Migrating Lightroom to Apple photos

[Christopher29815838c3xr]

Hi all,

I am planning to shut down my Lightroom CC catalogue of 20k+ photos and move the images to iCloud and the Apple Photos app.

I have tagged all the 20k+ photos and would like to have all those tags appear in Apple Photos. I also have many albums that I would ideally like to have in Photos.

Worst case scenario, I migrate album by album. Is there a better way?

I definitely do not want to lose all the tags and the editing of some of my RAW files.

Can any of you help me and tell me the best way to do this?

Thanks,

Chris

To whom it may concern: I used to do a lot of photography but with my new job I hardly find time to take any photos. I already have the 2TB iCloud plan for other reasons and want to save the money for Lightroom CC as I just don't use it at the moment.

[Jim Wilde]

First thing is to clarify which version of Lightroom you're actually using, as there's no such app as "Lightroom CC" any longer.....the "CC" was removed several years ago. So are you running the Lightroom Classic app (LrC icon) or the cloud-centric Lightroom app (Lr icon)? 

That's important to know if you wish to retain your original raw files whilst getting the tags to Apple Photos, as the method differs depending on the specific Lightroom app that you are using.

The bad news is that you won't be able to retain existing edits to those raw files, as I doubt Apple Photos would be able to read the Lightroom edits. The only way to get edits migrated would be to "bake them in" by exporting the raw files either as Jpeg or Tiff, which are then imported into Apple Photos.

Existing albums would have to be dealt with by your worst case scenario, i.e. migrate album by album.

[Christopher29815838c3xr]

Hi Jim,

I am using Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 

Version 6.3.1 - Build 20230417-1525-e348d75

Best,

Chris

[Jim Wilde]

From the Lightroom desktop app, you would basically need to export all the images in the cloud to a local hard drive, from where you could then import them into Apple Photos. How you do that, and what export options you use, depends on how much work you wish to retain on subsequent import to Photos.

To retain existing album structure, you would need to export album by album, creating output folders on the local drive that correspond to each individual album.

To retain tags, just ensure that you include all metadata in whatever export option you use, they should then be picked up on subsequent import to Photos. 

As I mentioned in my first post, retaining edits will be difficult.....while you can export your Raw files using the "Original + Settings" option (which will simply copy the original file, and add an XMP sidecar file for each Raw file containing edits and other metadata) it is likely that the edit data will not be recognised by the Photos app. To get the edits, you would need to bake them in by exporting as Jpeg or Tiff.

[Christopher29815838c3xr]

Thanks for the rapid response, Jim.

Most important for me is to retain the tags. I will check this out.

[tedc26380199]

This is a tool to do exactly that https://apps.apple.com/us/app/lightporter/id6755280356?mt=12

[Rob_Cullen]

@tedc26380199  NOT exactly!  The link you provided mentions "Collections" and collections only exist in Lightroom-Classic.

I very much doubt this app will work with the cloud based app known as 'Lightroom', contrary to the theme of this thread.

[tedc26380199]

It is indeed for Lightroom CC the cloud-based version( I am the author of the app). The page has been corrected to mention Album rather than Collections now.

[Rob_Cullen]

Clarification appreciated. Thanks @tedc26380199 

"Lightroom" (Cloud based) it is.  Not Lightroom-Classic (or earlier versions <v6 of Lr-Classic simply named "Lightroom").

[tedc26380199]

Another update: now Lighroom Classic is supported too! 

@Rob_Cullen Thanks for the clarification earlier! You were right about the distinction.

It now automates the migration for both Cloud and Classic. It creates the corresponding folder structure in Apple Photos (it creates a directory that can be imported to other tools as well) . It also includes XMP sidecars, so you retain your data if you ever need to move back to the Adobe ecosystem.

Hopefully, this saves others the pain of migrating a 20k+ library manually!