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

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brianfrommiddlebury

Q: Deleting a migrated library in Photos

Is it OK to delete the migrated library?

iMac (21.5-inch Mid 2011), OS X Yosemite (10.10.5)

Posted on Feb 8, 2016 10:00 AM

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Q: Deleting a migrated library in Photos

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  • by léonie,

    léonie léonie Feb 8, 2016 10:27 AM in response to brianfrommiddlebury
    Level 10 (106,767 points)
    iLife
    Feb 8, 2016 10:27 AM in response to brianfrommiddlebury

    I strongly recommend to keep the old iPhoto libraries and not to burn your bridges immediately after the migration, for several reasons:

     

    • It will only look, like the iPhoto Library and the new Photos library were using twice the storage, but they are sharing the storage for the images and are using less storage than the combined size on the disk, see this support document:

              Photos saves disk space by sharing images with your iPhoto or Aperture libraries - Apple Supportand also: Six Colors: The (hard) link between Photos and iPhoto

    • If you delete the old iPhoto Library, you will not gain much storage back. It is save to delete the iPhoto Library, but I would wait  untill you are sure that the migration went well and no photos are missing.  Looking at the thumbnails in the browser does not ensure, that the original image files are there. Only editing or exporting a photos will ensure it migrated well.
    • Also, you may need to finish your projects in iPhoto, the projects do not migrate well.  See:  How Photos handles content and metadata from iPhoto and Aperture - Apple Support
    • Sometimes you will need to repeat the migration, if you should encounter problems, that can only be repaired in the original iPhoto Library running iPhoto. Photos repair tools are not yet as powerful as iPhotos.

     

    And if you discover, that you do not like Photos and want to revert to iPhoto, you will need your old library.

    At least, keep a backup copy of the iPhoto Library and the iPhoto application.

  • by LarryHN,

    LarryHN LarryHN Feb 8, 2016 11:07 AM in response to brianfrommiddlebury
    Level 10 (84,530 points)
    Photos for Mac
    Feb 8, 2016 11:07 AM in response to brianfrommiddlebury

    Yes it is OK in that it will not affect Photos in anyway - but it gains virtually nothing and if your ever want or need it you are in deep trouble - it is OK but strongly not recommended and gains little

     

    LN