How do you export Photos albums to folders on a Mac?

By Kayabyte · Last updated 3 November 2026

Short answer: Photos has no command that exports all albums as folders, so the free way is one album at a time with File, Export, Export Unmodified Original. For many albums, the free osxphotos command-line tool or a small paid app does it in one go. A library that Photos can’t open, or that isn’t your System Photo Library, narrows the choice.

First: are the originals on this Mac?

With Optimize Mac Storage on, the Mac holds smaller copies and the originals are in iCloud. If this is your current library, set Photos, Settings, iCloud to Download Originals to this Mac and wait until it finishes. A copy on a drive or in a backup holds only what it holds.

The free way: one album at a time in Photos

From Apple’s export guide:

Make a folder named after the album.
Open the album in Photos, click a photo and press Command-A.
Choose File, Export, Export Unmodified Original.
Turn on Export IPTC as XMP if you want keywords and captions in a sidecar file next to each photo.
Set Subfolder Format to None, click Export and choose your folder.

Live Photos come out as two files, a still and a video. Unmodified originals don’t include your edits. To keep edits, use File, Export, Export Photos as well. Apple’s page doesn’t describe any way to export albums as folders, so you repeat this for each album. That’s fine for a few albums and tedious for fifty.

Free, for many albums: osxphotos

osxphotos is an open source command-line tool (MIT licence) that keeps your folder and album structure and can write XMP sidecars. It reads a library by path, so it can work with one that isn’t your System Photo Library. From its documentation, the command looks like this:

osxphotos export /Volumes/Backup/Exported --library "/Volumes/Drive/Photos Library.photoslibrary" --directory "{folder_album}" --sidecar XMP

It runs in Terminal and needs installing first. It’s the most capable free option if you’re comfortable there. Its page says macOS 26 had limited testing and shared albums can’t be read on 26.x. We haven’t run it ourselves.

Paid apps for a working library

Photo Library Export (Mac App Store): free for up to 100 items per launch, in-app purchases at USD 0.99 and 3.99 remove the limit. It can export each album to its own folder, with XMP or JSON sidecars, and it fetches iCloud originals. The developer says it works with the system library only.
PowerPhotos: USD 39.95, 20 photos per batch before you buy. It exports albums as a folder hierarchy with optional .xmp sidecars, and handles several libraries.
Photos Takeout: USD 49.99 once or USD 8.99 a month, exports from Photos and iCloud by year, date or album.

If your library is healthy and is your System Photo Library, one of these is probably what you want. They can get iCloud originals, and AlbumRescue can’t. See the comparison.

Copying files out of the library by hand

Control-click the library, choose Show Package Contents and open originals. The files are there, free, in folders and under names that mean nothing to you, with no albums or captions. It’s a last resort, and it’s why “just copy the library” doesn’t give you albums.

Where AlbumRescue adds something

AlbumRescue is for the case the others don’t cover well: a library on a drive, from an old Mac, damaged or in Time Machine that you don’t want to open, can’t open or don’t want to make your System Photo Library. It reads it without Photos, and writes folders.

Folders follow your album folders and albums. A photo in two albums is copied into both.
Each file gets an XMP sidecar with captions, keywords, favourites and dates.
Live Photos and RAW plus JPEG pairs keep both files.
A CSV report lists every item and every skipped item with the reason.

Limits: it doesn’t fetch anything from iCloud, so originals not in this copy can’t be saved. Edits are not exported. Shared albums are not exported, smart albums are named in the report only, and album order isn’t kept in file names. People names are not read from journals.

Steps with AlbumRescue

Open AlbumRescue, click the library or Choose a Library, then click Scan.
Check Albums, and Missing or Limited for anything missing.
Choose Export, pick what to include and a destination, for example Photos in no album by year, or hidden photos.
Check the first 10 photos, which are free. They come out the same as in the full export.

The scan, lists, comparison and 10 saved photos are free. The full export is USD 34 once, for 2 Macs.

Download AlbumRescue and scan for free. macOS 15 or later.

Questions

Can Photos export albums as folders? Apple’s export guide describes no such option. You can export one album at a time into a folder you made.

How do I export my entire Photos library to an external hard drive? Download originals first, select everything in Library and choose File, Export, Export Unmodified Original, with the drive as the destination. That gives you files with no album structure. To keep a working library, drag the library itself to the drive instead.

Does exporting keep captions and keywords? Turn on Export IPTC as XMP to get a sidecar file. Apple’s page describes this for IPTC metadata and keywords.

Can I extract photos from a Photos library without opening Photos? Yes. Use the originals folder inside the library by hand, osxphotos in Terminal, or AlbumRescue.

How do I get the folders back into Photos? Photos can import files, and it can import keywords from a sidecar, but don’t count on folders coming back as albums. To keep albums when moving between libraries, use PowerPhotos.

Apple, Mac, macOS, iCloud and Time Machine are trademarks of Apple Inc. AlbumRescue is made by Kayabyte and is not affiliated with or endorsed by Apple.