Potholes when moving PL8 on PC to Mac mini M4

Dear forum users!

I’ve bought a Mac mini M4 Pro to migrate my PL8/FP7/VP4 from the current Win11 environment. All my RAW edits are stored in *.dop and *.xmp files. Projects I’m using only for temporary edits. As far I’ve understood from other postings, they are stored in the PL database and can’t be migrated from PC to MAC - not a big issue for me.

For the naming of my RAW files I’m using Total Commander (no version for MAC) which allows me to apply a format which fits my needs through bulk editing e.g.: from Z63_5295.nef to Z63_05295_2024-11-10_Suzhou_Tigre_Garden.nef
Is there a possibility/tool in the MAC world?

My overall expectation is to get:

  • better performance
  • reduced noise and energy consumption footprint
  • more consistent UX (compared to Win)
    than my current Desktop PC with Nvidia graphic card.

As a matter of fact I’'m totally new to the MAC world and very interested about experience/feedback and advice around this topic.

Thanks & best regards
Erhard

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Just select a bunch of files in Finder, right-click and select rename and choose the appropriate method.

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I occasionally rename files with PhotoLab, and most often with Lightroom Classic or GraphicConverter. GC Can do many things like e.g. adding metadata from the file to the file’s name, change file dates etc.

As long as files are renamed before they get any sidecars, whatever you like best, will suit you. :wink: Renaming files with sidecars is best done with the app that manages the sidecar(s). While PhotoLab can do basic renames, GC can do a lot more. It can also save renaming presets. Here’s a screen with a few items you can change with batch renaming. There’s a free trial too.

Note that the collapsed list at right will list all files that are selected for the rename including the original and new names.

Thanks! I’ll have a closer look to it.

Erhard

I use A Better Finder Rename from publicspace.net. You can rename files with templates, but it also reads EXIF data so you can include that. It can also set file dates to the EXIF date and other good stuff.

Something that constantly surprises me is why folks go to all this bother to rename files, when they can be searched for by a vast list of metadata that is already contained in the files.

Adding such metadata to the file name is a very old-fashioned method and is simply redundant if you take advantage of Finder’s in-built Spotlight search mechanism.

Here is a list of all the attributes that the macOS Spotlight search provides…

And then I can use the search for this example…

… which will return all files with the keyword Black & White, taken within the month of April 2023.

No need for any extra software, except for adding certain metadata like keywords, star ratings and a few others.

By adding keywords to the file name, you also make it difficult to add or remove such without also having to edit the accompanying DOP file.


Finder tags provide a simple alternative to using the keywords metadata tag by allowing a coloured dot and/or an optional list of keywords…

But, unlike keywords, these do not show up in PhotoLab


I never rename my camera files and restart the numbering for each shoot.

I maintain a folder structure of…

Location, event or project
   Year
      Month
         Day

… which, when used with my DAM, that flattens the hierarchies, allows me to browse at those different levels, seeing the contents of the sub-folders at the same time.


Oh, and never rename image files that already have attached DOP files outside of PhotoLab, unless you like a lot of pain :wink:

Finally, never use PhotoLab to edit metadata that was created outside of PL. Follow the rule of SPOD (single point of definition)

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This is what Total Commander provides :wink:

You might take a look at Double Commander.

While this rule makes sense, there are exceptions that relax the rule a little bit - at least on Mac

Before files have been indexed by PhotoLab

  • If you rename image files and sidecars, make sure that the names are identical (e.g. name.ext and name.ext.dop). Even though the sidecar contains the old name, DPL will read the sidecar and apply the stored recipe, ratings etc.

Migrating the photo archive to a new computer opens up an opportunity to change folder structures and file names. Take care to set everything up before you launch PhotoLab for the first time on the new computer. You can then be fairly sure that the new names and structure will be picked up correctly. Moreover, you’re well advised to test the migration steps…once you have a backup.

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Thanks for the hint, I’ll test it!
It looks like a 1:1 of Total Commander with the benefit of multi platform.

Habits have a lot to do with it. I started on Windows devices that have none of the tagging and metadata goodness the Finder has. I renamed files for so long that it’s second nature now. I would rather have folders of files named “historic-snow-2025_0xx.RAF” than random _DSCxxxx.RAF names. Especially when it takes just a minute to bulk rename an entire folder. It also helps if you share the file with Windows folks.

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