MacOS Color Labels not imported

Labels in Lightroom Classic are portable in standard metadata, which means if you use them, they can be read and used by some other software like Adobe Bridge and RawDigger. So that’s good.

The problem is that Tags (the official name for the Mac color labels, which you manage using the File > Tags command in the macOS Finder) are not really supported outside the Finder (macOS) and Files app (iOS, iPad OS). There are only a few non-Apple applications that do support Tags; the only one I can think of is EagleFiler. Heck, even Apple Photos won’t read Tags.

I use Tags on my own Mac and iPad, but I know full well they won’t transfer to most applications not written by Apple.

If you want to organize files using something with wide compatibility, use industry standard IPTC keywords or labels, but not Tags in macOS/iOS. One advantage of keywords is that they not only appear in photo and graphics applications, but also in the Get Info window in the macOS Finder. Unfortunately there is no way to apply keywords in the Finder, even though it can show them. So yes, it’s kind of a dilemma.

I think they are right. The color labels in Lightroom are really a text field. If you have entered "Red" in that field, then Lightroom will show a red label. MacOS file color labels are different. That is why an exported copy of an image with a color label from Lightroom will not be colored when seen in MacOS Finder, and why importing a file with a MacOS Finder color label won't show that label in Lightroom.