Hacker ApprovedDepartments

osxphotos

Shares rank 59 of 86 privilege escalation tools by recommenders

A free command-line tool that reads the Apple Photos library and exports photos with their metadata and albums, useful for backups and moving photos out of Apple Photos.

A free command-line tool that reads the Apple Photos library and exports photos with their metadata and albums, useful for backups and moving photos out of Apple Photos.

6 people gave an opinion

recommend it
6
criticize it
0
approval share
100%
Each figure is one person. RecommendsCriticizes

Recommended in 2 of 13 months

  1. November 2025: not recommended
  2. December 2025: not recommended
  3. January 2026: recommended
  4. February 2026: not recommended
  5. March 2026: not recommended
  6. April 2026: not recommended
  7. May 2026: not recommended
  8. June 2026: not recommended
  9. July 2026: recommended
  10. August 2026: not recommended
  11. September 2026: not recommended
  12. October 2026: not recommended
  13. November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)

Why it doesn’t carry the badge

  • 6 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
  • Nobody criticizes itNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
  • Recommended in 2 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, not met.

The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works

Other privilege escalation tools people recommend

The four most recommended other privilege escalation tools, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.

osxphotos compared with 4 alternatives
ProductRecommendCriticizeApprovalMonthsOwnedBadge
fzf78594%12—Approved
jq753369%12—Approved
grep651977%12—Approved
Atuin632472%112 yrs4 ownersApproved
osxphotosThis page60100%2——
See all 86 privilege escalation tools, ranked

What people said

5 of the 6 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.

“utilities like osxphotos made it easy to turn Apple photos into regular files”

RecommendsComment from 29 Jul 2026 in “Darktable”

“I use your tool to backup my photo library, it's been working great!”

RecommendsComment from 13 Jan 2026 in “Open-source iCloud Photos Downloader (AKA escape from iCloud)”

“can restore all metadata including albums”

RecommendsComment from 13 Jan 2026 in “Open-source iCloud Photos Downloader (AKA escape from iCloud)”

“The only scripted solution I can think of that works with ADP is osxphotos”

RecommendsComment from 11 Jan 2026 in “Open-source iCloud Photos Downloader (AKA escape from iCloud)”

“the great osxphotos tool that works with Apple Photo's SQLite database to let you manage all the photos in your library”

RecommendsComment from 11 Jan 2026 in “Open-source iCloud Photos Downloader (AKA escape from iCloud)”

Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.