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How do I clean up my IPhoto Library?

I have over 100,000 photos in my IPhoto Library and with Faces it is totally un manageble. I have perhaps 20% duplicates that I would like to clean up. I have about 325 different faces recognized.

Now my IPhoto seems to be in a permanent loop. Not sure exactly how to start to clean up this mess. I have been using a Mac for about a year and am still not very conversant with Apple vocabulary.

Love the tools available on the mac, but need to learn to use it appropriately. Have installed Aperature, but it is so slow that I almost never use it. Now IPhoto is getting to be the same.

Somehow I need to start over and either divide up my photos into different libraries by time or something to make them manageable.

Please help me!

I Mac 2.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, Mac OS X (10.5.6), 4 GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM

Posted on Mar 18, 2009 5:17 AM

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14 replies

Mar 18, 2009 5:25 AM in response to DeweyJLevie

Welcome to the Apple Discussions.

You can search iPhoto for duplicates using Duplicate Annihilator

You can use iPhoto Library Manager to split a large library into smaller ones. Note at this time there is no way to move faces and places data. However the next version of iPhoto Library Manager (currently in beta) will have this ability. It might be worth waiting a few days.

Noting your comment on the speed of Aperture as well: the largest impact on speed comes from too little RAM and too little HD space. How much of each do you have? Particularly how much Free Space on the HD.

Regards

TD

Mar 18, 2009 6:57 AM in response to Yer_Man

I just upgraded to 4 GB of ram from 2 GB, it has helped substantially with faces. I haven't tried aperature since the upgrade. My hard drive is 750 GB. I have several TB My Book external drives. I seldom have them connected. I need to initiate a functional system of backup and learning to use them. Not sure how they are formatted for Apple info. I need to understand that better. No doubt I need to arrange several libraries on external drives and clean up my native drive. I need some help learning to do that. It says that my Mac HD has 698.32 GB Capacity with 93.48 GB available.

Would like to learn how to back up my library before I start getting rid of duplicates and splitting up the library.

Thanks,

Mar 18, 2009 7:21 AM in response to DeweyJLevie

Excelent advice, I plan on using both of them, but my next step is to try to appropriately backup my current IPhoto Library, and try not to loose any of my information. I remember reading something about the formatting of the external drive to preserve all of the Mac info. I have used some of my drives to back up both PC's and the mac. I have a brand new one, but need to know how to set it up to back up all of my info appropriately.

Thanks,

Mar 18, 2009 8:19 AM in response to DeweyJLevie

Use Disk Utility (in your Applications/ Utilities folder) to format a disk Mac OS Extended (Journaled). Remember that reformatting a disk will wipe all the data on it so if there’s anything important on it, back it up first.

There are several ways to back up iPhoto

1. Simple, Crude: Drag the iPhoto Library from the Pictures Folder to the other disk.

2. Use Time Machine - it comes with 10.5

3. Use an app like DejaVu or Chronosync to make incremental back ups of the Library. There are many, many other back up apps - search on MacUpdate

Regards

TD

Mar 19, 2009 2:20 PM in response to Yer_Man

I started the backup before I saw your reply! I just used Time Machine and I think it prompted me to let it format the disk. I hope it gave it the right format. I am assuming that it did! I have my whole mac backed up now, but not too sure how to verify that I really have it all?

I I just leave the drive connected with the backup and Time Machine will continue to back up changes?

What about when I begin to eliminate duplicates? Do I need to disconnect it so that I have a good backup before elimnating all of the duplicates?

Thanks,

Mar 25, 2009 7:34 AM in response to Yer_Man

I have identified some 5,000 plus duplicates and am trying to move them to the trash, but each time that I do my system goes into loops and crashes. I don't know how to get this cleaned up so that I can move onto splitting up my library. I have tried it 5 or 6 times with iPhoto crashing each time.

I don't know what to try next!

I don't have room on my drive to rebuild the library and don't know how long that will take with 100,000 photos. I am stuck and don't know what to try next!

How do I clean up my IPhoto Library?

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