG, etc. It does not alter the originals so you will get the full size copy. It also backs up the edited photos (but not AAE unless you use `--export-aae` option) and by default adds "_edited" to the end of the photo, for example, "230920_filename_edited.jpeg". However, you can change this with `--edited-suffix` option which allows you specify your own suffix to add. You can skip edited versions altogether use `--skip-edited` or skip the original and export only the edited version using `--skip-original-if-edited`

For live photos, you can skip the movie part using `--skip-live`. By default, the movie component will be exported and will have the same name as the photo, for example, `230920_filename.HEIC` and `230920_filename.mov`. I don't worry about live photo support because by default the .mov is supported in Finder even if the "pair" isn't and I like havig the movie.

> My 2TB disk would be 6TB using Photos.app and I could not watch them in another computer but in a Mac.

Photos with iCloud does have an "Optimize Mac Storage" option to download only preview images and not the whole thing to the Mac. You can also put the Photos library on an external disk.

If you want to backup Photos (and you're importing photos to Photos on the Mac), I think you'll find osxphotos to be very flexible. If you're not using Photos on the Mac, then osxphotos won't help because it was built to work with Photos.