Moving photos to External Hard Drive

Terence,
I've followed all these instructions, too. I have copied my iphoto library onto my external hard drive; everything is there. I want to "erase" just the pictures in my iphoto library on my desktop. I closed iphoto, opened the pictures folder and put the library in the trash; I didn't empty the trash (because I'm afraid to). I relaunched my desktop iphoto. All the pics are still there. Not sure what to do next.
thanks for your help.

Is the Hard Drive connected still? Are you opening the Library on there?

How to find out:

Select a photo in the iPhoto Window and right click on it. From the resulting menu select 'Show File (or 'Show Original File' if that's available). A Finder Window will open with the file selected. In Column view it's easy to trace back to the location of the photos.

Regards

TD

Terence,
the photo shows I am still looking at it on my mac hard drive (as I feared).
The transferred library seems to be on my external hard drive; it says it is 16 gigs.
Aahh! What next, do you think?

Where on your Hard Drive?

Regards

TD

Terence,
I'm following the path through the external HD to get to a saved photo, then when I click on the picture and hit "show file", it jumps to the internal HD path:
mac HD/users/valeriemacmahon/public/pictures/iphoto library (with the icon)/originals/2009/photo

So, my question is, is the photo really on the external? I don't want to trash my internal HD library without being sure that the external really has the library (10 yrs of hard work!!).

Valzcru

See what’s happened?

Your Pictures Folder is inside your Public Folder, and then the iPhoto Library Folder is inside that.

My guess is that you have two Libraries on that Internal: This one and the one in the Trash.

Regards

TD

OH! Well, aren't you right on, Terence. I found the "bad" library and deleted it. The good library (which is 48 gigs) is still in that same pathway throught the public folder. Is that bad? Should I move it? and if so, how?
thank you, Terence.

I would put it into the Pictures Folder and take it out of there.

Then I would make sure that the back up is correct before doing anything else.

Regards

TD

and when you say "pictures folder", do you mean "pictures" in the finder, underneath "desktop", "applications", "movies" and "music"? Is it safe to just drag the library?
thanks, Terence.

do you mean "pictures" in the finder, underneath "desktop", "applications", "movies" and "music"?

Yes.

Is it safe to just drag the library?

Yes.

Regards

TD

thanks, Terence!

Terence, I'm back. I dragged my iphoto library into "pictures". It seemed fine. Now, a few hours later, I click on my iphoto icon, and the library comes up empty. It is back in the old pathway: users/public/pictures. I put that one in the trash and found my old one (which still was listed as 49 gigs) and double-clicked. It popped up empty as well. I'm feeling panicky.

Hold down the option (or alt) key key and launch iPhoto. From the resulting menu select 'Choose Library' and point it at the one you want to use.

Regards

TD

Thanks, Terence. Did it, got it!