Exporter for Apple Photos documentation

Install Exporter for Apple Photos

Exporter for Apple Photos runs on macOS 14 Sonoma or later, on Apple silicon and Intel Macs. After buying, download the app zip from your Polar receipt, unzip it, and drag Exporter for Apple Photos to your Applications folder.

The app is signed and notarized by Apple. Confirm Open at the normal first-launch prompt.

The app works without a license key. The key in your receipt turns on automatic updates: enter it in Exporter for Apple Photos → License…. Once a day, the app checks for a new version, shows what’s new, and installs it with Install and Relaunch. Exporter for Apple Photos → Check for Updates… checks right away. A key works on 3 Macs. To move it to another Mac, choose License… → Deactivate This Mac first. Your receipt always has the latest version, too.

Let the app see your photos

The window says “Copy your photos out of Photos”. Click Choose Albums….

The first time, macOS asks if Exporter for Apple Photos can access your photo library. Click Allow Access to All Photos. macOS doesn’t ask before that click, and the app only reads: it never changes, moves or deletes anything in Photos.

If you clicked Don’t Allow, the window says “The app can’t see your photos”. Click Open System Settings: it opens Privacy & Security → Photos. Turn on Exporter for Apple Photos, come back, and click Try Again.

Choose the photos

The window shows “Reading your albums…”, then two columns.

On the left, at the top, Albums and By Date.

Albums lists your folders and albums as Photos has them, folders inside folders, each with its number of items. Tick an album, or tick a folder to tick every album inside it. A folder with only some albums ticked shows a dash in its box.
By Date lists the years of your library, newest first, each with its months. Tick a year for all its months, or single months.

Select All ticks everything in the list, and turns into Select None.

The list has your own albums and folders, without smart albums like Favorites or shared albums. To get everything, use By Date.

The options

Option	What it does
Original files	The file as it came into Photos.
Edited versions	The photo as it looks in Photos after you changed it. A photo you never edited comes out as it is. The edited file keeps the original’s name, with the edit’s extension, like `IMG_0413.jpeg`.
Videos of Live Photos	The short video of a Live Photo, next to the photo, with the same name: `IMG_0412.HEIC` and `IMG_0412.MOV`.
RAW files next to their JPEG	For photos shot in RAW and JPEG, both files, side by side.
Convert HEIC to JPEG	HEIC photos are saved as JPEG, for Windows PCs and older devices that can’t open HEIC. The date taken, the camera and the place inside the photo are kept. The first conversion can take a moment to start.
Put the date in front of names	`2023-05-14 18.03.22 IMG_0412.HEIC`. The time uses dots, because Windows doesn’t allow colons in names.
Save a report in the folder	A text file with what the export did, at the top of the folder. On at the start.

Choose where they go

Under Export to, click Choose Folder… and pick a folder, or a drive or memory card plugged into your Mac. The panel’s button says Export Here.

The window then shows the drive, like “ExFAT, 28.4 GB free”, and under the options what the export will take: “10 photos and 1 video. 15 files to copy, about 145.5 MB.”

The album list counts the items in each album, and the summary counts each photo once. So when a photo is in three of the albums you ticked, the two numbers differ, and the window says why: “The ticked albums add up to 13 items, because 1 photo is in 3 of them. It’s copied into each one.” There are also more files than photos when Live Photos bring their video and RAW photos their JPEG, and the window says that too.

Export stays off, with the reason, when:

nothing is ticked: “Tick the albums to export on the left.”;
there’s no destination: “Now click Choose Folder… to pick where the photos go.”;
the drive isn’t there anymore: “That folder isn’t there anymore. Plug the drive back in, or choose another folder.”;
the drive is formatted as NTFS, which a Mac can read but not write, so you choose another drive;
there isn’t enough space: “There isn’t enough space. The export needs about 4.75 GB, and SMALL CARD has 1.2 GB free. Pick fewer albums, or another drive.”;
everything is already there: “Everything is already there, so there’s nothing new to copy. Tick more albums, or choose another folder.”

On a drive formatted as FAT32, videos of 4 GB or more are listed in an orange box before you export. They’ll be skipped, because FAT32 can’t hold a file that big. To copy them, use a drive formatted as ExFAT.

Export

Click Export. The window shows “Copying 7 of 15…” with the name of the file being copied. Photos only in iCloud are downloaded first, so keep the Mac awake and online.

Stop ends the export after the file it’s copying, then shows the report.

What lands in the folder

One folder per album, inside folders named like your Photos folders: Family/Summer at the Lake 2023/IMG_0412.HEIC.
By date, a folder per year with a folder per month: 2024/05/IMG_2001.HEIC.
Each file keeps its original name. Its creation and modification dates are set to the day the photo was taken.
Names are cleaned for Windows and drives formatted for it: / \ : | become -, " becomes ', < > ? * become _, and a name ending in a dot or a space loses it. An album called “Grandma’s Birthday: 80 Years” becomes the folder Grandma's Birthday- 80 Years.
Two photos with the same name in one album: the second is IMG_0412 (2).HEIC, and its Live Photo video is IMG_0412 (2).MOV.
Two albums with the same name in one Photos folder get two folders, the second numbered.
No hidden ._ files next to the photos.

The app never replaces a file. If a different file already has a photo’s name, the photo is saved next to it with a number.

The report

When the export ends, the window says “Export finished” or “Export stopped”, then:

“Saved 14 files, 143.1 MB, to FAMILY USB.” For a folder, it names the folder: “to the folder “Family Photos””, or “to the folder “Family Photos” on FAMILY USB” when it’s on a drive.
“6 files were already there from an earlier export.”
each file that was skipped, with the reason, like “Photos couldn’t download it from iCloud (the network connection was lost).” or “It’s 4 GB or more, and a FAT32 drive can’t hold a file that big.”
the name of the report file, like “Export Report 2026-11-14 18.03.22.txt”.

A file counts as saved only once it’s on the drive under its name and was read back with the right size.

Show in Finder shows the report file in its folder. Export More goes back to the albums, with your choices kept.

Run it again

Export the same albums to the same folder again, and only what isn’t there yet is copied. A file counts as there when it has the same name and size. Before you click Export, the window already says how many are there.

This is also how you finish a stopped export, or try again the photos iCloud couldn’t give: run the same export again.

Privacy

The app reads the photos and videos you tick, and writes them only to the folder you pick. It never changes, moves or deletes anything in Photos, and nothing leaves your Mac. When a photo is only in iCloud, Photos itself downloads it.

Once a day the app sends its license key to my update server, updates.flaviocopes.com, to check for a new version, and about once a week it checks the key with Polar, the shop. There are no accounts and no analytics.

Troubleshooting

Choose Albums says the app can’t see your photos

Open System Settings → Privacy & Security → Photos (the window’s Open System Settings button goes there), turn on Exporter for Apple Photos, and click Try Again.

A photo was skipped because of iCloud

Your Mac keeps only small copies and the original is in iCloud. Make sure the Mac is online, then run the same export again: only the skipped photos are tried.

A video was skipped on a USB drive

The drive is formatted as FAT32, which holds no file of 4 GB or more. Copy those videos to a drive formatted as ExFAT. Disk Utility can format a drive as ExFAT, which erases it.

An album isn’t in the list

Smart albums and shared albums aren’t listed. Click By Date and tick the months the photos were taken in.

Exporter for Apple Photos isn’t made by, affiliated with or endorsed by Apple. Apple, Photos, iCloud, Live Photos and Mac are trademarks of Apple Inc., used here only to say what the app works with.