xexets2

Q: Help moving Photos.app library to new Mac!

Hello!

So I got a new Mac, lucky me!

 

Now I would like to move my Photos.app library (150gb) to the new Mac. It's synced with iCloud library. I thought of three possible options, all of them for one reason or another incomplete:

 

If I just download all photos on the other Mac from iCloud, a part from taking ages it will sync everything but not the Faces album (only the metadata) and not smart albums. So basically I would have all pictures but not the actual original photo library

 

If I physically move it from the old to the new mac (copy to external hard drive from old mac, copy from external to new one), iCloud thinks it's a new library and when I prompt it to sync it starts uploading all 17000 photos (which are all already online of course). Question here: will iCloud see the duplicates and skip uploading or will it actually duplicate all the pictures? I don't want to leave it on all night thinking it is just checking for duplicated and ending up in the morning with thousands of duplicates...

 

Final option: migration assistant from Time Machine. A part from the fact that I get all the old stuff I don't want when I open photos app after the migration it prompts me to repair the library. After that, it takes ages to rebuild thumbnails. Ages, numerous crashes and at least 4 or five app restarts.... The icloud library just says 'updating' for ages, no progress bar. And I am not even sure at the end of it it will be usable, since it crashes, etc.

 

Am I missing something? Is there a way to easily migrate from old to new computer the library without re-upoloading everything with iCloud and without re-downloading everything from iCloud?

 

Thanks!

MacBook Pro, OS X Yosemite (10.10.3)

Posted on Jun 10, 2015 3:50 AM

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Q: Help moving Photos.app library to new Mac!

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  • by léonie,Apple recommended

    léonie léonie Jun 10, 2015 4:14 AM in response to xexets2
    Level 10 (107,827 points)
    iCloud
    Jun 10, 2015 4:14 AM in response to xexets2

    I migrated the library to my other macs by downloading from iCloud.  That is quicker than copying and syncing again, because syncing again is extremely slow because of the duplicate checks. It was faster to recreate the faces.  Your Smart albums will sync between the two macs: See:

    Use Photos and iCloud Photo Library on multiple Mac computers - Apple Support

     

    And since the searchable faces tags will sync as well, you can recreate the faces labels quickly by searching for face names, tagging a few photos for your contacts and Photos will suggest plenty of other photos of the same person, based on the searchable  face tags it already has.

     

    If I physically move it from the old to the new mac (copy to external hard drive from old mac, copy from external to new one), iCloud thinks it's a new library and when I prompt it to sync it starts uploading all 17000 photos (which are all already online of course). Question here: will iCloud see the duplicates and skip uploading or will it actually duplicate all the pictures? I don't want to leave it on all night thinking it is just checking for duplicated and ending up in the morning with thousands of duplicates...

    Is is nowhere documented what will happen. Photos does duplicate checks when syncing, but I have not seen any reports from other users, if duplicates will be recognized, when the library is copied between different devices.

     

    Added: You only have to give Photos some time -a few days - to scan again for faces after you synced the library to your new mac.

  • by xexets2,

    xexets2 xexets2 Jun 10, 2015 4:15 AM in response to léonie
    Level 1 (1 points)
    Jun 10, 2015 4:15 AM in response to léonie

    Thank you very much leonie! That is indeed really helpful.

    It might be a tad impractical though for me as we are talking about 17000 pictures... even if it autotags numerous faces I would still have a huge amount of work to do!

     

    So did you have a direct experience with copying and syncing again? If so, do you confirm that when it says 'uploading 17000 photos', right after opening the whole library, copied, it is actually checking for duplicates and not re-uploading everything? I could live with that, at work I have a super fast internet connection so it would not take that much (I uploaded 150gb of picutres in 48 hours...)

    The other option I guess would be to copy the library to an external hard drive. Nuke everything from both the old computer and icloud, put the old library in the new computer and re-sync from scratch... 48 hours of boredom, and re-syncing all my ios devices but it might actually work...

     

    Any other suggestion/direct experience?

  • by léonie,Helpful

    léonie léonie Jun 10, 2015 4:36 AM in response to xexets2
    Level 10 (107,827 points)
    iCloud
    Jun 10, 2015 4:36 AM in response to xexets2
    it might be a tad impractical though for me as we are talking about 17000 pictures... even if it autotags numerous faces I would still have a huge amount of work to do!

    My library had 40000 photos and it took one night to download fom iCloud. But I have a fast internet.

     

    There are 400 different names for faces assigned in my library. Basically I had to assign faces names for a few photos for all persons where I really want to see the names on the Faces pane. For the thousands family photos most of the names had been done automatic by Photos. It was a good occasion to weed out the many faces of persons I no longer care about.

     

    So did you have a direct experience with copying and syncing again? If so, do you confirm that when it says 'uploading 17000 photos', right after opening the whole library, copied, it is actually checking for duplicates and not re-uploading everything? I could live with that, at work I have a super fast internet connection so it would not take that much (I uploaded 150gb of picutres in 48 hours...)

    I never copied a library between macs that is synced with iCloud, so I cannot confirm that. When I opened the same library again on the same Mac after repairing it,  I also got this upload message, that Photos was uploading 40000 photos again, but when I looked at the Console window, I saw that Photos spent a lot of time on duplicate checks:

     

    My mac is set to send diagnostic messages to Apple, so I can see additional messages in the Console:

    10/06/15 12:47:46,211 com.apple.photomodel[990]: Duplicate Detection: removing the following masterIds: (null), versionIds: (null)

    10/06/15 12:47:48,046 com.apple.photomodel[990]: Duplicate Detection: Candidate selection is preferred cloud resource: 277644 (AeHFTYMdaVORRiFAhrI6hpB6U90j)

    10/06/15 12:47:48,047 com.apple.photomodel[990]: Duplicate Detection: Additional cloud preferred master identified 149772 (AeHFTYMdaVORRiFAhrI6hpB6U90j)

    10/06/15 12:47:48,050 com.apple.photomodel[990]: Duplicate Detection: removing the following masterIds: (null), versionIds: (null)

    10/06/15 12:47:50,225 com.apple.photomodel[990]: Duplicate Detection: Candidate selection is preferred cloud resource: 277644 (AeHFTYMdaVORRiFAhrI6hpB6U90j)

    10/06/15 12:47:50,225 com.apple.photomodel[990]: Duplicate Detection: Additional cloud preferred master identified 149772 (AeHFTYMdaVORRiFAhrI6hpB6U90j)

    10/06/15 12:47:50,226 com.apple.photomodel[990]: Duplicate Detection: removing the following masterIds: (null), versionIds: (null)

     

    So the message "upload" is the same, wether Photos is  upload new files or syncing with iCloud, I do not know how to tell in advance, if Photos will be able to recognize the duplicates as duplicates, when the library has been moved between macs.  It sure did recognize the duplicates, when the same library was synced again  with the same files in their original place. But copying between macs can change the file attributes.

  • by xexets2,

    xexets2 xexets2 Jun 10, 2015 4:42 AM in response to léonie
    Level 1 (1 points)
    Jun 10, 2015 4:42 AM in response to léonie

    That is really good, really, thanks a lot!

    Yesterday when I first saw the message 17000 uploading I checked only activity monitor and opened files and forgot to open console! That's why I panicked and stopped everything. I will probably retry with the copy and check in console if it is uploading or duplicate checking, great reminder thanks!

     

    Otherwise, you are quite right indeed... pruning the faces tree is not too bad an option at the end of the day if the copy does not work!

    Thank you very very much.

  • by léonie,

    léonie léonie Jun 10, 2015 5:03 AM in response to xexets2
    Level 10 (107,827 points)
    iCloud
    Jun 10, 2015 5:03 AM in response to xexets2

    You're welcome