HT204259: If Photos won't open a library that you already migrated

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Austin Lindsay

Q: So, can I delete the iPhoto app, or is there some reason Apple left the app still showing after the update?

Just wanting to know if anyone knows if it's a good idea, or bad idea to delete the old iPhoto app, since I can't open it anyway.

iMac (27-inch Mid 2011), OS X Yosemite (10.10.3)

Posted on Apr 14, 2015 1:21 PM

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Q: So, can I delete the iPhoto app, or is there some reason Apple left the app still showing after the update?

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  • by Toby548,

    Toby548 Toby548 Apr 14, 2015 1:27 PM in response to Austin Lindsay
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Apr 14, 2015 1:27 PM in response to Austin Lindsay

    I have this same question. I'm fine with the new Photos app. It makes sense to me. I had a 100 GB photo library in iPhoto, which still exists and seem to have migrated to Photos just fine. In Finder, I see that I still have my old iPhoto library, and the new Photos library - now both taking up a total of 200 GB. Is there any reason to keep my old iPhoto library and/or the iPhoto app?


    If not, what is the most efficient way to remove them?


    If so, why?

  • by Kappy,Helpful

    Kappy Kappy Apr 16, 2015 3:03 PM in response to Austin Lindsay
    Level 10 (271,323 points)
    Desktops
    Apr 16, 2015 3:03 PM in response to Austin Lindsay

    I would suggest you hang onto it and your iPhoto Library file: Photos saves disk space by sharing images with your iPhoto or Aperture libraries - Apple Support.

  • by Toby548,Helpful

    Toby548 Toby548 Apr 16, 2015 3:02 PM in response to Kappy
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Apr 16, 2015 3:02 PM in response to Kappy

    Hi Kappy,

     

    That article you linked to helped to explain a lot for me. I'm glad I did NOT delete my iPhoto library. However, do you know if there is a way to consolidate everything just into Photos? I have concern of family members still trying to do things in iPhoto not realizing that anything done from now forward won't translate over to Photos and I would prefer Photos to the new app of choice.

     

    Any suggestions are appreciated.

  • by léonie,

    léonie léonie Apr 14, 2015 1:46 PM in response to Toby548
    Level 10 (107,780 points)
    iCloud
    Apr 14, 2015 1:46 PM in response to Toby548

    However, do you know if there is a way to consolidate everything just into Photos? I have concern of family members still trying to do things in iPhoto not realizing that anything done from now forward won't translate over to Photos and I would prefer Photos to the new app of choice.

    Do you have more than one iPhoto Library?

    If you have only one, and that library has been consolidated, there is no more to do, other than to make sure, you have a current backup of your libraries and iPhoto.

     

    To distract your famly members, remove the iPhoto icon from the Dock.

     

    But you may want to be able to fall back on iPhoto for some things Photos cannot do.

    • If you had books, cards, etc, they will not have been migrated as products, but only as albums of photos. you will have to open iPhoto to work with the products.
    • Photos cannot assign location data. Yu may want to assign places to photos in iPhoto, if one of your cameras cannot geocode photos.
    • Photos cannot batch change titles and captions or dates.
    • Photos does not supper star ratings.
    • Photos does not support external editors like iPhoto did.

     

    For any of these tasks, you may occasionally want to use iPhoto.

  • by Toby548,

    Toby548 Toby548 Apr 14, 2015 1:59 PM in response to léonie
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Apr 14, 2015 1:59 PM in response to léonie

    Fortunately, the update to Yosemite 10.10.3 automatically removed the iPhoto icon from my dock. And it does appear that the link Kappy sent above (Photos saves disk space by sharing images with your iPhoto or Aperture libraries - Apple Support) indicates that I should NOT delete my original iPhoto library as the Photos app is actually pulling my original from that library.

     

    I do use TimeMachine so I know all my stuff is backed up. But, I'm a little OCD...so having both that Photos library and iPhoto library in my "Pictures" folder in Finder is going to drive me batty. I guess I'll just live with it.