Organising photos?

[Webcat86]

I‘m close to my wit’s end with Photos and am hoping there are some options I’ve just been unaware of.

I have albums, but I haven’t always been great at putting everything into all of them. Normally that’s ok, because a folder will say “that file already exists in this location.” But as far as I can tell, Apple doesn’t do that with Photos. It will happily let you add the same photo to an album that already has the photo.

Nor is there any apparent indication that a photo in the general library is in an album or not - which means if I was to start at the very beginning of my photos timeline to start organising better, there’s no way to know how far I got when I try to resume the task (because there are way too many to do it in a single sitting).

I really want to organise them better, partly so I can take a trip down memory lane when I want to and partly because so much of my storage is taken up by them.

Memories and search are both great, but they’re not a complete solution for me so I’d really love to get them organised properly.

Also, is it possible yet to make a new folder and add an existing album to it?

 

[T'hain Esh Kelch]

I use the built in AI function to tag peoples faces. This makes it much easier to find individuals, or individuals together. Otherwise I use keywords, and once in a while go through all new images and quickly tag them in batches. I don't really make small unique albums, ie. 'Peters 25th birthday party' etc. as it takes way too much time, with too little payback.

 

[Webcat86]

I use the built in AI function to tag peoples faces. This makes it much easier to find individuals, or individuals together. Otherwise I use keywords, and once in a while go through all new images and quickly tag them in batches. I don't really make small unique groups, ie. 'Peters 25th birthday party' etc. as it takes way too much time, with too little payback.

I have a feeling that keywords and smart albums will be my only way out of the mess. But is there no way to find out is photos are in albums already?

 

[T'hain Esh Kelch]

I have a feeling that keywords and smart albums will be my only way out of the mess. But is there no way to find out is photos are in albums already?

You can create a smart album that only includes images that are not in an album.

 

[Webcat86]

You can create a smart album that only includes images that are not in an album.

You beautiful, beautiful, person! I’ve never used a smart album before, would you mind telling me how I would set that up please - is it "Album > is not > any"?

 

[Jzap van der Veen]

The file/folder srtructure used in the Finder is simple and straight fowward. You either copy or move a file or folder, period.

Photos is a DBMS (DataBase Managent System) meaning the file/folder approach in the Finder does not apply to Photos.

A file/folder in Finder appears only on one location (if a file or folder appears multiple times they have copied/duplicated - not moved).

It will happily let you add the same photo to an album that already has the photo.

The image is already 'connected' to the album so no action is needed.

By adding a new smart album you can determine which image(s) have not (yet) been added to an album!

Add a new smart album:

Choose:
Album | Is not | Random

(maybe the used words are incorrect! I am Dutch so the interface on my Mac is not English and tanslated!)

You can also smart albums to find specific time periods or used camera models.

 

[Webcat86]

The file/folder srtructure used in the Finder is simple and straight fowward. You either copy or move a file or folder, period.

Photos is a DBMS (DataBase Managent System) meaning the file/folder approach in the Finder does not apply to Photos.

A file/folder in Finder appears only on one location (if a file or folder appears multiple times they have copied/duplicated - not moved).


The image is already 'connected' to the album so no action is needed.

By adding a new smart album you can determine which image(s) have not (yet) been added to an album!

Add a new smart album:

Choose:
Album | Is not | Random

(maybe the used words are incorrect! I am Dutch so the interface on my Mac not English and tanslated!)

Thanks for this.

RE "The image is already 'connected' to the album so no action is needed" - true, but Apple will literally put duplicates into the same album inside Photos.

But now that I've got the smart album for loose photos, I can organise those and then it'll be a lot easier to check the individual albums for duplicates

 

[Jzap van der Veen]

true, but Apple will literally put duplicates into the same album inside Photos.

What kind of duplicates do you have?

There should not be duplicates in Photos, unless you intentionally imported them, because Photos is checking for duplicates on import or when syncing with iCloud.

If there are duplicates in your library, you are probably having similar images, but with a different file format, size, or capture date (without visual differences in the image).
These are hard to find.

 

[Webcat86]

What kind of duplicates do you have?

There should not be duplicates in Photos, unless you intentionally imported them, because Photos is checking for duplicates on import or when syncing with iCloud.

If there are duplicates in your library, you are probably having similar images, but with a different file format, size, or capture date (without visual differences in the image).
These are hard to find.

There aren't duplicates in my main Photos library. But if I make an album inside Photos (not Finder), I can add the same image to it more than once, so multiple versions of the photo are in the album.

This means that I can't just go through my entire Library and organise the photos from scratch, because it won't consider previous actions. If it alerted me, like Finder does, it would make the task a lot easier.

 

[Jzap van der Veen]

I just tested:
added a new album with three images to my library.

Added the same three images to the same album a second time.

Result three images, not six . . . .

 

[Webcat86]

I just tested:
added a new album with three images to my library.

Added the same three images to the same album a second time.

Result three images, not six . . . .

Ah, wonderful! I have duplicates in some albums from the past (but only one version in Library) so it looks like they've fixed this. Great, now I can finally sort my library

 

[Jzap van der Veen]

😅

 

[T'hain Esh Kelch]

You should really start using smart albums, they are soooo convenient, and VERY powerful.

If you can wait for macOS Ventura, Photos can detect duplicates automatically. Otherwise you can buy Powerphotos, as that has worked well for me.

 

[Webcat86]

You should really start using smart albums, they are soooo convenient, and VERY powerful.

If you can wait for macOS Ventura, Photos can detect duplicates automatically. Otherwise you can buy Powerphotos, as that has worked well for me.

Awesome, yes I can wait for Ventura. What sort of smart albums have you created? I've tried a couple of smart playlists in Music but couldn't decide what to use it for so I gave up

I've just read though that iOS doesn't show the smart albums, which seems to make it a more limited feature

 

[Pomeroy]

IOS doesn't show Smart Albums in a side bar like your Mac, but you can search for them. Use Search and type in the name of the Keyword and then scroll down to Keywords.

 

[T'hain Esh Kelch]

Awesome, yes I can wait for Ventura. What sort of smart albums have you created? I've tried a couple of smart playlists in Music but couldn't decide what to use it for so I gave up

I've just read though that iOS doesn't show the smart albums, which seems to make it a more limited feature

Mostly just for automatically getting all images that has me and my kids/wife in them. And some specific topics, like education, parties, family, etc.

IOS doesn't show Smart Albums in a side bar like your Mac, but you can search for them. Use Search and type in the name of the Keyword and then scroll down to Keywords.

Thanks for this tip, I didn't know that!

It has always annoyed med immensely that you couldn't see them on iOS and iCloud.com.

 

[Webcat86]

IOS doesn't show Smart Albums in a side bar like your Mac, but you can search for them. Use Search and type in the name of the Keyword and then scroll down to Keywords.

Do you mean the smart album’s name is considered a keyword in iOS?

 

[Pomeroy]

No, Just type the keyword you are looking for.

 

[Webcat86]

No, Just type the keyword you are looking for.

My photos don’t have keywords assigned to them

 

[Pomeroy]

If you are wanting to organize your photos I don't think there is a better way in Photos than Keywords. You can add Keywords in Batches, Just open a folder and select all the photos, I would think the reason they are in an album or folder is because they have something in common, and add a fitting Keyword. You can add more than one Keyword to a photo.

 

[Webcat86]

If you are wanting to organize your photos I don't think there is a better way in Photos than Keywords. You can add Keywords in Batches, Just open a folder and select all the photos, I would think the reason they are in an album or folder is because they have something in common, and add a fitting Keyword. You can add more than one Keyword to a photo.

I’m going to do this now that I’ve got them all into albums, but apparently the iPhone doesn’t support keywords? If that’s true, taking a photo is still more convoluted than it should be - the device you take the photo on should be also where you categorise it

 

[PlayUltimate]

What kind of duplicates do you have?

There should not be duplicates in Photos, unless you intentionally imported them, because Photos is checking for duplicates on import or when syncing with iCloud.

If there are duplicates in your library, you are probably having similar images, but with a different file format, size, or capture date (without visual differences in the image).
These are hard to find.

I have gazillions of duplicates; albeit from the various interations of Apple stuff starting with iPhone back in the day. Not sure if I ever really want to spend the time to clean them.