Is there a way to resume an interrupted large export from Photos?

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Is there a way to resume an interrupted large export from Photos?

My goal was to make a copy of all my photos and videos in Apple Photos on a QNAP NAS. After trying different approaches that did not fully achieve the goal, I reluctantly decided to try with the export function of Photos. So I selected all pics and videos and chose to export them to a directory on the NAS through an ethernet connection (I set the export preferences as jpeg of highest quality, full-size images, keep metadata, use file name and use moment name).

I was reluctant because I'm not fond of black box solutions, which are harder to debug when something goes wrong. And, of course, something did go wrong. After chugging along for almost 4 days to transfer 50k pics and videos, my old mac got tired and passed out. However, after it self-rebooted, it did not restart the export as I had hoped.

My question is, how can I resume the export just for the remaining files?

Unfortunately, if I select once again the whole collection and export to the same directory, Photos offers no option to skip the files that are already present in the destination folder, but will export them once again, just adding the suffix (1) to the file name. Additionally, a quick check of the files that have been transferred seems to show that the export did not follow the chronological order with which Photos displays the items, which would have allowed for an easy identification of the remaining 20K photos.

Is there an easy way to complete the job without having Photos go rogue and copy over tens of thousand of duplicates?

I appreciate any suggestions, thank you.

Mac mini (2018)

Posted on May 20, 2023 3:13 AM

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Answer 1

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léonie

Level 10

197,327 points

May 20, 2023 5:37 AM in response to mdettori

No, you cannot resume the failed export.

Repeat the export, but to a different folder, so you can erase the first export to avoid duplicates.

And export in smaller groups of photos, no more than thousand items at a time. Your previous export may have failed because a lack of memory, if you selected too many items at once. Or you may have included a damaged item in the export, that cannot be exported. By exporting in smaller groups it will be easier to identify a damaged photo or video and skip it the next time.

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Answer 2

léonie

Level 10

197,327 points

May 21, 2023 1:23 PM in response to mdettori

If you want to keep your Photos Library on an external drive, follow the steps described here: Move your Photos library to save space on your Mac - Apple Support

You can keep folders with exported image files on a NAS, but not a Photos Library, as Richard explained.

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Answer 3

mdettori Author

Level 1

5 points

May 20, 2023 5:15 PM in response to léonie

Thanks for your quick reply. It makes a lot sense to work in small batches. When I started the job I had no idea it was going to be such a slow process. Unfortunately, I can't even use a duplicate finder program because the exported photo and video files are in general different from those in the library.

More in general would you recommend copying the collection over to the NAS this way?

My first idea was to use rsync via a shell script. The main advantage in my mind was that by running periodically the script I could automatically update the NAS collection with the new items that the library on the mac receives from iCloud.

The problem I envisioned though is that probably the NAS does not really know how to handle Photos Library.photoslibrary, so while it would recognize the photo and video files inside it, it would likely not be able to correctly handle them to seamlessly merge my Apple pics with my non-Apple pics into a unique collection.

A little experiment also showed me that when new pics are added, the resulting changes in Photos Library.photoslibrary aren't just as few as I was imagining (probably due to the necessity of updating the whole database) which makes the rsync update not as breezy as expected.

Is there any other Apple tool that would allow me to copy the library over to the NAS and then automatically keep it in synch?

Maybe I should post this as a separate question.

Thanks

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Answer 4

May 21, 2023 10:45 AM in response to mdettori

Photos Libraries do not work on a network drive. Not only will it not work, but a network drive may corrupt the Library.

If you are happy with the original, unedited versions of your pictures, then File>Export>Export Unmodified Originals is very fast and easy.

But if you want the edited version or altered metadata, File>Export nn Items is your only option. The thing is, Photos doesn't keep copies of edited pictures-- it recreates them on the fly from its database using that export procedure. That's pretty intensive work, and léonie's suggestion of doing fewer at a time makes tons of sense.

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Answer 5

mdettori Author

Level 1

5 points

May 22, 2023 6:16 AM in response to léonie

Thanks for both your replies. I knew that I cannot keep my system photo library (i.e., the library that gets updated by iCloud) on a network drive. In fact I have it on an external drive connected to my mac.

My goal was to have all my Apple pics inside the NAS as well, where I have all my non-Apple pics in order to have a unique collection.

The idea of making a copy of the photo library from the external driver to the NAS was not to use the NAS copy as the system photo library, but it seemed the only way in which I could automatically sync the NAS collection to iCloud by way of periodically running a rsync script to copy only the updates from the external drive.

However, from what Richard said, I understand that the photo app in the NAS could at most detect the original version of the pics but it would not be able to decypher metadata or reconstruct the edits.

Hence I have to use the export function of Photos, which unfortunately does not lend itself to performing an automated synch.

Thanks for all the clarifications

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Is there a way to resume an interrupted large export from Photos?

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