Mac 911: Why old videos may not play in Catalina, tips for merging an old photo backup, and much more
Solutions to your most vexing Mac problems.
YOUR OLD VIDEOS MAY NOT PLAY IN MACOS CATALINA. HERE’S WHY
Apple sheds the past as necessary to provide new features in its products. With macos 10.15 Catalina, Apple gave up on 32-bit software after two years of Apple warning about that event coming. That meant iphoto and a host of third-party apps could no longer be used after upgrading. But less remarked upon were video formats that relied on software components Apple had never updated to 64-bit compatibility.
There’s a long list of formats dropped in last fall’s macos update ( go.macworld. com/faup), and it includes faves from years past: Realvideo, Divx, Sorenson 3, Flashpix, and many great hits that eventually were superseded by improved
encoders. (An encoder takes a stream of video and represents it with a certain degree of fidelity to the original, while storing it efficiently, and often in a way that is also designed optimized for rapid, smooth playback as the data is read out of the file.)
imovie and Final Cut Pro were both updated ( go.macworld.com/mr19) in March 2019 so that when running under macos 10.14 Mojave and some previous compatible releases, the apps alerted you when any project you opened contained clips that would be incompatible in Catalina, and converted them to a newer format. You could also open any file in Quicktime Player in Mojave or earlier releases and save a copy, which would automatically save it in a newer format that will work in Catalina (and far beyond).
In Catalina, however, imovie, Final Cut Pro, and Quicktime Play can’t convert the old formats.
If you’ve already upgraded to Catalina, you can lean on two free, open-source video players that keep up to date with formats and macos: IINA ( go. macworld. com/11na) and VLC ( go.macworld.com/vlan). They can play nearly every old format, and VLC can convert and save files.
TIPS FOR MERGING AN OLD PHOTO BACKUP WITH YOUR CURRENT PHOTOS LIBRARY
Many of us have been snapping digital photos so long—or even scanning physical ones—that we have the equivalent of multiple giant shoeboxes of photos. With aging computers or external drives, we may be at risk of losing some older sets and want to consolidate them for access and backup.
One Macworld reader recently had her older Mac die and take years of photos with it, but she fortunately had a Time Machine backup. She wants to merge those old photos with a current set that starts where the old photos end. The solution is tricky, and will be tricky no matter what you do.
Restore or copy your media
The first order of business: restore or copy your older media if it’s not on the same drive or a drive connected to the same Mac at which you want to consolidate everything.
If you’re using Time Machine, don’t restore your iphoto Library or Photos Library to your Home directory, because this may overwrite your newer images and
libraries. Instead, follow these instructions:
1. Launch Time Machine, which is in your Applications folder. If Time Machine appears in your menu bar, select its icon and click on Enter Time Machine.
2. Navigate to your home directory’s Pictures folder.
3. Navigate back in time to the last state of your iphoto Library or Photos Library that you want to restore from. For an older machine, it may be the very “latest” version.
4. Control-click the library file to choose Restore “Photos Library,” and then—critically!—select a destination other than where the current iphoto or Photos Library lives.
5. Click Restore.
Now with at least two libraries, you need to figure out how to merge them.
Upgrade iphoto Library
If one library dates back to iphoto, you need to start by upgrading it to Photos: 1. Quit Photos if it’s running.
2. Launch Photos while holding down the Option key.
3. Click the Open Other button and select your iphotos Library file.
Wait for the process to complete.
Because Photos uses a special kind of link when upgrading an iphotos Library instead of copying the files in the library, you don’t need much additional storage to complete this process. Only new thumbnails and other support files created by Photos consume additional space.
Merge with Powerphotos
The easiest way to merge your old and new files and remove overlapping duplicates is with third-party software: Powerphotos from Fat Cat Software ( go. macworld.com/ftct; $29.95). That may be above your budget, but it’s the best tool for working with Photos libraries, and contains the merge feature not found in Apple’s app.
Choose Library → Merge Libraries, select the libraries you want to merge, and then choose a variety of options related to de-duplication. I highly recommend reading the documentation.
When you’re complete, you’ll have a single Photos Library with all your media, and can determine whether you want to delete or archive the libraries you no longer need.
Merge with icloud Photos
A second strategy requires a little more planning, but doesn’t add any cost if you’re already using icloud Photos to sync all your images. In effect, you want to swap your current main Photos library which is synced with icloud Photos, with your older library. icloud Photos will merge the two libraries by uploading your older images and downloading your existing ones.
In fact, Apple specifically notes that this behavior will occur ( go.macworld.com/plib) in case you don’t want it to!
If you designate a new library as the System Photo Library and then turn on icloud Photos, the photos and videos in the new library will merge with those already in your icloud Photos.
Warning! As always, I urge you to make sure you have a complete backup of all media before making changes in case something unpredictable happens.
Here’s how to proceed: 1. Quit Photos if
running.
2. Launch Photos while holding down the Option key.
3. Select the older library.
4. In Photos → Preferences → General click Use as System Photo Library. Photos will warn you about how this will affect icloud Photos.
5. In the icloud preferences, check the icloud Photos box. You can opt to either use optimized or full-resolution images.
6. Photos will now proceed to perform a two-way sync. When it’s complete, you will have a complete merged set in icloud, on your other linked devices, and on your Mac.
The final steps involve cleaning up:
> Your starting Photos library—even if an upgrade from iphotos—is now your main library. That’s the one you want to preserve.
> You can opt to archive to an external drive or fully delete your previous main library, as its contents are no longer necessary.
> You can delete or archive an iphoto Library that was upgraded to use in Photos without worrying about whether any files will be deleted that are needed for Photos—any files references in both places are retained within the Photos Library when you delete the iphoto Library.
CAN I KEEP MY PARTNER’S APPLE PURCHASES AND ACCOUNT AFTER THEY DIE?
With so many people facing the sudden and untimely passing of loved ones, particularly parents and significant others and spouses, it may add insult to injury that their digital lives are severed as well as their physical ones.
Since this is a Mac 911 column, I won’t dig into the details across services outside of what Apple provides. When we purchase apps, media, and other digital items and digital subscriptions from Apple, we are paying for a license that has a variety of terms attached. It’s a purchase in the loosest terms, not a permanent transfer of ownership as when you buy a physical good, like a book or puzzle.
Apple has long blurred the distinction on this by typically offering expansive licensing, especially compared to other tech companies. Way back in 2003, when I interviewed Apple’s worldwide vice president of marketing Phil Schiller about the opening of the itunes Store, I asked him almost immediately that if it was a “store” did that mean rights were transferable. He said, “You bought it. You own it. You don’t have to pay us again for the right to license it.” But the rights can’t
be sold or transferred to someone else. This remains true, encoded in legalese, to this day.
Read Apple’s terms of service for icloud ( go.macworld.com/ictm), which governs your Apple ID account and purchases, and Apple says this:
D. No Right of Survivorship
Unless otherwise required by law, You agree that your Account is nontransferable and that any rights to your Apple ID or Content within your Account terminate upon your death. Upon receipt of a copy of a death certificate your Account may be terminated and all Content within your Account deleted. Contact icloud Support at https:// support.apple.com/icloud for further assistance.
It’s pretty clear how Apple envisions this. The company doesn’t appear to be trawling records to obtain death certificates. Rather, it makes it straightforward as to what the rights are and that if it receives a death certificate— such as if someone associated is trying actively to close out an account and shut down subscriptions—the account and data can immediately be removed. (Please note this doesn’t constitute legal advice, and you may have rights that conflict with Apple’s statement of its terms above in particular U.S. states or countries.)
Until Apple is aware of the passing, which may be never, as long as you have an Apple ID password, access to devices, and other information, you may be able to continue to use apps, music, and other purchases, as well as continue to sync data with icloud. But given that it could stop at any time, I recommend making sure you have good backups. For IOS and ipados apps that don’t sync and have data stored internally, see if you can export it or transfer it to another account or device.
It’s always a good time to talk about financial, medical, and digital records with loved ones if you haven’t made a plan, especially regarding access to passwords after someone dies.
MY MAC SHOWS A WINDOWS RECOVERY SCREEN AT STARTUP. WHAT GIVES?
One of the strangest things you can do with a Mac has got to be using it only to run Windows—although there’s a method to that madness, too. Apple began offering direct support for Windows-on-a-mac with Boot Camp ( go.macworld.com/b00t) several years ago, allowing a more powerful option than emulation of Windows in macos.
Some people have opted to run Windows on a Mac full time, including at least one government adviser in a
previous job ( go.macworld.com/pjob), for reasons of support, cost, and computational power. Apple only offers relatively powerful computers, but it backs them up with a higher level and quality of support than ( go.macworld.com/qlsp) competing PC makers.
But one reader found themselves baffled when a used Mac they had purchased only booted into Windows. And it showed a Windows error at boot to, uh, boot. They wondered what was up.
Now, they could attempt to boot into the macos side of things. Apple provides full instructions ( go.macworld.com/flin) on managing dual-boot systems.
But because there was nothing on the system that the reader wanted to retain, the best and simplest course of action is to wipe the system using macos Recovery ( go.macworld.com/macr). This lets you erase the drive, wiping out any Boot Camp partitions and other data, and install a clean copy of macos, either the latest version the Mac can run or the version with which it originally shipped. ■