Want to highlight a helpful answer? Upvote!

Did someone help you, or did an answer or User Tip resolve your issue? Upvote by selecting the upvote arrow. Your feedback helps others! Learn more about when to upvote >

Looks like no one’s replied in a while. To start the conversation again, simply ask a new question.

Backing up iPhoto library to external drive doesn't work - and I need to merge to Photos on my iMac

I have an old macbook pro running iphoto and i would like to merge the iphoto library into Photos on my Mac. However, I can't seem to copy the Iphoto library onto an external harddrive allowing for merging later on the Imac. Any ideas would be much appreciated, thanks!

Posted on Sep 15, 2019 4:05 AM

Reply
Question marked as Best reply

Posted on Sep 15, 2019 11:13 AM

I can't seem to copy the Iphoto library onto an external harddrive


How are you trying? and where does it fail? any error messages?


Also, what format is the drive? It should be formatted Mac OS Extended (Journaled)

Similar questions

4 replies

Sep 15, 2019 11:36 AM in response to AndersKM_DK

How is the external HD formatted?


Here's how one could do what you want:


1 - copy the iPhoto Library to an external HD that is formatted as shown in this screenshot:'


2 - connect the EHD to the iMac and open with Photos to migrate the iPhoto Library to a Photos library.


3 - use the paid version of PowerPhotos to copy the albums and original image files with metadata from the newly created Photos library to your existing Photos library.



Backing up iPhoto library to external drive doesn't work - and I need to merge to Photos on my iMac

Welcome to Apple Support Community
A forum where Apple customers help each other with their products. Get started with your Apple ID.