Export Apple Photos to Folders by Date

Exporting Apple Photos to folders by date means copying images and videos out of the Photos library on a Mac and saving them in regular folders organized by when they were taken. Usually that means one parent folder per year with a subfolder for each month, such as 2024/03-March. You end up with standard files that you can browse in Finder, back up to any drive, or open on another computer without the Photos app.

Photos keeps your pictures inside a single library package. That works well inside the app, but you aren't meant to browse or edit the package directly in Finder. You need the files outside the library to switch to a different photo manager, archive older years, share a collection with someone on Windows or Linux, or keep an independent copy of your photos. If you export them with no structure, you get one large flat folder that becomes hard to navigate once it holds thousands of items.

A year-and-month hierarchy solves that problem. Almost every photo has a date, year and month folders sort in time order, and you can read the structure in any operating system, cloud drive, or backup tool for years to come.

Photos for Mac has two export commands under File > Export. Export Photos saves the current version of each item, including any edits, in a format you choose, such as JPEG, TIFF, or PNG. Export Unmodified Original saves each file exactly as it was imported, such as HEIC or RAW, and includes the video part of Live Photos. Both export dialogs have a Subfolder Format menu, but its only grouping option is Moment Name. That creates one folder per moment, usually named after a place and date. Photos has no year-and-month option, so you need a second step.

The usual workflow is to export everything to a staging folder, then sort the files using the capture date stored in each photo's metadata. Some open-source command-line tools, such as osxphotos, can export straight into path templates like {created.year}/{created.mm}. Other tools export first and sort afterward. With Sortio, you open the exported folder and describe the structure in plain language, for example "Sort these photos into a folder for each year, with a subfolder for each month they were taken." The app uses filenames and file metadata, such as dates, to decide where each file goes. It backs up files before making changes, so you can undo the sort if the result isn't what you wanted. AI-powered sorting learns from your preferences; results may vary by file type and complexity.