ChrisKet
Level 1
(8 points)
Q: Import iPhoto library to Photos
I've been watching the improvements coming to the Photos app for several months and I am ready to take the plunge to switch my iPhoto library of 30k plus pictures to Photos. I do not use any cloud based storage; I have my iPhoto library on my local drive, backed up to an external connected hard drive through time machine, as well as a complete copy to another external hard drive. I have spent much time tagging faces; which is the most important to me and I want to make sure they transfer. What is the best way to bring all the metadata from my current iPhoto library to the new Photos library?
I know I'm asking a rather basic question, but I'm being overly cautious with this. Thanks for any help you can provide.
Imac, Mac OS X (10.5.6)
Old Toad
Level 10
(141,435 points)
To migrate your iPhoto library to a Photos library for the first time all you need to do is drag the iPhoto Library onto the Photos icon in the Dock. That will migrate your iPhoto library to a Photos library and place it in the same folder as your iPhoto library. You will not be using up twice the space on your hard drive because Photos uses hard links to access the photos used to create the iPhoto library. These two documents describe how the hard links work:
Photos saves disk space by sharing images with your iPhoto or Aperture libraries - Apple Support
The (hard) link between Photos and iPhoto
