mystwillow

Q: Reverting to iPhoto after Photos migration

Does anyone know if it is ok to delete the new Photos library from the Pictures folder after you've migrated your iPhoto library to Photos? This is the situation I'm in - I migrated my library to Photos but I HATE it. I am very invested in Events and being able to review each new batch of photos before categorizing them into the appropriate events, and with this new app it's like everything is in a giant shoebox, it seems to include all my Photo Stream pictures in my library before I'm ready (I typically delete a lot of dud pictures every time I import, now they are all mixed in automatically and I have to remember how far back I've gone through and culled), and there's no way to tell which pictures haven't been categorized into an event yet. Worst of all, there's no way to hide photos from all views. Not only are hidden albums/events not even a thing anymore, Photos "conveniently" makes a whole new album of all the pictures I didn't want anyone to see. So now instead of me being the only one who would know where to look for hidden photos/Events in my library when they were unhidden, they're all collected in one place at the top level of my albums view. Why anyone would want an automatic, top-level album of all photos in an entire library that were meant not to be see, I don't know. Seems to defeat the entire privacy/security purpose of the Hide feature. Not to mention, anyone can still see all hidden photos when scrolling through the Albums view.

 

Long story short, I am RUNNING back to iPhoto for as long as Apple allows it to be used. Now, I know that any changes I make to the iPhoto library won't carry over automatically to Photos. I'm fine with that as I don't intend to use Photos until I'm forced to. However, I know that at some point I will be forced to use it, and at that point its library will be (hopefully) several years out of date. Since Photos creates symbolic links to the photo files, I know I could easily have deleted the iPhoto library when I migrated to Photos, but does that work both ways? I guess my question is, can I delete the Photos library I have now, keep working with my iPhoto library until iPhoto is killed completely, and then re-import the entire library back into Photos? Or do my photo files actually now live in the Photos library package instead of the iPhoto library package and deleting the Photos library will delete all my photos?

 

Any clarification on my options would be appreciated.

MacBook, Mac OS X (10.5)

Posted on Apr 9, 2015 6:29 PM

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Q: Reverting to iPhoto after Photos migration

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  • by Terence Devlin,

    Terence Devlin Terence Devlin Apr 11, 2015 2:06 AM in response to chipsfortea
    Level 10 (139,532 points)
    iLife
    Apr 11, 2015 2:06 AM in response to chipsfortea

    Open Photos and go to preferences, then uncheck to copy items to photos library.


    No need for that. The app won't import anything unless you use the app.

  • by cat320,

    cat320 cat320 Apr 11, 2015 2:16 AM in response to Terence Devlin
    Level 1 (18 points)
    iWork
    Apr 11, 2015 2:16 AM in response to Terence Devlin

    Terence what do you mean by "the App"

     

    Also the problem my wife had with Photos is that she prefers to retain the more options available under iPhoto for Editing photos

  • by Terence Devlin,

    Terence Devlin Terence Devlin Apr 11, 2015 2:18 AM in response to cat320
    Level 10 (139,532 points)
    iLife
    Apr 11, 2015 2:18 AM in response to cat320

    If you import picture with iPhoto they go to the iPhoto Library only. Similarly, if you import pics with Photos they go to the Photos Library only.

     

    The setting you're changing there means that - if you use Photos - you'll inadvertently run a reference library and lose photos. Leave it as it is.

     

    BTW, look closely at Photos, it has more powerful editing tools than iPhoto. Laid out differently, but more powerful and more of them.

  • by Stevd66,

    Stevd66 Stevd66 Apr 11, 2015 7:38 PM in response to mystwillow
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Apr 11, 2015 7:38 PM in response to mystwillow

    I agree, I prefer events than 'moments' as 'date based' sorting makes little sense in a file store UNLESS you can see the image. The folder / album sorting is one thing, but the event feature was useful for grouping, rather than geo and date based 'collections'  This FEATURE should be returned as a sort and export feature too.

  • by David Yeh,

    David Yeh David Yeh Apr 11, 2015 8:13 PM in response to Chuckles84
    Level 1 (75 points)
    Desktops
    Apr 11, 2015 8:13 PM in response to Chuckles84

    Maybe this should be obvious from your answer, but I still don't get it. Are the photos in the iPhoto Library copied to the Photos library, or just linked? If so, is it not safe to delete the iPhoto Library once you decide you want to move to Photos and not return to iPhoto?  That seems very ambiguous, and I can see a lot of people deleting the iPhoto Library thinking they don't need it anymore. Or maybe it is OK. Still not sure.

  • by David Yeh,

    David Yeh David Yeh Apr 11, 2015 8:29 PM in response to David Yeh
    Level 1 (75 points)
    Desktops
    Apr 11, 2015 8:29 PM in response to David Yeh

    Ok, to answer my own post, I get it now (at least conceptually). The key word I missed in Chuckles84's response was "hard link", a concept that I was not familiar with previously.

     

    This explains it:

    http://sixcolors.com/post/2015/02/the-hard-link-between-photos-and-iphoto/

     

    So the bottom line is (I think) even though there is only one "copy" of the data on your hard drive and it only takes up the physical space of one copy, you can treat it as if there are two separate independent copies, one in Photos and one in iPhotos, and you can erase either one without erasing the other.

  • by Richard3030,

    Richard3030 Richard3030 Apr 11, 2015 8:33 PM in response to David Yeh
    Level 1 (20 points)
    Apr 11, 2015 8:33 PM in response to David Yeh

    > Are the photos in the iPhoto Library copied to the Photos library, or just linked?

     

    I want to know the answer too. Can I delete the iPhoto Library after I migrate to Photos.

     

    I don't get all the complaints here either. All my iPhoto events are stored under "iPhoto Events" folder after conversion. Why is everyone complaining about missing events?  Events are the same as Moments. If you don't like the word Moments, just create Albums to store the events. Am I missing something significant here?

     

    Richard

  • by MTNLUVR,

    MTNLUVR MTNLUVR Apr 11, 2015 10:17 PM in response to Richard3030
    Level 1 (19 points)
    Desktops
    Apr 11, 2015 10:17 PM in response to Richard3030

    In my case, the Events are nothing like Moments.   First, I have almost 3,000 events (109,000) pictures.  Yes, they are in the iPhoto Events folder but in a completely random order - no organization at all.   In the old format, the events were in date order.  Trying to reorder 3,000 events is out of the question and it is pretty out of the question to go back and create albums for over 100,000 photos.

     

    The other thing is that Moments shows only the date (I use an SLR Camera, so there is no location information).  When they were Events instead of Moments I had entered the occasion, location, key people, trip, etc. in the Events line above a group of pictures.   Now all I have is a date.  I would be okay if the information I had entered into the Events Title above each group of pictures transferred into Moments along with the date.  I am hoping that there is still a way to make that happen.

  • by mikeindc,

    mikeindc mikeindc Apr 12, 2015 5:15 AM in response to MTNLUVR
    Level 1 (15 points)
    iTunes
    Apr 12, 2015 5:15 AM in response to MTNLUVR

    I successfully the Photos library and went back to iPhoto.  One thing I would recommend is that rather than deleting it, you move it somewhere as a backup until you are sure that you have iPhoto working correctly.  Photos does not work for me because lack of events, inability to add places or to sort by places, losing all the faces I have already done, and increased disk space usage.  I have looked into Adobe Lightroom and Elements as a back up solution.  I would also recommend that you make sure that you have a copy of the iPhoto and/or Aperture app saved so that you can install it on machines in the future.

  • by Terence Devlin,

    Terence Devlin Terence Devlin Apr 12, 2015 6:02 AM in response to mikeindc
    Level 10 (139,532 points)
    iLife
    Apr 12, 2015 6:02 AM in response to mikeindc

    Just remember that there is no guarantee that either app will run on whatever version of the OS that comes after 10.10.

  • by Richard3030,

    Richard3030 Richard3030 Apr 12, 2015 11:03 AM in response to MTNLUVR
    Level 1 (20 points)
    Apr 12, 2015 11:03 AM in response to MTNLUVR

    > Trying to reorder 3,000 events is out of the question and it is pretty out of the question to go back and create albums for over 100,000 photos.

     

    You are absolutely right about that. Looks like you can only sort events alphabetically. You could go through the events and rename them with dates as first portion of event name, but that's going to take a while too. I'm not sure what you meant by organization, but the only way of dealing with so many events is to use search. I only have 300+ events, and I am in the process of deleting some and re-package them into Photos album. It's a pain, but I figure it's time to move on. Maybe someone will write a little app to make this process automatic.

  • by Old Toad,

    Old Toad Old Toad Apr 12, 2015 11:12 AM in response to toulouse
    Level 10 (141,085 points)
    Mac OS X
    Apr 12, 2015 11:12 AM in response to toulouse

    Tell Apple what you think of Photos and request additional features you want in Photos via both http://www.apple.com/feedback/macosx.html and http://www.apple.com/feedback/iphoto.html  since they don't have a feedback page for Photos as yet.

    OTsig.png

  • by Evisonn,

    Evisonn Evisonn Apr 12, 2015 2:51 PM in response to joiede
    Level 1 (10 points)
    Apr 12, 2015 2:51 PM in response to joiede

    Joiede,

    I sync iPhoto Events to my iPad.  Was really hacked off when iPhoto was deleted on mobiles last year as Photos does not keep Events sorted in the same order as iPhoto. Now Photos is on iMac the same difficulty of finding photos happens.  Luckily on iMac the iPhoto app remains and Photos can be left unused.  I just deleted the Photos library and undocked the Photos App button and switched back on iPhoto as default for uploading new files from cameras as well as bringing back the iPhoto button to the dock.  You are correct in saying Photos on iMac has the iPhoto Events folder, but the Events dont seem to show in the same order as iPhoto (by date of first RAW/JPEG file in each Event with latest at bottom.  This makes easy organisation almost impossible.  I am sticking to iPhoto for as long as I can, then migrate to Lightroom or other.  iCloud for photos is unrealitically expensive if you have 100+ GB of pictures so I am really not interested in Photos supposed improvements to facilitate cloud sharing.  I prefer to use Flickr, Dropbox or 500 px for sharing.

  • by Evisonn,

    Evisonn Evisonn Apr 12, 2015 2:55 PM in response to mikeindc
    Level 1 (10 points)
    Apr 12, 2015 2:55 PM in response to mikeindc

    MIkeindc,

     

    you can copy apps from time machine backups.  I wanted a DVD burner App and copied the one used by Apple a few years ago.  Saved money over having to buy a non Apple app to do what was free.

  • by michelefromwassenaar,Helpful

    michelefromwassenaar michelefromwassenaar Apr 13, 2015 6:08 AM in response to mystwillow
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Apr 13, 2015 6:08 AM in response to mystwillow

    I fully agree. I have personally deleted (using the terminal since the finder does not allow me to) the Photos.app directory...

     

    sudo rm -rv /Application/Photos.app

     

    then removed this useless Photos Library....luckily the original iPhoto Library is still there and works fine

     

     

    <RANT_ON/>

    Message to Apple: the lack of event makes Photos unusable. Additionally the interface is childish and waste spaces

    for working with many thousands of photo.

    I do not want a replica of an iOS application on my 3000 EUR computer, I have an iPhone already and they do not need

    to have the same interface.

    I do not want to store my 100 Gbyte set of photo libraries on iCloud, forget this iCloud everything obsession. Most

    of places do not have sufficient connectivity to support that for a big library.

    I want to be able to  batch change Photo Data (e.g. date or location) after import, Most cameras normal people use

    do not have the right time configured or do not have a built in GPS i.e. picture are not taken always with an iPhone.

    I hope that Apple at least reintroduces Events  and stop trying pleasing the crowd of iOS users by transforming OSX.

    </RANT_OFF>

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