Extract text from Apple Photo libraries (PHOTOLIBRARY)
To convert PHOTOLIBRARY photo libraries to another format, you need Apple Photos or other Database software.
To convert other file formats to the "macOS Package Folder" file type, you need software like Apple Photos or a similar tool.
The .photolibrary extension is a macOS package folder used by Apple Photos and the legacy iPhoto application to store a user's entire image collection. It contains original master images, modified versions, thumbnails, and internal SQLite databases that track albums, face recognition data, and metadata.
Users usually need to convert or extract data from a .photolibrary file when migrating away from the Apple ecosystem. The main disadvantage of this format is that it is heavily proprietary and opaque. Because macOS treats this directory as a single file, moving it to a Windows or Linux machine results in a standard folder structure that is messy and difficult to navigate. The files can easily exceed hundreds of gigabytes, requiring expensive storage and making them impossible to share directly via email or web platforms without exporting.
The best target formats for extraction are standard image files like JPG, HEIC, or PNG, alongside MOV or MP4 for video content. Extracting these files directly means you will retain the raw media, but you will lose Apple's non-destructive editing history, album structures, and tagged faces.
This file format is exceptionally difficult for standard online converters to process because it is not a flat file; it is a complex, closed, proprietary directory structure. Traditional converters fail to read the internal database mappings to locate the correct master images. Because web browsers cannot upload macOS packages directly, you will need to compress the .photolibrary into a ZIP archive first. If our analysis detects a supported underlying or embedded format, viewing or conversion may still be possible.
Convert.Guru analyzes your PHOTOLIBRARY file, detects the exact format, and lets you read the text inside.
If you want to convert PHOTOLIBRARY file to , you can use Apple Photos or similar software from the "Photo Library Package" category. In the File menu, look for Save As… or Export….
To convert files to PHOTOLIBRARY, try Apple Photos or another comparable tool in the "Photo Library Package" category.
The history of Convert.Guru began over 25 years ago in California with Tom Simondi’s file-format database. A former contributor to Space Shuttle development and a software pioneer of the 1980s, Simondi established a trusted resource for file type analysis that was even referenced by Microsoft Windows XP. Today, we use modern technology to process and convert thousands of file formats while continually improving our PHOTOLIBRARY converter.