Exporting photos preserving directory structure...

Is it possible to export many Events / Albums, and have iPhoto export the photos while creating a sub-folder for each Event / Album being exported ? It looks like all photos end up mixed up in one single big folder. This makes it very inconvenient to browse, archive or share large amounts of photos onto a PC or another non-Mac hardware.
Any help apreciated.
Thanks,
Eric

Is it possible to export many Events / Albums, and have iPhoto export the photos while creating a sub-folder for each Event / Album being exported ?
No it’s not. You’ll need to export Album by album, Event by Event.
However if you want to grab large numbers of your stuff, you can always go into the iPhoto folder structure and grab photos and folders directly. If the organization makes sense to you, then it should be straight forward to identify which folders are the ones you need to copy to another drive, optical disk, etc.
Patrick
Apart from the considerable risk of damaging the Library, this simply won’t work.
You will need to choose between Original and Modified files - or else spend some considerable time comparing versions to decide which is the current version
The structure of the folders inside either Originals and Modified does not necessarily follow the structure of the Events in the iPhoto Window - especially if you’ve moved pics between Events in the iPhoto Window since iPhoto 09
And, in the case of Albums, of course, it just won’t work at all. Albums exist only in the database. There is no way to get them from iPhoto without exporting.
As always the Standard Warning: Don't change anything in the iPhoto Library Folder via the Finder or any other application. iPhoto depends on the structure as well as the contents of this folder. Moving things, renaming things or otherwise making changes will prevent iPhoto from working and could even cause you to damage or lose your photos.
Regards
TD

Similar Messages

Allow export to preserve folder structure

When I export a folder of the library (via File/Export...) that has subfolders, I'd like Lightroom to put the converted files into a tree structure that matches the library's structure. Currently, it always puts all of the files into a single directory. I want to export a tree of small jpgs (for example) that matches the structure of the library which is full of RAW images. The current behaviour of flattening everything out into one directory is undesirable at best and problematic when there are multiple files by the same name scattered throughout the library.
Alternatively, a command-line utility to convert any image (as modified by the metadata database/XMP files) to another format would be sufficient for me to implement it on my own.
Thanks,
-john.

If I read that thread correctly, they are looking for a way to export the photos into the same directory as the source photos (or a subdir of it). That would cause problems for me because I like to sync my directories and I don't want my exported photos showing up in Lightroom.
I want a completely different directory to be created but with the same structure as the source. For example, export the following files (which are in the Lightshop library):
d:\raw\2006\2006_12\img_0001.cr2
d:\raw\2006\2006_12\big_event\img_0001.cr2
d:\raw\2007\2007_01\img_0001.cr2
d:\raw\2007\2007_02\img_0001.cr2
to the directories:
d:\jpg\2006\2006_12\img_0001.jpg
d:\jpg\2006\2006_12\big_event\img_0001.jpg
d:\jpg\2007\2007_01\img_0001.jpg
d:\jpg\2007\2007_02\img_0001.jpg
-john.

Export images to a directory structure based on a collection tree?

A question:
Will lightroom have the capability to export images to a directory structure which mirrors a collections logical structure?
The reason I ask this is that when I create websites using third party tools (eg, Jalbum) I typically generate a flash or HTML based site with an menu structure for navigating the images.
So, the image interface is not simply a "flat-file" display as per the templates in Lightroom beta.
To do this, with previous image management tools (eg, iMatch) I create a hierarchy of images based on the categories (or collections) that the images are assigned to, export the images in a folder tree reflecting their categories (or collection), then use, say, Jalbum, to generate the website with the menu tree reflecting the folders/images.
This is extremely useful for more complicated image websites with categories and a large no of images.
If this function was built into Lightroom I guess it would be in the export function such that the "write to folder" box could take an argument {collection name} which would create a folder tree reflecting the collections logical tree which is being exported.
Apologies if this topic has been raised previously. But this function is extremely useful if you are using third party html tools or simply building websites by hand.
Regards
Alistair

I started simmilar thread in Lightroom Feature Requests few months ago, but can't find it anymore since new forum version...
What I can suggest as a new feature is export to directory structure from collections or second option from keywords. Probably more usable and easier to implement would be from collections.
What I need it to export many photos to different directories pretty often, and this would be great help since I could arrange them in collections and collection sets. Then select collection set and export it in a manner that collection set would be main export directory, and each collection within the set would be exported to its own folder within main collection set export folder.
This would be much appreciated feature in near future
Thank you for great product by the way

Export Pics AND retain directory structure

I'd like to use Bridge to manage the photos I put onto my iPod, here's the general workflow:
All pictures are stored in directories by event (date) in the /pictures/ folder, for example:
/pictures/2008-07-01 Hike in Woods
/pictures/2008-07-02 Bike in Woods
/pictures/2008-07-05 Meeting with Tiger Woods
Here's what I'd like to do:
I rate all my pictures in Bridge using Color Labels (Green=Good, Yellow=Just OK, Red=Bad.
I'd like to use Bridge to select all "Good" pictures taken this year (easy to do using Search), but the rub is that I'd like to export these pictures but retain the directory structure. For example, I have a directory where I store all my pictures for my iPods and I'd like to retain the folder structure so that I can easily browse just my Good pictures on my iPod:
/iPodPictures/
/iPodPictures/2008-07-01 Hike in Woods
/iPodPictures/2008-07-02 Bike in Woods
/iPodPictures/2008-07-05 Meeting with Tiger Woods
This way, I can have iTunes monitor the /iPodPictires folder when I sync and copy over any pictures I move there, but only copy over the Good pictures and keep the rest off my iPod.
If I just do a Search, all the files show up in 1 window, and when I export, they are all put into 1 directory, which isn't easy to browse.
Any ideas how I can accomplish this using Bridge? I also own LightRoom, so if there are ways I could use that instead of Bridge, that would work as well.
Thanks!

I started simmilar thread in Lightroom Feature Requests few months ago, but can't find it anymore since new forum version...
What I can suggest as a new feature is export to directory structure from collections or second option from keywords. Probably more usable and easier to implement would be from collections.
What I need it to export many photos to different directories pretty often, and this would be great help since I could arrange them in collections and collection sets. Then select collection set and export it in a manner that collection set would be main export directory, and each collection within the set would be exported to its own folder within main collection set export folder.
This would be much appreciated feature in near future
Thank you for great product by the way

I have copied many photo's from another laptop to my Mac. The older photo's are in directories with names that help me select what I need to view. I would like to have all my imported new photo's also bee added to the directory structure I have in Finder

I have copied many photo's from another laptop to my Mac. The older photo's are in directories with names that help me select what I need to view. I would like to have all my imported new photo's also bee added to the directory structure I have in Finder but my new photo's are all in iPhoto. I want to use directories for storing and iPhoto for viewing. Is this possible or do I need to have all my photo's in iPhoto??
Mitch

iPhoto is not a Photo Viewer. It's a Photo Manager and designed for looking after the files while you organise the Photos. It really works much better if you let it manage those files. If you use iPhoto you never go near those files because iPhoto is your start point for anything you want to do with your Photos - the point of the pplication.
You can run iPhoto in Referenced mode, where it does not copy the files to the Library, but I caution you that you are making life a lot more difficult for yourself by doing that.
How to, and some comments on why you shouldn't, are in this thread
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3062728?tstart=0
Regards
TD

How to force Jdeveloper to preserve existing sources directory structure?

Hi all,
I have JDeveloper 9.0.3.4 which I have to use.
I tried to import to project from existing sources and I tried to keep existing sources
directory structure by selection option "Scan source paths to determine project contents" which should (according to documentation) preserve existing directory structure and show it in the Navigator.
But instead I get always (Jdev default?) directory structure:
Sources
HTML Sources
Miscelaneous Files
I changed default settings for Input path in project settings and for default project settings but still I get this Jdev structure.
Is there a way to force JDeveloper to preserve the directory structure of sources it imports from?
Many thanks,
Mile

I'd like to be able to specify the default project directory structure in 10g as well. For example I would like to have under the project root:
build.xml
src\
generatedsrc\
config\
resources\
build\
deploy\
Generating an ant build.xml using the wizard should also take into account the directory structure being used by the JDeveloper project build. I don't see why I should have to modify the build.xml file at all.

ITunes will not preserve directly structure for transferred photos

I have a large number of photographs that I have transferred to my IPod 5G. On my computer hard drive, the photos are organized into a folder for each year (i.e. 2004, 2005) and then those folders contain subfolders for each month in that year. When I synced the photos with my IPod, the subdirectories for each of the months did not copy over, so all the photos are in one giant folder for each year. This makes finding photos in the IPod very difficult, as I have to scroll through all the photos taken in 2005 (hundreds) before I can find the ones from this Christmas (the individual files are sorted by date). Any suggestions as to how I could make sure the whole directory structure is transferred to the IPod?

The photo support in the iPod is based stongly on iPhoto. By default, years are natural folders in iPhoto. Although in iPhoto 6, you can also look by month, it doesn't create a virtual photo representing that. However if you create a folder in iPhoto, say Christmas 2005, that does get transferred properly to the iPod & thus gives the functionality you are looking for.
It sounds like you're using the sync folder method, rather than using a host app, like Adobe Elements or Album. In that method here's what the docs say:
You can sync all of the photos in a selected folder, or only photos in specific folders inside the selected folder. Folders inside the selected folder will be displayed as photo albums on the iPod , but subfolders beneath them will not be.
More details here

How to export photos from iPhoto to external hard drive keeping Events structure (files and titles)

Hello!
I’ve been looking for a Automator application that does this for quite a while now.
Basically I want to have an Automator application that saves a copy of my iPhoto pictures in a folder, inside Finder. Like a backup. Later on, I can save those “folders and files” on my external hard drive.
What I want it to do is this:
1) Export photos from a selected Album or Event on iPhoto. Using as title: “Event name” – “number” (I mean the number of the file: 1, 2, 3 …)
2) Save them in a folder in Finder that I want.
3) Organize the photos in different folders, the same way they are in iPhoto.
The idea I had, was that it would do this automatically every time I launch iPhoto, as if it was synchronizing the photos into that folder.
And then, every time I connect my hard drive, it copies these “real” folders into my hard drive.
Is that possible? If yes, could you help me creating it, or tell me how I can do so myself, or where to download something like it?
Thank you a lot! Kind regards,
xanacarfran2008

Is this waht you want to do?
It's built into the File Export function of iPhoto 9 (11). Select what every photos you want and use that option to put each photo in a folder with the Event title it came from as in this test of six randomly picked photos:
OT

Changing file name and directory structure for use outside of iPhoto

Hi,
I was wondering if its possible to get iPhoto to name the files from my library to reflect the names that I've given the files in iPhoto. I'm thinking along the lines of iTunes, where its possible to chose in the preferences how the files are named, and there is some logical directory structure, such as "Artist/Album/01 - Track 1.mp3". These file names are updated to reflect any changes made in iTunes.
I've heard the argument that I shouldn't ever want to do anything with the files themselves because iPhoto can do everything I would ever want to do, but I want to organize the files so that not all of my organizational work is lost if I decide to stop using iPhoto and transition to a different system. Any suggestions would be appreciated.
Thanks,
Adrian

Adrian
No it's not possible.
You can rename the files before bringing them into iPhoto, you can rename them with the titles on Export (Use the File -> Export command, it gives you the option to use the title and filename) but when it's inside iPhoto you cannot rename the files.
However, all is not entirely lost. Using Film Rolls (View -> Film Rolls) you can move pics between rolls, name rolls, create rolls and so on, as long as you do this in the iPhoto Window, and these changes will be reflected in the iPhoto Library Folder.
If at some point you decide to chuck iPhoto then (if the new app won't read iPhoto database files) you can simply export each album you've created to a Folder (using the File -> Export command as I suggest above), this, along with exporting slideshows will preserve your organisational efforts.
The iTunes database has a rather simple job to do: track a file and it's assorted metadata. iPhoto, on the other hand, tracks a file and it's assorted metadata, plus a Modified version, plus a thumbnail. If you consider what happens when you edit a pic, for instance - Copy Original, perform edit, save modified version, remove Original Thumbnail and then create new one - you can see it's a rather more complex job.
Finally, the standard warning: It is strongly advised that you do not move, change or in anyway alter things in the iPhoto Library Folder as this can cause the application to fail and even lead to data loss. Any changes you make must be made in the iPhoto Window.
Need more info? by all means post again.
Regards
TD

PC - Moving catalog and directory structure to a new HD

Having filled my internal HD with images, I went out and purchased a new and bigger external hard drive. I want to move my images to the new drive while preserving both my directory structure and catalog information. From what I can see of the "move" command in PS Elements, it moves selected images to a new directory, but that's not what I want to do. I probably have a hundred named folders and I would like to keep the images in folders of the same name on the new drive. I don't want to have to move one directory at a time. Copying through the file manager can obviously do this, but I don't know if it will preserve my tags, etc.
Is there a straightforward way to move files from one drive to another that preserves both directory structure and catalog information?
Thanks in advance.
Artie

Humm, this is strange-Version 4 is supposed to move entire folders; Version 3 did not do this.
Okay, Plan B.
Open Elements and do a Full Backup and point to your external hard drive.
When this has finished running, do a Restore. You should get a pop up asking if you want to use the existing folder structure. Answer Yes and point to your External HardDrive (EHD). This should copy your photos and the Organizer file over to your (EHD).
Now look in Preferences under Files (I think, don't have program open) and you will see one value for where to store photos and one for Organizer location. Change these to your EHD so future photos and tags/collections are written to the EHD.
Verify all your tags and collections came over correctly.
If you are satisfied the transfer went correctly, you can erase your photos from your hard drive to free up space. You can also delete the Organizer file if you want.
Option 2-Use Windows Explorer and move all the files from your hard drive to your EHD. This will keep your folder structure, but will cause havoc with Organizer.
Open Organizer and do File>Reconnect All Missing. It will be all of them. You should have an option to change the drive to your EHD. It may take quite a while to reconnect all of them, but since all the folders/files are the same name it should find them all.
If you wish, you can change the drive location manually. However, I've found many users 1) do not have MS Access on their machine and 2) are not experienced in using the program. If you are comfortable with the program, let me know and we'll get some directions.
Finally, I see a copy of the post in the Technical side. Since most forum users read both sides of this forum, I'm going to reference this thread in that post so anyone can see what we have tried so far.

Using iPhoto with an existing directory structure on HD full of jpgs

I'm using iPhoto 6. I recently moved 7,000+ photos (jpgs) off my PC onto my new Mac harddrive. They are organized into dozens of folders and subfolders. How can I use iPhoto to work with the pics within this directory structure? I tried dragging and importing several different ways, but it never preserves my extensive directory structure (just puts them all together into one big pile). I set it not to make a copy when importing. I just want iPhoto to "point" to my existing directory structure, so I can see my folders and subfolders on the left side (and from there I'll create albums and pages stuff). Thanks, Robin

Hello, Robin,
Welcome to the discussions.
First, you have to consider that iPhoto organizes differently from what you are used to doing. It is designed to allow you to do your organizing from within iPhoto, using film rolls and albums. That way, you do not have to be concerned with how and where iPhoto stores the actual photos.
If you want to keep the same type of organization that you have now, you can import the photos one folder at a time, so that iPhoto puts each folder into a separate film roll. You can change the date on import, since iPhoto will give the roll the date of import, not the date of the photo.
To get the subfolders into folders, use the album creation feature in the Source pane and create the albums and folders to suit your organizational needs and drag the photos into the appropriate locations. One of the great features of iPhoto's album function is that you can have a photo in more than one album.
Please take a look at iPhoto's tutorial here:
http://www.apple.com/ilife/tutorials/iphoto/index.html
and some great explanations of how iPhoto is structured and works in these:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=920223&tstart=0
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=iPhoto/6.0/en/hlp15.html
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=959413&tstart=0

Keeping directory structure with Catalog backup.

So I have all my pictures in seperate directories on my computer. When using my catalog backup it just copies every file into a root directory, is there a way to preserve the directory structure that its making the backup from?

Which verson of Photoshop Elementa are you running?
In general, the way that the Photoshop Elements Catalog
b Backup
command works is that it renames the files during the backup process and it creates a Control File. Then when you use the Elements
b Restore
command, it can rebuild the folder structure as it was and place the photo (or video, audio) files in the same folder as it was at the time of the backup.

BUG: import from elements leads to broken directory structure

I want to migrate from Elements 4 to Lightroom.
When I start the "Import from elements" function in Lightroom the original folder structure is not presented correctly.
I'm sorry, but my directory structure in Elements is not homogeneous. Most directories are like \YEAR\SUBDIR\SUBSUBDIR\imagefile_n but some directories are nested deeper.
This confuses the "Import from elements" function in Lightroom. Most lowlevel directories are moved to toplevel, but some (!!!) directories are presented with the correct parent directories (full path).
I choose "Copy Photos To A New Location And Import" and "By Original Folders". Afterwards the original folder structure is NOT preserved correctly (as described above).
This malfunction can be reproduced at the Windows version.
When I use "Import from Filesystem" instead of "Import from Elements" the directory structure is preserved correctly.

Okay, found my own answer, finally. Ran across a posting including this line:
You can test that the catalog copy is ok by double clicking (or the Mac equivalent) on the file : catalog.pse10db. That should open the organizer with the catalog copy.
which gave me the idea to find that catalog.pse10db file. Found it, double clicked on it, and the organizer came up with all of our pictures, albums, etc. and has apparently decided that this is what we want *smile*.
So all's well that ends well.

Exporting Folders/Albums/Pictures Structure

I recently downloaded iPhoto Buddy to help me organize my 6000+ picture and 200+ video clip iPhoto Library (well over 10GB), that takes at least 2 minutes to load, and I of course have a very large and fairly complicated directory structure. I need to be able to export top level folders, with all sub-folders, albums, pictures and video retained from my current huge library into several smaller libraries.
I know that I could just copy all of the pictures into the different folders and then go in and delete the pics that don't belong there, but that would take forever, and unless there is no other way I don't want to have to do that.

<table><tr><td align=left bgcolor="#FFFFCC">I know that I could just copy all of the pictures into the different folders and then go in and delete the pics that don't belong there, but that would take forever, and unless there is no other way I don't want to have to do that.</td></tr></table>
Is the following what you don't want to do?
1 - make a duplicate of your current iPhoto library and name the folder with an appropriate descriptive name.
2 - use iPhoto Buddy to launch it as a new library and delete those items in it that you don't want.
3 - repeat for other sub-libraries with a specific content.
(Wasn't sure if this was the same as what you described)
Another possible solution would be to obtain iPhoto Library Manager and using it create a new, empty library and then copy selected albums, rolls, etc. from the old library to the new one. It will preserve keyword, comments, etc. You'll need to purchase the full version to get those capabilities.
Hope this has been of some help. Good luck.
OT

How to export photos from photo gallery to my iPad

How to export photos from photo gallery to my iPad

I had no trouble finding the "Export" tools in the "File" menu. They are greyed out when no photo is selected, but they are functional after selecting one or more photos.
I agree that it would be nice to have the "Reveal in Finder" option back, but they probably don't want us mucking about inside the Photos library structure.

Exporting photos preserving directory structure...

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