Delete picture from the photo library using the command line?

Question

After installing my wife's new Mac (macOS 10.15.4 Catalina) some pictures ended up in HEIC format. This format is not convenient for her, so I converted the files using ImageMagick.

Somehow the files where not picked up by the photo application so I imported the converted files back in the library.

Now, I would like to delete the "old" HEIC files. Is it possible to delete them from the command line without corrupting the library?

Answer 1

You can either search using the Finder:

kind:heic

Or, from the command-line - mdfind uses Spotlight:

mdfind -name 'heic'

Or, normal unix find:

 find /path/to/search/in -iname "*.heic"

You can then use that output to do as you please. Rather than deleting, I agree with Seamus that you could move them first, and confirm no issues with the Photo's library.

eg. to move them:

find /path/to/search/in -iname "*.heic" -exec mv {} /path/to/move/to/ \;