R1tony

Q: Can I delete my old iPhoto library after migrating data to iphoto in iCloud?

Hello, probably a silly question but one I feel safer asking. I have started using the new photo application, all the files have been transferred and the old iPhoto file is   sitting in in my files. Am I safe to delete this now?

MacBook Pro, OS X Mavericks (10.9.2)

Posted on Apr 11, 2015 11:31 AM

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Q: Can I delete my old iPhoto library after migrating data to iphoto in iCloud?

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  • by Kappy,Helpful

    Kappy Kappy Apr 13, 2015 5:25 AM in response to R1tony
    Level 10 (270,942 points)
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    Apr 13, 2015 5:25 AM in response to R1tony
  • by léonie,

    léonie léonie Apr 11, 2015 11:36 AM in response to R1tony
    Level 10 (106,848 points)
    iLife
    Apr 11, 2015 11:36 AM in response to R1tony
    all the files have been transferred and the old iPhoto file is   sitting in in my files. Am I safe to delete this now?

    Have you checked all migrated files thoroughly, if they migrated well? No missing photos, all places correctly labelled, no unexpected crashes?

     

    Like Kappy, I recommend to wait, before deleting anything. You may need to revert to iPhoto, if there are unexpected issues. The Photos release is still very new, and you may encounter unexpected problems.

    At least, make a full backup of your system as it is now.

  • by R1tony,

    R1tony R1tony Apr 11, 2015 12:45 PM in response to Kappy
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Apr 11, 2015 12:45 PM in response to Kappy

    Thanks Kappy, I will play safe.

  • by R1tony,

    R1tony R1tony Apr 11, 2015 12:47 PM in response to léonie
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Apr 11, 2015 12:47 PM in response to léonie

    Thanks leone, l will not make a decision I may regret. Maybe in a few months I'll have the confidence to delete!

  • by léonie,

    léonie léonie Apr 11, 2015 12:50 PM in response to R1tony
    Level 10 (106,848 points)
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    Apr 11, 2015 12:50 PM in response to R1tony
    Maybe in a few months I'll have the confidence to delete!

    By then we will hopefully have seen the first update to Photos with bug fixes and improved features

  • by Andy Abernathy,

    Andy Abernathy Andy Abernathy Apr 11, 2015 12:55 PM in response to léonie
    Level 1 (16 points)
    Apr 11, 2015 12:55 PM in response to léonie

    Be very careful. I'm having lots of issues with iCloud Photos. One thing I discovered: after migrating to Photos, there were about 10 (out of 14,000) photos that for some reason were "Referenced" photos that still needed the originals from iPhoto. I had to manually find them and add to Photos. Ugh! Now I'm having trouble with my main Mac refusing to update to iCloud, after making hours of edits.

  • by mpcpba,

    mpcpba mpcpba Apr 12, 2015 12:14 AM in response to Andy Abernathy
    Level 1 (0 points)
    iCloud
    Apr 12, 2015 12:14 AM in response to Andy Abernathy

    Photos saves disk space by sharing images with your iPhoto or Aperture libraries - Apple Support

     

    Suggest you read the above article before doing anything! This suggests that the old iPhoto library and the new photo libraries are "connected" and not duplicated.

     

    Finder now notes that my old iPhoto library is a 'migrated photo library' so hopefully despite Finder still reporting that I have two 26gb directories they are in fact not doubled up - just linked

  • by léonie,

    léonie léonie Apr 12, 2015 12:42 AM in response to mpcpba
    Level 10 (106,848 points)
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    Apr 12, 2015 12:42 AM in response to mpcpba

    Suggest you read the above article before doing anything! This suggests that the old iPhoto library and the new photo libraries are "connected" and not duplicated.

    Photos creates hard links to the files in the iPhoto library, not symbolic links - and a hard link is very different from an alias or a symbolic link. If you create a hard link to a file, you can delete the original file without actually erasing the shared data.  The hard linked file will continue to work; as long as there is a hard link, the data will not be erased. Deletion of the blocks on the disk is based on reference counting for the hard links.

     

    So you can either delete the original iPhoto Library or the migrated Photos library, and the shared image files will work in the remaining library.  Hard links are actual entries in the file table and not symbolic links to the name of another file.

     

    The hard links between the images in the library are the same that Time Machine uses to avoid duplicate files on your backup drive.

     

    iPhoto used symbolic links and not hard links, when you imported photos or videos without copying them to the iphoto Library. For these photos with symbolic links it is essential to protect the reference files and not to delete them.

    You can tell the difference between hard links and symbolic links or aliases in the Finder. A symbolic link or alias will show with an arrow on the icon, the hard linked files in the Masters folder look like any other file, without any arrow badge.

     

    Have a look at this document: It explains more about the hard links used:  Six Colors: The (hard) link between Photos and iPhoto

  • by mpcpba,

    mpcpba mpcpba Apr 12, 2015 5:05 AM in response to léonie
    Level 1 (0 points)
    iCloud
    Apr 12, 2015 5:05 AM in response to léonie

    Thanks - fascinating!

    So the hard link approach suggests that there is no repeat of any origlnal core data - great! Why then I wonder does Finder report that there are two (currently) identical copies of the same picture files in each of the iPhoto and Photo 'masters' directory?  This suggests that the hard link approach actually does double the data set albeit whilst in addition retaining a 'hard' link? If so then that would suggest that you will get back half of the disc space if you delete the original iPhoto library in due course - or does it?

    So is it worth deleting the original iPhoto directory to free up and tidy up the hard drive or not in anyone view?

  • by Andy Abernathy,

    Andy Abernathy Andy Abernathy Apr 12, 2015 7:32 AM in response to mpcpba
    Level 1 (16 points)
    Apr 12, 2015 7:32 AM in response to mpcpba

    In my case the migration apparently failed to "hard link" a handful of my photos. They were "referenced" which I assume is like an alias. You can check for referenced photos in Photos by creating a Smart Album where "Photo" "is" "referenced".

     

    So in a perfect world you should be able to delete EITHER the Photos or iPhotos library if you weren't using that app, and not lose anything. I would have lost a few photos however. It seems that the drawback of keeping the iPhotos library after switching to Photos would be that you can't free up space on your hard drive by deleting migrated photos/videos from within Photos - the photos/videos would stay on hard drive because they were hard-linked to iPhoto. And if you wanted to save hard drive space by only keeping "optimized" versions in Photos, I assume that the iPhoto library would hand on to the full resolution images because it is hard-linked to them.

  • by léonie,

    léonie léonie Apr 12, 2015 7:36 AM in response to Andy Abernathy
    Level 10 (106,848 points)
    iLife
    Apr 12, 2015 7:36 AM in response to Andy Abernathy
    In my case the migration apparently failed to "hard link" a handful of my photos. They were "referenced" which I assume is like an alias. You can check for referenced photos in Photos by creating a Smart Album where "Photo" "is" "referenced".

    Referenced photos are outside the iPhoto Library, and the  migration does not change the links to the referenced photos. It just leaves them the same as before. If you are using referenced photos and not letting iPhoto manage them, it is up to you to keep track of them.

  • by Andy Abernathy,

    Andy Abernathy Andy Abernathy Apr 12, 2015 7:43 AM in response to léonie
    Level 1 (16 points)
    Apr 12, 2015 7:43 AM in response to léonie

    Nope, these "referenced" photos were buried in the usual iPhoto Library hierarchy of photos, along with related photos that were not referenced. This was a random glitch - nothing I did.

  • by Praveen0,

    Praveen0 Praveen0 Oct 17, 2015 5:30 PM in response to Kappy
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Oct 17, 2015 5:30 PM in response to Kappy

    Actually everyone advised that new photo library references to old iphone library. Infact, I browsed through my macbook pro "Photos Library" and "iPhotos Library", (right click on them and select "show package content"). I have compared my "original" folder on both side-by-side, they have same folders and files. Probably you might want to do that.

    If you feel both are duplicate, you may delete old one, if you have any issues, you can put back.

     

    BTW, I'm looking int he recent upgrade - El Capitan.

     

    Here is what i have done...

    1) Open photo app, then select "All Photos" album on left side, look at no of items those are shown on top right. Note the no of Items

    2) Close photo app

    3) Go to finder > pictures > Rename/move "iPhoto Library".

    4) repeat step 1 to see if it shows same number of items.

     

    if so, that means, you can delete "iPhoto Library"

     

    Thanks

  • by léonie,

    léonie léonie Oct 17, 2015 11:15 PM in response to Praveen0
    Level 10 (106,848 points)
    iLife
    Oct 17, 2015 11:15 PM in response to Praveen0
    Actually everyone advised that new photo library references to old iphone library. Infact, I browsed through my macbook pro "Photos Library" and "iPhotos Library", (right click on them and select "show package content")

    Photos is not referencing the iPhoto Library.  It is completely different mechanism. They are sharing the files using hard links.  The files in your Photos Library and your iPhoto Library are using the same entries in the file table.YOu have two differnet sets of files, but the are stored in the same place on your drive. You will not gain much storage by deleting the iPhoto Library.  The storage will only be released, after you delete the hard linked files in the Photos library as well. But you will lose the ability to use the iPhoto Library, if you need to check metadata that do not migrate to Photos or to troubleshoot your library if iPhoto, if you should notice  later,  that some files did not migrate well.

    See:  Six Colors: The (hard) link between Photos and iPhoto

     

    If two files are hard linked, the inode numbers will be identical, when you list the file with the ls -licommand in the Terminal:

     

    For example, looking into the packages of an new migrated Photos library and the original iPhoto Library.  Everything looks duplicated with the same size:

     

    Screen Shot 2015-07-23 at 17.18.00.png

     

    The Terminal is showing this, when I type "ls -li " into the Terminal and drag one of the master files behind this command:

     

    Hermione:~ dreschle$ ls -li /Users/dreschle/Pictures/Photos\ Library\ 2.photoslibrary/Masters/2015/05/28/20150528-184932/IMG_0966.JPG

    39167952 -rw-r--r--@ 3 dreschle  staff  1283723 25 Mai 12:00 /Users/dreschle/Pictures/Photos Library 2.photoslibrary/Masters/2015/05/28/20150528-184932/IMG_0966.JPG

     

    Hermione:~ dreschle$ ls -li /Users/dreschle/Pictures/iPhoto\ Library.migratedphotolibrary/Masters/2015/05/28/20150528-184932/IMG_0966.JPG

    39167952 -rw-r--r--@ 3 dreschle  staff  1283723 25 Mai 12:00 /Users/dreschle/Pictures/iPhoto Library.migratedphotolibrary/Masters/2015/05/28/20150528-184932/IMG_0966.JPG

     

    In both libraries are the files listed with the identical inode number 39167952,  meaning they are linking to the same physical file in the file table.  For the Finder both files are separate, regular files and so it is reporting the size twice.

     

    When I compared the used space on my hard drive right after migrating the test library with 40 photos, the used storage had not been increased much:

    Screen Shot 2015-07-23 at 17.37.51.png