OS Catalina and iphoto

I downloaded Catalina and now find my iPhoto does not work any more! How can I get it to work? DESPERATE!

Posted on Oct 7, 2019 3:40 PM

Reply
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Nov 14, 2019 11:32 PM

What have you tried? Have you migrated the iPhoto Library to Photos? Has that failed in some way?


I'll guess you haven't tried that step yetL


Hold down the option (or alt) key and launch Photos. From the resulting menu select 'Choose Library' and point at your iPhoto Library. It will do the rest.

123 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Nov 14, 2019 11:32 PM in response to domdom8

What have you tried? Have you migrated the iPhoto Library to Photos? Has that failed in some way?


I'll guess you haven't tried that step yetL


Hold down the option (or alt) key and launch Photos. From the resulting menu select 'Choose Library' and point at your iPhoto Library. It will do the rest.

Oct 7, 2019 4:10 PM in response to Petra01

You cannot use iPhoto on Catalina. You would have to downgrade back to your previous system.

But you can open your iPhoto Libraries with Photos for mac to access your photos.

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


Double click iPhoto Library to open it in Photos. You should be able to access all photos and albums, the events will appear as albums as well.



Oct 10, 2019 1:06 PM in response to pato_londres

There is not update to iPhoto for running under Catalina. You can do one of two things:


1 - create a High Sierra or Mojave boot drive on an external SSD from MacSales.com connected with a SATA to USB 3 adaptor from Benfei:



Boot time is about 45 seconds. With High Sierra I can run iDVD, iMovie 6HD, iPhoto 9.6.1 and many other apps for specific projects.


2 - migrate your iPhoto library to Photos.


Here are some user tips from Photos for Mac  User Tips that will help you in your transition from iPhoto to Photos:

Notes on Migrating an iPhoto Library from iPhoto to Photos for Mac
Moments in Photos are the New Events.
External Editors in Photos Are Here
Photo Editing Extensions for Photos for Mac
Post 9/30/2018 Printing Options for Photos - Apple Community
Ordering Books and Calendars on a Mac that cannot be updated past El Capitan 
Use Project Extensions to order print products in Photos after September 30, 2018 - Apple Support
Create and order print products in Photos with Project Extensions - Apple Support

Although Photos is a bit different in it's GUI it's a much, more powerful image editor.



Oct 12, 2019 6:55 AM in response to AnnaLua

First, to be safe backup and rename your current Photos Library. To switch over to Photos, launch Photos with the option key held down. From the resulting dialog, select your iPhoto Library. Photos will create a new Photos Library with the media from your iPhoto Library. Your old iPhotos library will not be affected.


Then you can export all the unmodified originals in the new Photos/iPhotos library. Rename your original Photos library back to what it was and import the originals to your existing Photos Library.


Someone else might chime in with software that will merge your two libraries, but for a one time thing you might want to do it manually

Oct 8, 2019 10:00 AM in response to AshaNout

Try again and post the exact error message, so we have a clue what might be going on on your Mac.


If all fails, revert to Mojave and migrate the iPhoto Library to Photos on a Mac, where you can run iPhoto to prepare the library for the migration.

This will have several advantages:

  • You use iPhoto to repair or rebuild the iPhoto Library, if there should be a problem.
  • You can remove incompatible media from the iPhoto Library. Catalina does not support all media formats, that you may still have in your iPhoto Library.
  • On a system, where yuo can still run iPhoto, you can compare the migrated library to the old iPhoto Library and fix any items, that did not migrate well.




This thread has been closed by the system or the community team. You may vote for any posts you find helpful, or search the Community for additional answers.

OS Catalina and iphoto

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