I have an old MacBook (OS X 10.9.5 - won't download anything newer) with 11,000 photos and videos on iPhoto. I want to upload these to iCloud but iPhoto won't let me.
I have a 2019 MacBook Pro and tried to connect the 2 Macsbooks to copy or transfer the photos that way but no luck.
Any help and advice appreciated.
MacBook
Does your newer MacBook have an ethernet port? Do you have an adapter? The 2 MacBooks are from different generations and I am not certain you will be able to get a single cable without an adapter of some description in order to connect the 2.
If you have access to an up to date external hard drive, maybe 1/2TB you should be fine.
As far as USB thumb drives are concerned, you might be surprised. If your 11,000 images are all around 7MB each as JPGs then they will all fit on an 8GB flash drive, or you can pick up a 32GB for less than $10 and then you would have a remote backup archive of the images too
Best of luck
iPhoto has no connection to the Cloud. You would need to export them from iPhoto and upload them using some other way.
Thanks for your reply - yes, I have USB thumb drives but none are big enough for so many photos - I'll need to do dozens of downloads. In the old days, it was possible to link 2 MacBooks with an ethernet cable. Can that not be done anymore?
I guessed that must be the case - but how on earth do I export 11,000 photos from iPhoto and download them to my new MacBook Pro?
Hi, welcome to the Apple Users Community.
Have you any USB thumb drives or an external hard drive perhaps?
Best of luck
Do you want the edited versions or the originals?
Just copy over the iPhoto Library and let Photos convert it to a Photos Library. This will even preserve your edits.
You should be able to:
Use target disk mode.
Transfer files between two Mac computers using target disk mode - Apple Support
enable sharing via your ethernet network:
Transferring 1000s of photos from iPhoto to iCloud
