Lacey86

Q: Move part of Photo Library

Hi All,

 

I am currently using a MacBook Pro 2013 running Yosemite 10.10.5. I have 750GB internal storage however it's all but full. Most of that storage is filled with photos and videos. I bought an 2TB external hard drive and partitioned it, one for time machine and another for storage. I have over 300GB of photos and videos, some of it dating back to 2008. I don't want to send all of those photos into storage, just everything up until last year. (time machine has everything backed up anyway) I tried doing this manually, section by section, but it was becoming a right mess. Files were being duplicated in the external drive, sometimes up to 8 duplicates of the same photo. The order went all out of sync even when put in date order and some photos have the same name. I have found instructions on how to move an entire library over to an external hard drive, but then I got confused about this then becoming your default library or something?? I don't want to change the default location of the library I just want to put some of the library into storage, without making a mess. Anyway, I suppose my question is this:

 

1. How do I move only part of my Photos library to an external hard drive, in one go, without losing order and without making the hard drive my default library?

 

Also, I loved iPhoto. I didn't realise it at the time but now we have Photos, I loved iPhoto. When it updated about a year ago I just left it, because I assumed it had to be this way. Now that I'm attempting to move this into storage i realise again how poor Photos is, so....

 

2. Is it too late to revert back to iPhoto? if I do how do I move all the newly imported (the last year) photos over to iPhoto as well?

 

I wouldn't say my technical ability on Mac is that great at all so any help is appreciated.

 

Cheers

OS X Yosemite (10.10.5)

Posted on May 30, 2016 9:59 PM

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Q: Move part of Photo Library

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  • by léonie,

    léonie léonie May 30, 2016 10:30 PM in response to Lacey86
    Level 10 (106,848 points)
    iLife
    May 30, 2016 10:30 PM in response to Lacey86
    1. How do I move only part of my Photos library to an external hard drive, in one go, without losing order and without making the hard drive my default library?

    Drag your Photos Library to your external drive and you will have a copy. You can switch between libraries by holding down the options key while you are launching Photos. That lets you select the library you want to open.

    . I don't want to send all of those photos into storage, just everything up until last year. (time machine has everything backed up anyway)

    You know that Time Machine will delete older items from the backup, if it needs to free storage for new backups?  if you deleted items from your computer, they will not stay on Time Machine forever. How large is your Time Machine partition? It should have at least 2.5 times the size of the system drive of your Mac. This will ensure that backups do not get deleted so quickly.

    And Time Machine cannot backup a second partition on the same drive. It would be better to move the copy of your Photos library to a separate data drive, not a data partition on your Time Machine drive, so Time Machine can include it into the backup, and you will always have a backup of the photos you moved off the internal drive.

     

    2. Is it too late to revert back to iPhoto? if I do how do I move all the newly imported (the last year) photos over to iPhoto as well?

    you will quickly become frustrated with iPhoto too. Apple is no longer supporting it well. You can no longer order print products from iPhoto. So it can break completely.

    To resume working with iPhoto you need to upgrade to iPhoto 9.6.1.

    You can only update to iPhoto 9.6.1, if iPhoto is showing among your Purchases at the App Store. Check the fourth tab of the AppStore - Purchases.  If you are seeing iPhoto there, you can update by deleting iPhoto from the Applications folder (don't empty the Trash), then restart the App Store and  click "Install". That will install iPhoto 9.6.1.

     

    See Barney's user tip: 

      Can't Update iPhoto because it is not available in the App Store.

    To move your recent photos to iPhoto export them from Photos and import them to iPhoto.

  • by Lacey86,

    Lacey86 Lacey86 May 30, 2016 10:57 PM in response to léonie
    Level 1 (8 points)
    Photos for Mac
    May 30, 2016 10:57 PM in response to léonie

    Thanks Leonie for the quick response. I'm aware of the time machine auto-delete thing. For the time being I can't afford another hard drive so it will have to do as it is. If I turn off Auto back ups on time machine then it shouldn't delete anything until I attempt to back up again, right? With regards to the photo library I will copy that over to my external hard drive, then delete the photo's I don't require on my laptop. So when I plug the hard drive back in I should be ok to load the older photo's with ease if I want just by holding options before I launch Photos. Is that correct? So I should be able to free up a lot of space on my internal hard drive.

     

    Thanks again.

  • by léonie,Helpful

    léonie léonie May 30, 2016 11:18 PM in response to Lacey86
    Level 10 (106,848 points)
    iLife
    May 30, 2016 11:18 PM in response to Lacey86

    Yes, that will work.  This help page describes how to switch between libraries:

     

    https://help.apple.com/photos/mac/1.0/?lang=en#/pht6d60b524

     

    And be careful when deleting from the library in the second partition, since Time Machine cannot back it up.

  • by Lacey86,

    Lacey86 Lacey86 May 30, 2016 11:20 PM in response to léonie
    Level 1 (8 points)
    Photos for Mac
    May 30, 2016 11:20 PM in response to léonie

    OK thanks.

     

    Also whilst on the topic. Do I need to keep the iPhoto Library which is sat in the Pictures folder next to my Photos Library?

    I Dont have the iPhoto app any longer and didnt need to purchase it so it looks like i'll never be using iPhoto again. Can I just delete it? Arent all the photos already in Photos when it merged?

     

    Thanks again

  • by léonie,

    léonie léonie May 30, 2016 11:50 PM in response to Lacey86
    Level 10 (106,848 points)
    iLife
    May 30, 2016 11:50 PM in response to Lacey86
    Arent all the photos already in Photos when it merged?

    All photos should have been imported to Photos, yes. Also all the albums.

    See this link:  How Photos handles content and metadata from iPhoto and Aperture - Apple Support

    What may be missing are your products - books, calendars, cards. And some smart albums.  The problem is, that you cannot tell by looking at the thumbnails, if the original master image files have been transferred correctly. You will only see any issues, when you try to enlarge and edit the photo. So I would keep a copy of the iPhoto Library on an external drive.

     

    The iPhoto Library does not use much extra storage on your system drive, as long as both libraries are holding the same photos, because the iPhoto Library and the Photos library are storing identical photos on the same blocks of your system drive using hard links.If you delete a phot the storage will only be released, if you delete the photo from both libraries.

    This is explained here: Photos saves disk space by sharing images with your iPhoto or Aperture libraries - Apple Support

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

     

    While both libraries are holding the same photos deleting the iPhoto Library will not free much storage, because Photos is using the photos too. But After you moved a part of your Photos Library to the external drive to free storage, you need to delete the same photos from the iPhoto Library or move the iPhoto Library too. Otherwise the storage for the photos will not be released.

  • by LarryHN,

    LarryHN LarryHN May 31, 2016 6:41 AM in response to Lacey86
    Level 10 (84,585 points)
    Photos for Mac
    May 31, 2016 6:41 AM in response to Lacey86

    But you are juggling knives - with the set up you have you have no backup for your Photos library and only occasional random backups of anything on your computer - sooner or later you will lose all of your photo and all other data since the last manual backup - you can buy an EHD for under $100, much less than the cost of losing your photos and other files, and have everything backed up

     

    LN