Best practices for transfering Mac Photos Library to Digikam

[Gilles Caulier]

Hi Carol,

Even though I am a MacBook Pro user, I never used the Apple Photo
application. Of course, by curiosity I took a look but the first thing that
I saw was that I DON'T know where the photo files are on the stored disk
when the items are imported to the application.

In fact, technically, I see where Apple embed the files as an encrypted
place, just to be sure that users will not switch to another application.
Because of this behavior, this application looks weird so far. My files are
mine, not to Apple.

Another point is the concept of importing and duplicating the files, when
the files are already stored somewhere on my computer and ready to use. I
see a lot of applications working like this and it's the opposite that
digiKam works as well.

So to import the Apple Photo collection to digiKam, I disagree with asking
digiKam to point to the Apple Photo collection as well. You will seen a lot
of duplicates generated by Apple Photo at different sizes. The Apple
Collection is just a mess, done to lost users i'm sure...

So, you need to export Apple Photo items outside the collection. When I say
items, I mean original files of course, and not
reduced/recompressed/converted versions. Another point, the most important,
when you export, the files must be tagged in XMP metadata chunks with all
properties set in collection (Apple Photo also uses a database inside).
digiKam has a lot of rules to parse the metadata from files when the
database registers items in the collection.

Some pointers on the web :

https://www.herzbube.ch/blog/2018/11/migrating-iphoto-digikam/
https://forums.macg.co/threads/exporter-phototheque-de-macos-photos-vers-linux-ou-autre.1392681/
(in French sorry)...
https://github.com/RhetTbull/osxphotos

Best regards

Gilles Caulier


Le jeu. 20 mars 2025 à 17:03, Carol C. Kankelborg <cckborg2 at kankelborg.net>
a écrit :

> P.S. I forgot to add that I am running Digikam 8.6.0.
>
> > On Mar 19, 2025, at 22:29, Carol C. Kankelborg <cckborg2 at kankelborg.net>
> wrote:
> >
> > Hi,
> >   I am new to this list, but have been experimenting with Digikam for a
> few years. I wanted to move most of my Mac Photos library over to Digikam
> and am confused about the best way to do so. I tried exporting a few photos
> from Photos on my Mac, using Image capture to import them, and using direct
> Apple iPhone 5 (Direct PTP). I have an iPhone 16 running iOS 18.3.2 and a
> MacBook Pro running MacOS 14.7.4. When exporting, whenever possible, I
> checked the boxes to include Title, Keywords, Caption info and Location. If
> I have edited photos, I want to keep those edits, so am exporting the
> photos as-is, not the unmodified original. I have two problems.
> >
> >   First, when I had my iPhone 16 connected to my laptop and asked
> Digikam to automatically detect a camera, it selected the iPhone 5 option.
> There are no options older than iPhone 5. Is this a problem? Am I missing
> functionality or do I risk problems with importing if I use the Camera
> option directly in Digikam?
> >
> >  Second, I am working with two different photos, taken a few day apart.
> >       When I import them via Image Capture to my Mac, “Add Images” into
> Digikam, one of the photos has unknown Item Properties, namely Dimensions,
> Aspect Ratio, Bit Depth (0), and Color mode. The other photo has that
> information.
> >       When I import via Image Capture, both photos have a Caption in
> Photos. That caption does not show up in the Captions->Description sidebar.
> It also does not show up in Metadata-> ExifTool->XMP-> Description.
> >       However, when I export from Photos on my Mac, then “Add Images”
> into Digikam, the caption still does not show up in the Captions sidebar,
> but does appear in Metadata-> ExifTool->XMP-> Description. Also, both
> images include Item Properties.
> >       For one of the photos, I provided a title, caption, and keyword.
> All three show up in Metadata-> ExifTool->XMP-> Description/Title/Subject
> fields but not in the Captions->Description sidebar.
> >
> > Is there some secret for getting Caption/Title/Keyword info from Photos
> into Digikam so that it is not hidden in the Metadata? Why does one photo
> not have Item Properties and the other does when I import via Image Capture?
> >
> > Third, I see in the documentation that there is a way to point a Digikam
> collection to the Apple Photos library. Digikam has permissions to full
> access to the Photos app. When I try to add a new collection my Photos
> library is grayed out. Would adding my Apple Photos library as a collection
> make it easier to move photos out of it into Digikam while preserving any
> edits and titles/captions/keywords/location information? If so, how do I
> add it as a collection?
> >
> >
> > Any guidance would be greatly appreciated. I’m confused by my
> experiments and my search attempts came up empty.
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Carol
> >
> >
> >
>
>
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