MacOS – Photos projects stored on the drive

filefile-sharingfile-transfermacos

I've asked Apple Developer Support, regular Apple Support, and high-level Apple Support. They all said to ask on the Apple Developer Support Forums. I figured I'd ask here as well because I have much better experience on SE.

I am a senior software engineer working on a Photos Extension. I have multiple machines on which I want to test my code. Photos requires that its Extensions operate through Projects. For instance, one might right-click an album and create a new Book or Calendar. Our Photos Extension properly uses the Photos and PhotosUI APIs to manipulate these projects, and Photos takes care of serializing our changes.
I am developing Motif for multiple versions of macOS (High Sierra, Mojave, and Catalina). To do so, I have multiple Macs, each with a different OS installed on it.

One of the things that I want to fix is a problem that we see when upgrading from Mojave to Catalina. One way I could do this is to install macOS Mojave on one of the Macs, create a project, and then update that Mac to Catalina. This, however, is very time-consuming. Instead, I would like to create a project in Photos on a Mac running macOS Mojave, export that project (say, to a thumb drive), and import it into Photos on a Mac running macOS Catalina.

Since there is no UI for exporting a project, I want to know where these projects are stored in the filesystem. I intend to then copy those project files (say, via a thumb drive) between Macs in order to perform these tests. Could you please help me achieve this?

Best Answer

Here is the official answer from Apple (specifically, Jack, a senior advisor with Apple Developer Program Support):

After reviewing both public and Apple Developer support documents, the most transparent answer I can provide here is that if these files were directly accessible and transferrable in the way that you are asking, that information would be documented. In reviewing our documentation, I found that all files and subsfolders associated with the Apple Photos app are packaged in the user>Pictures>Photos Library.photoslibrary file. As the structure and contents of this package are not defined in any Apple Support documentation, Apple Support will likely not be able to provide the specific answer you are looking for.