alistair293
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Q: Upgrading to El Capitan I appear to have duplicate photo libraries eating my memory!

I upgraded to El Capitan recently, skipping Yosemite. Now using Photos in place of iPhoto but I appear to be running short of memory and now have 2 folders, both around 100 G, one name iPhotoLibrary.migratedphotolibrary and the other PhotosLibrary.photoslibrary. Clues as to how to retrieve memory without tears? Thanks

iMac, OS X El Capitan (10.11.2)

Posted on Dec 14, 2015 5:44 AM

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alistair293

Q: Upgrading to El Capitan I appear to have duplicate photo libraries eating my memory!

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  • by léonie,

    léonie léonie Dec 14, 2015 7:40 AM in response to alistair293
    Level 10 (108,148 points)
    iCloud
    Dec 14, 2015 7:40 AM in response to alistair293
    but I appear to be running short of memory

    How much free storage do you have?

     

    If you no longer use iPhoto you can copy the iPhotoLibrary.migratedphotolibrary to an external drive as a backup and then delete it from your system drive.  It will however not free much storage, because the new Photos Library and the old iPhoto Library are sharing the image files.

    The photos are not stored twice, even if both libraries are reporting the same size.

     

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

  • by alistair293,

    alistair293 alistair293 Dec 27, 2015 3:59 AM in response to léonie
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Dec 27, 2015 3:59 AM in response to léonie

    Hi

    Thanks for response and clarification about the photo libraries, apologies for the delay, got tangled up with Christmas stuff. I have a 2009 iMac. If I look at the 'About this Mac' it says total memory is 318gb of which 14gb is available. Of the current usage, 'Other' is 109gb. The remainder breaks down into Movies 79gb, photos 68gb and audio the rest. The movies are mainly iPhone video I think so sit in the photos library - if I look at Finder the Photos Library size is 107gb. If I look on Finder at the 'iPhoto library migratedphotolibrary' the size shown is 132gb so slightly confusing - it seems to have recalibrated size recently. I think unless there is obvious duplication on the Hard drive, or something I can about 'Other', I may perhaps be better off shifting the music files off to an external hard drive?

    Thanks

    Alistair

  • by léonie,

    léonie léonie Dec 27, 2015 4:57 AM in response to alistair293
    Level 10 (108,148 points)
    iCloud
    Dec 27, 2015 4:57 AM in response to alistair293

    I'd move the 'iPhoto library migratedphotolibrary' off your system drive, if you no longer use iPhoto. This will gain you at least the difference in storage between the 'iPhoto library migratedphotolibrary' and your new Photos Library, at least 25GB, maybe more.  It is hard to guess, how many files are still be shared by the Photos.library and the iPhoto Library.migratedphotolibrary.

     

    Are you using iTunes with your music?  Then ask in the iTunes Forum how to safely relocate the iTunes Library.

  • by alistair293,

    alistair293 alistair293 Dec 27, 2015 5:35 AM in response to léonie
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Dec 27, 2015 5:35 AM in response to léonie

    Thanks, appreciated. Will follow advice re iTunes shift, need to handle carefully,

    Best

    Alistair