Baking in edits in Apple Photos and removing sidecar files

[denisbkk]

I noticed the following different behavior when editing via the Photos extension and when editing a file directly from the finder and using sidecar files.

In settings editing, I chose "Open images in original format". And I select both options to preserve edits.

1: I open a file from the finder, make edits, then save it. I then go to the icloud folder where the sidecar files are saved. I delete the sidecar file. When I then open that photo from the finder again, it has all edits still applied that I had done before. But obviously, I cant reverse or edit those anymore as I deleted the sidecar file.

2: I open a photo from Apple photos and edit in pixelmator. I make some edits and save it. A sidecar file is created in the icloud sidecar folder. I now also delete this sidecar file. Then go back to apple photos and try to open that file in pixelmator again. I get an info onscreen saying "this file should have a sidecar file ......etc". When the file opens I see the original source photo (so all edits I had done are gone).

My questions is, is there any way to achieve this behavior in Apple Photos? That I can bake in edits I have done on the images and then delete the sidecar file? It seems this is the way it works when opening images from finder.

Sometimes I want to clear out storage again by deleting sidecar files I dont need anymore. So can I do that somehow while keeping the edits I made baked into my photos?

[Jeff Bellune]

Apple Photos always has a "Revert To Original" option. This requires the sidecar file. As I understand it, changes made in apps that save to Photos or in Photos extensions are always non-destructive, without the sidecar file there is only the original.

To get what you want I think you have to export your edited images from Photos, delete the originals in Photos, and then import the exported versions back into Photos.