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How To Move Mac Photo Library To Another Drive

  1. How To Move Mac Photo Library To Another Drive In Windows 10
  2. How To Move Mac Photo Library To External Hard Drive
  3. How To Move Mac Photo Library To Another Drive In Computer
  4. How To Move Mac Photo Library To Another Drive Windows 10

A few months ago when OS X Yosemite was first shown to the public, Apple demonstrated its new Photos app. This app is meant to simplify photo management for all Mac users by emulating the looks and functions provided by the Photos app on both the iPhone and the iPad. This simplification comes at a cost though: when it finally releases its Photos app, it will replace iPhoto, its legendary photo management app that has been on every Mac by default for years.

This move will definitely be hard on a lot of users, especially those who, like me, got used to working with iPhoto for so many years.

Even worse: for most of us, our photo albums hold a huge number of dear memories, and as with every update, there is always the possibility of something going wrong when the time comes to migrate to the new Photos app.

Apr 28, 2017 I just got a new Mac. I want to transfer or import my photos library from my old Macbook Pro to my new iMac. I copied a small library to my new Mac from my old Mac to see what happens but the Photos app isn't able to see the photos for some reason like it's empty even though its switched to that library. For copying iPhoto library to a new Mac: Connect your external hard drive. When it displays on Finder, drag the iPhoto Library folder or package to external hard drive. Eject the hard drive from your old Mac and connect it to this new one.

With that considered, here are a couple of short guides on how to back up your iPhoto library both the simple way and the not-so-simple way.

Back Up Your iPhoto Library: The Easy Way

First, the good news (or bad depending on how you see it). In a very Apple way, in order to keep things simple and integrated on OS X, Apple consolidates your photos into a single, giant file that represents your photo library. But this file is not composed of just your photos, it also holds very important meta-data, like your events, photo stream shots and such.

To find your iPhoto library, open any Finder window and click on the Pictures folder. There you should find it.

Although arguably well-intentioned, this change was frustrating for longtime Mac power users. With the release of way back in 2011, Apple removed easy access to the user’s Library folder. How to find library on mac mojave.

To back it up manually and without complications, all you have to do is copy the entire file to any destination you want. It can be a USB flash drive or a portable backup disk if you want and that’s it.

Cool Tip: If you want to transfer your iPhoto Library to another Mac just plug your drive to it and copy your iPhoto library backup to the target Mac’s Pictures folder

How To Move Mac Photo Library To Another Drive In Windows 10

. Be warned though, this will replace your existing iPhoto library. So this tip is mostly targeted at new Mac owners or for those who perform a clean install of OS X.

Back Up Your iPhoto Library: The Less-Easy Way

If you want more control over what to back up from your library, there’s a way to do it that requires some digging around but that is perfect for that purpose.

For this, you have to head to the same iPhoto Library file within your Pictures folder, except this time instead of copying it, right-click on it and then select the Show Package Contents option.

Then, head to the Masters folders. There you will see several folders categorizing the different years your photos belong to.

When you open each of them, you will find folders for the different events, albums and dates that contain the photos as you organized them in iPhoto. There you will be able to select exactly what you want to back up and the way that you want to back it up.

And there you have it. Now you will always be in control of your photo library and most importantly, you will have peace of mind in case things don’t go that well with the new Photos app. Enjoy!

Also See#backup #iphoto

Did You Know

It's estimated that people share more than 700 billion photos per year on Facebook.

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Your Photos library holds all your photos, albums, slideshows and print projects. If your library is large, and you want to free up storage space on your Mac, turn on iCloud Library and use Optimise Mac Storage, or move your photo library to an external drive.

Before you start, make sure that you back up your library.

Prepare your drive

You can store your library on an external storage device, such as a USB or Thunderbolt drive formatted as APFS or Mac OS Extended (Journaled).1 Find out how to check the format of your external storage device.

To prevent data loss, Apple doesn't recommend storing photo libraries on external storage devices like SD cards and USB flash drives, or drives that are shared on a network.

Move your Photos library to an external storage device

  1. Quit Photos.
  2. In the Finder, go to the external drive where you want to store your library.
  3. In another Finder window, find your library. The default location is Users > [username] > Pictures, and it's named Photos Library.
  4. Drag your library to its new location on the external drive. If you see an error, select your external drive's icon in the Finder, then choose File > Get Info. If the information under Sharing & Permissions isn't visible, click , then make sure that the 'Ignore ownership on this volume' checkbox is selected. If it's not selected, click to unlock it, enter an administrator name and password, then select the checkbox.2

  5. After the move is finished, double-click Photos Library in its new location to open it.
  6. If you use iCloud Photo Library, designate this library as the System Photo Library.

Delete original library to save space

After you open your library from its new location and make sure that it works as expected, you can delete the library from its original location.

In a Finder window, go back to your Pictures folder (or whichever folder you copied your library from) and move Photos Library to the trash. Then choose Finder > Empty Trash to delete the library and reclaim disc space.

Open another Photos library

If you have multiple libraries, you can open a different one like this:

  1. Quit Photos.
  2. Press and hold the Option key while you open Photos.
  3. Select the library that you want to open, then click Choose Library.

How To Move Mac Photo Library To External Hard Drive

Photos uses this library until you open a different one.

Learn more

If you have a permissions issue with your library, you might be able to resolve the issue by using the Photos library repair tool.

How To Move Mac Photo Library To Another Drive In Computer

1. You can't move your library to a disc that's used for Time Machine backups.

How To Move Mac Photo Library To Another Drive Windows 10

2. If the volume isn't formatted APFS or Mac OS Extended (Journaled), or has been used for Time Machine backups but hasn't been deleted, this checkbox will either not be present or won't be selectable after unlocking. Delete and reformat the drive for this option to be available.