You have tagged and captioned photos in Apple Photos and want to move them to Lightroom, an asset manager, a client or a backup drive. You want the titles, captions, keywords and locations you added to arrive inside the files, and you want to know they did.
Do it in Parergon
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Export from Photos with the metadata switched on
In Photos, select the photos and choose File ▸ Export ▸ Export Photos. Under Include, tick Title, Keywords, and Caption, and Location Information. Photos writes them into the exported files. These are new copies, re-encoded in the format you pick, so you do not get the RAW or HEIC original this way.
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Or keep the originals, with a sidecar
To keep each original file untouched, choose File ▸ Export ▸ Export Unmodified Original and tick Export IPTC as XMP. Photos saves an .xmp sidecar beside each original, holding the title, caption, keywords and location. Without that option, the originals carry only what the camera recorded.
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Check the result in Parergon
If you exported sidecars, merge them into the files first with the ExifTool command below. Then open the export folder in Parergon, where viewing is free, and check that the title, caption, keywords and location are in the files where your next app will look. Fill in anything that did not arrive, one photo at a time on the free tier, or across the whole set with a template in Parergon Pro.
Parergon’s own Photos browser exports originals exactly as the camera wrote them, so titles, captions and keywords added in Photos are not in those files. Use Photos’ export, or one of the tools below, to bring them along.
Why this happens
Apple Photos stores what you add, such as titles, captions, keywords and a changed date or location, in its own library database rather than in the photo files. The originals inside the library stay as the camera wrote them. That keeps edits safe and reversible, but it means a file you take out carries only the camera’s data unless the export puts the rest in.
Dragging photos out of the Photos window is the common trap: it does not reliably include keywords. Use an Export command with the metadata options switched on, and check the files before you delete anything from the library.
Other ways to do it on a Mac
- osxphotos (free, Terminal)
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An open-source command-line tool that reads the Photos library directly and exports originals with their titles, captions, keywords, people and locations written into the files. The --exiftool option needs ExifTool installed separately, for example with Homebrew.
osxphotos export ~/Desktop/Export --exiftool - ExifTool (free, Terminal)
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After Export Unmodified Original with Export IPTC as XMP, this copies each sidecar into the original file beside it: everything into XMP, plus the keywords and caption into IPTC IIM and the location into EXIF GPS, where other apps look for them. Files without a sidecar get a warning and are left as they are. Check a few files before you delete the sidecars.
exiftool -codedcharacterset=utf8 -tagsFromFile %d%f.xmp -all:all "-IPTC:Keywords<XMP-dc:Subject" "-IPTC:Caption-Abstract<XMP-dc:Description" "-GPSLatitude<XMP-exif:GPSLatitude" "-GPSLatitudeRef<XMP-exif:GPSLatitude" "-GPSLongitude<XMP-exif:GPSLongitude" "-GPSLongitudeRef<XMP-exif:GPSLongitude" -ext jpg -ext heic folder/
Questions
Why are my keywords missing after exporting from Photos?
Export Unmodified Original without Export IPTC as XMP, and dragging photos out of Photos, leave the keywords behind, because they live in the Photos library rather than in the file. Export with Title, Keywords, and Caption ticked, or tick Export IPTC as XMP for originals.
Which export keeps my original file?
Export Unmodified Original. Export Photos creates new JPEG, TIFF or PNG files with your edits applied, which is fine for sharing but not for archiving RAW or HEIC originals.
Can Parergon read the keywords in my Photos library?
Parergon’s Photos browser shows the metadata embedded in each photo, plus the date, location and favourite status that Photos keeps. Titles, captions and keywords that exist only in the Photos library are not shown; export them first as described above.
Go deeper: Browse your Photos library in Parergon.