Moving Your Images From iPhoto to Lightroom

Earlier versions of Apple’s iPhoto stored its library information in a regular folder structure. Around version 7 Apple changed that approach and iPhoto began hiding its folder structure inside a package file. While this makes the applications presence on the drive neater and theoretically more portable, it does hide the images in iPhoto’s library from Lightroom.

If you want to migrate your iPhoto library to Lightroom I have some good news and some bad news. The good news is that it is relatively easy to import the files. The bad news? Your edits will not migrate easily. Unlike Lightroom, files that you edit in iPhoto are saved as a separate file. You can import these edited files but you will have both an original and the edit without any connection between them. Essentially, you wind up with two separate images. If you’re still game here is how you do it.

Locate your iPhoto Library package. It’s is in the Pictures folder by default.

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Right click (or Control click) on the iPhoto Library and choose Show Package Contents.

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A new Finder window will open revealing the folder structure hiding inside the package.

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Lightroom cannot see inside this package so we need to make an alias to the Originals folder. This is where your original image files are stored. Right click (or Control click) on the Originals folder and choose Make Alias.

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This creates the alias at the same folder level as the Originals folder.

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Lightroom won’t be able to see this either so we need to drag the alias to a regular folder. The desktop is a convenient place since we won’t need the alias once we’re done.

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Now open Lightroom and click Import in the Library Module.

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Choose the Originals alias from the desktop (or wherever you chose to save it).

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In the import dialog it is important to choose the option to Copy photos to a new location and add to catalog. You can’t leave them at their original location because Lightroom won’t be able to get to them inside the iPhoto Library package. Choosing to move the files will damage the iPhoto Library package and you won’t be able to open the library in iPhoto. So Copy is the best choice here.

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When the import is finished you have your iPhoto images in Lightroom!

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If you choose to also import the edited version just follow the same make an alias procedure for the Modified folder inside the iPhoto package. Once you’re done you can delete the alias files.

Keep in mind that many things may also be left behind. iPhoto will store EXIF and keywording in expected locations. However, IPTC data may not migrate with your files.

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Tags: Lightroom, Tutorial

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 22nd, 2009 at 6:30 am and is filed under Lightroom, Tutorial. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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About the Author: Gene McCullagh
Contact Gene

Gene is an Adobe Community Professional and and Adobe Certified Expert in Photoshop Lightroom, Photoshop, and InDesign, an avid Lightroom fan. He belongs to the Professional Photographers of America (PPA) and the National Association of Photoshop Professionals (NAPP). Gene also the Co-Founder, Manager and a frequent blogger for the Dallas Fort Worth Adobe User Group (DFWAUG).

In addition to running Lightroom Secrets, Gene also contributes to O'Reilly's media blog, moderates on the Adobe forums, and helps out on lightroomforums.net.

Bob B

Just tried to import Originals into Lightroom using tthis procedure. When I select the Originals alias on my desktop, Choose is greyed out. Suggestions?

Bob B

Oh duh! Just solved my own problem. Instructions are clear -- click on Import button. I'd been clicking on File, Import from Catalog.

Justin

The technique described worked well, except the subfolders are now organized alphabetically, rather than by date photos taken (as as organized in iPhoto. I prefer the organization by date. Do you know how to sort subfolders by date of photos?

Gene McCullagh

The date of the photo should be part of the EXIF data. You can sort on that in Lightroom. Just go to the toolbar in the Library module and change the item next to the AZ icon to Capture Time.

Justin

Gene, thank you. The sort by capture time does work for sorting each photo within a folder or subfolder. However, I would like the subfolders to be arranged within each folder by the capture date.
I just imported all my iphoto photos into LR2 as described above. Within the iPhoto Original, the primary organization is by year. The secondary organization is by "event." The events become subfolders under the Year folders LR2. Each of these subfolders is now organized alphabetically. My question: is there a way to automatically have LR2 re-organize the subfolders by "capture date?"

Justin

The approach I am taking is to rename the subfolders with a date recalled from the metadata (eg 11-8-08_"name of subfolder"). The folders are then put in an order by photo date. A slow process but works. This mirror the way that LR2 imports photos from camera.
Any other suggestions to avoid this slow approach are welcomed.

Gene McCullagh

Here's the thing, Justin... iPhoto really doesn't organize the images in folders on the disk by dated subfolders. It does that internally and presents them that way. If you want the images put into date ordered subfolders then you can accomplish this during the import stage. When you import into LR one of the options is ORGANIZE. In the example I gave it was left at "By original folders" which brings them in as they are arranged inside the iPhoto Library package. If you want a structure like: 2009/1/1, 2009/1/4, 2009/2/15, etc. you can select that from the organize drop-down. I'd suggest you try this with a few files of different dates in a test catalog to see if it's what you are looking for. If so then I would remove the iPhoto images you've imported and reimport them using your preferred folder setting. I hope that helps!

Justin

Thanks Gene. That works. I appreciate your help.

DK

Quick question: I assume by choosing 'copy photos to a new location' I am now going to be using double the HD space because now the photos will be in the iPhoto package & in the new location that Lightroom creates. As I want to use both iPhoto & Lightroom without duplicating my photos on the HD is there no other way to do this? Thanks in advance!

Gene McCullagh

Unfortunately, the way iPhoto wraps up your images in a package prevents Lightroom from getting to them. My recommendation would be to use Lightroom as your primary photo management application and only bring select images into iPhoto if there was something in there (such as photo books) that you wanted to take advantage of.

rasmet

Don't know if you're still moderating comments on here or not but I'm having issues with dates. Photos show up in the proper folders within iPhoto and within the iPhoto structure (i.e., the 'Originals' folder) but when I import them they're coming in fragmented with all different dates (I have Lightroom organized in folders by date (i.e., yyyy/yyyy-mm-dd). Any idea why it's doing this? (Our iPhoto library is significantly large so it's possible the data is somehow truncated.)

Gene McCullagh

Hi Rasmet! Thanks for commenting!

When you organize LR by dates (yyyy/yyyy-mm-dd) then the actual dates of the images are used to create the folders. While iPhoto may group images together it can be set up so that many dates are grouped in one folder. In LR each of those unique dates would generate a new folder.

I did a quick test with an iPhoto library grouped by Year and Month. On import to LR each day of the month created a subfolder. I don't see anything amiss in the import. LR won't import based on the iPhoto folder structure in Originals unless you choose to import using that structure and not reorganize them by dates in LR.

pelletier

I found a program called iphoto diet. Do you know if this work properly and would it be a good idea to run this program before importing to LR? I have modified a lot of my scanned pictures and know that if I import the originals and the modified folder I will have almost twice as many pictures in the Library.

Gene McCullagh

It looks like iPhoto Diet has a few issues. I'd recommend that you first make a backup of your iPhoto library before running it. Then see what you get when importing into Lightroom. If you like what you see then all is well. If not then restore your iPhoto library from the backup and reimport into Lightroom.

pelletier

Thank you for you help.

xxxtjw

Hi Gene - a timely topic for me. I've been using iPhoto with my new iMAC for about 8 months now and after importing over 16,000 photos from pc world and on my G10 - I am struggling with using iPhoto or switching to LR2 for my editing needs. That said - I don't know if it's best to keep originals on external drive (Time capsule?) and retrieve images that way or to keep them on HD and do periodic back-ups. I know LR will keep image shot even if external drive is not connected (virtual copy?).

Do you recommend:

1. Importing images to LR as you suggest above and then deleting iPhoto images so as to save HD space. Then exporting them to iPhoto in future for other needs (Books, etc), or

2. Exporting all images to external HD and using that as my source for LR and iPhoto.

hope this makes sense. Thanks!

Gene McCullagh

Whether you decide to keep the images on the internal drive or an external drive you should back them up anyway. An external drive does have some advantages being portable. It can be connected to another computer, like a laptop, for field work.

I would definitely make the commitment to LR and when you need to use iPhoto for a project then you can export new copies to another folder for iPhoto to use. I wouldn't have iPhoto access the same files as LR.

Good luck on your LR adventure!

xxxtjw

Thanks Gene - I have a couple follow up questions. Not sure if this is new funtionality with new OS (Snow Leopard) - but when I click 'import' button in LR - I am able to select Pictures on the left nav and drill into iPhoto subfolders or events to select what I want. I then can choose to create copy, move, etc.

That said - are the RAW images imported that way - or just the jpgs? I also didn't see an option for 'ORGANIZE' that you referenced in your comments section. Thanks.

I am loathe to get rid of iPhoto altogether (or create two sets of copies) as I have family who won't like using LR for viewing photos.

Gene McCullagh

Interesting. I am running Snow Leopard and iPhoto 09 and still cannot import from an iPhoto library. Perhaps these are folders of exported images? In which case they are readily accessible as any other file. iPhoto still imports things into libraries and that package is unavailable to LR.

During import you can direct LR to create folder structures in various ways. This is not available if you choose add and leave the files where they are on the drive.

xxxtjw

No - all originals - including CR2/ RAW. I can select by Events, Smart Albums, Photos, etc. That being said - if I just select to "Add Photo To Catalog without moving" - then I get to have my cake and eat it to?

Tom

Gene McCullagh

If you've retained the originals outside of the iPhoto library then yes you can add them to LR in place and not lose any folder structuring you have already.

xxxtjw

I'm stumped - all of these are in the "pictures\iPhoto Library \Originals \YYYY \MMDDYY " directory structure.

xxxtjw

Ok - structure is - pictures\iPhoto Library \Modified \YYYY \MMDDYY " and not originals.

Sorry for confusion.

Gene McCullagh

Thanks for the tip Tom! I've posted an update at http://lightroomsecrets.com/2009/10/getting-to-...

xxxtjw

You're welcome Gene. Now all I need to learn is the other 99% of LR and I
will be good to go :)

Tom

kenziekate

hey! so when i try to do this, and go to my "pictures" file in my finder, the iphoto button shows up, but it is greyed and will not let me click on it. Also, while i am in iphoto, it will not allow me to transfer pictures to a folder/album(both in iphoto or just on my desktop). can you help me out with this?? thanks! :)

Gene McCullagh

Hi kenziekate! Sounds like there's a permissions issue if you can't even work on the files in iPhoto or the Finder. Try repairing permissions and see if that solves the issue.

johndaly

I am just starting LR and it is great. But I am having trouble importing RAW files from iPhoto on my MacBookPro.

In LR, when I hit Command + Shit + I to import, The iPhoto files are not accessable. I saw that the Pictures file was accessable so I sent the photos from iPhoto into the Pictures, then importd into LR. But the RAW files came in as JPS. When I exported out of iPhoto I chose "Current, not JPG or TIFF.

I did not want to export all my photos into LR, just 100 images to work on.

macpunk

thank you so much for this guide, it really worked for me

Gene McCullagh

Glad to help! And thanks for letting me know.

Israel

I like how iPhoto tagged the "Faces" so I assigned keywords to each face (so I can import them into LR). But I just realized my keywords were not imported into Lightroom. Any thought on how I can import the keywords from iPhoto to LR?

Gene McCullagh

Hi Israel!

It appears that iPhoto keeps track of its keywords in the database. It will embed them upon export but does not embed them in the file otherwise. So using this method will bring your images into LR but without any of the keywords assigned in iPhoto. So if you are dealing with RAW files you won't be able to embed the keywords.

israel

That's OK then... thanks for your help!

Arjen

Hello, great article.
I managed to get to iphoto's orginals folder via another workaround - I clicked 'import photo's from disk', and the searched with spotlight for a folder under 'originals', and then moved up a level.
This seems to work, I can edit photo's and save a copy in the iphoto structure... Have I missed something important that I cannot do this way?

Börries Kemper

Hi Gene,
I followed your description to import modified photos from my iPhoto Library (version 8.1.1) into Lightroom (2), and (almost) everything worked quite well - except that no keywords became visible in Lightroom.
What's wrong?
Best
Börries

Gene McCullagh

Hi Börries!

See my answer to Israel a few comments back. It appears that iPhoto keeps the keywords in its database and not in the image file.

Börries Kemper

Thank you, Gene, for your quick answer. I had read your answer to Israel before, but did not really understand what you said about RAW-files. So far I am dealing with JPEG-files only, and I had understood, that only RAW-files won't embed keywords. Now I understand, that there is NO way (regardless of file type) of getting the keywords over to LR. Right?

Somebody told me that LR would be able to import the iPhoto library from Arperture after having converted it into an Arperture library - do you have an opinion on that?
Best regard and many thanks in advance
Börries Kemper

brrieskemper

Hi Gene,

I found the answer to my question by myself, and it is indeed true: one can "easily" transfer the iPhoto Library including EXIFs, IPTGs and Keywords etc. from iPhoto to Lightroom (LR). Here is the link to a detailed description:http://blog.tigion.de/2008/08/13/iphoto-export-die-moeglichkeiten/
The trick is to first import the library into Aperture and then transfer by export to a new location. From this location you import into LR - IT WORKS!!!

Best regards,
Börries Kemper

Gene McCullagh

Thanks, Börries!

That makes sense since Aperture will treat image files in much the same way as LR.

So I guess we've found a reason to use the free trial for Aperture! LOL

Emiddio

Hey Gene,

Thank you for all this help! I messed up the transfer, and I am now "moving" the files, not copying. My hope was to not use iPhoto again. Will I be missing anything if I just move everything to the other folder?!

Thank you,
Emiddio

Gene McCullagh

Hi Emiddio!

You shouldn't be missing anything. I suggested copy rather than move in order to leave the iPhoto library unaltered. If you don't intend on using iPhoto for these images then there's nothing to worry about.

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