Import from MAC Photos to Lightroom - How?

[pognogson]

I have Mac Mini M2.  I would like to have access to my photos album in Lightroom Classic.  I have given Lightroom Classic full disk Access.  The advice seems to be to use: File ...   Plugin Extras ... import from I photo library, but when I do this I get the message:

Can anyone advise how to get my photos available to Lightroom Classic?

with thanks

[Rob_Cullen]

First read this good answer from Cletus Lee in the Lightroom Queen Forum-

MAC PHOTOS Explained

And there is this article-

Moving from Apple Photos to Lightroom

Also the 'iPhoto' App is not the same as the Mac 'Photos' App. Adobe has not provided a Lightroom-Classic function to easily import images from the 'Photos' App.

[johnrellis]

The Aperture/iPhoto Importer plugin built-in to LR can only import from the old Apple iPhotos app and Aperture app, not from Photos.  (And that plugin is very buggy in any case.)

Options:

1. Import the Photos library into the Lightroom Cloud Desktop app, and then sync them to Lightroom Classic.  Once synced into Lightroom Classic , you can remove them from the cloud if you wish. This will preserve any changes to keywords, captions, and capture date you may have made in Photos. While the captions and capture date will sync to LR Classic, the keywords won't due to Adobe abandoning development of sync between LR Classic and LR Cloud.

2. Import into LR Classic directly from the Photos library. There's a thread here somewhere that gives details. The original photos (sans edits) are stored in subfolders of the library, which you can find by doing Photos app > Settings > General > Show In Finder. This won't bring in changes to metadata or edits to the images.

3. Export the photos from Photos with File > Export > Export Photos and import the exported copies into LR Classic. That will bring in edits and metadata changes.

4. Use the third-party Avalanche program ($59), which will bring in the originals and convert any edits you've made to LR Classic edits, while preserving all the changes to metadata you might have made. There are a number of good reports here about using Avalanche to convert from Aperture and Photos to LR Classic.

[pognogson]

Thank you!  That is hugely helpful.  I will give it a go and see where it takes me.  It is never straightforward is it?

Kind regards

David