David Chess
Level 1 (5 points)

Q: Copy a photo book to a different iPhoto library

We make a photo book as a Christmas present every year in iPhoto (and then have Apple make actual books and send them to people as gifts).

 

Due to a motherboard failure and other complications we are now in a position where the 2014 photo book is on the main MacBook Air here, but the 2013 photo book exists only on the hard drive of a now-dead MacBook Pro.  We've taken the hard drive out and used a Sabrent kit to make it available to the MacBook Air as an external USB hard drive, and that works.

 

But now I haven't been able to find any instructions for extracting a photo book from one iPhoto library and putting it into another.  Is that possible?  iPhoto Library Manager doesn't say anything that I could find about supporting books rather than just albums.

 

Thanks for any advice!

MacBook Air (13-inch Mid 2013), OS X Yosemite (10.10)

Posted on Jan 2, 2015 9:55 AM

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David Chess

Q: Copy a photo book to a different iPhoto library

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  • by LarryHN,

    LarryHN LarryHN Jan 2, 2015 9:59 AM in response to David Chess
    Level 10 (84,992 points)
    Photos for Mac
    Jan 2, 2015 9:59 AM in response to David Chess

    There is no way to move a book - you can duplicate the library and move the entire library - you can even delete everything except the book and its photos from the duplicate library to make it smaller - you can not just move a book

     

    LN

  • by David Chess,

    David Chess David Chess Jan 2, 2015 10:09 AM in response to LarryHN
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Jan 2, 2015 10:09 AM in response to LarryHN

    Wow, really?  That seems like a big oversight on Apple's or someone's part.

     

    Is it possible to, say, make a copy of the old library, remove everything but the book, and then use some utility to merge the two libraries?

  • by Old Toad,

    Old Toad Old Toad Jan 2, 2015 10:20 AM in response to David Chess
    Level 10 (141,304 points)
    Mac OS X
    Jan 2, 2015 10:20 AM in response to David Chess

    Is it possible to, say, make a copy of the old library, remove everything but the book, and then use some utility to merge the two libraries?

    No.  Books are only database entries in the library and they are not carried over when using iPhoto Library Manager to merge libraries.  Aperture can merge libraries but I don't know if it will also bring over books and other projects.

     

    May be to late for this book but I create a new library for each book I create and use the paid version of iPLM to copy over the photos I want to use in the book. This way the book library is isolated from the my daily working library and isn't subject to any accidental deletion of book photos, or damage due to library problems.  It also creates a small enough library that can easily be archived on a CD or DVD disk or transferred easily between Mac.

     

    To reduce a copy of your current library to a book library this tutorial may help: iP12 - Archiving an iPhoto 9 (11) Book for Editing and/or Ordering at a Later Date

     

    OTsig.png

  • by léonie,

    léonie léonie Jan 2, 2015 10:28 AM in response to Old Toad
    Level 10 (107,785 points)
    iCloud
    Jan 2, 2015 10:28 AM in response to Old Toad
    Aperture can merge libraries but I don't know if it will also bring over books and other projects.

    Aperture will bring over projects, but Aperture cannot open iPhoto books. You will have to open the merged library in iPhoto.

    See: Using the Unified Photo Library - Apple Support

     

    Print projects

    Books, calendars, and cards created in iPhoto are visible in the Source list in Aperture, but you cannot edit them. Books, web pages, and web journals created in Aperture are not visible in iPhoto.