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Copy Photos from iMac to SSD external drive

I have over 50,000 photos/videos on my iMac (approximately 2014) and it is running Catalina. I want to copy all my photos/videos to a SanDisk 1T SSD drive. Every time I attempt to cut and paste all photos, it stalls and pinwheels indefinitely. (I've left if for over 24 hours with no success). I am using time machine as well, but I want to have a separate drive with just my photos as a back-up. Any suggestions?

iMac Line (2012 and Later)

Posted on Oct 21, 2020 7:08 AM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Oct 21, 2020 7:36 AM

Hi.


Is this just for a backup?


First make sure the drive is correctly formatted for photos (APFS, or MacOS extended Journaled) as described here:

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT201517


Then probaby your best solution is to copy the whole photos library to the external drive. (If you are talking about pictures in a photos library)


Alternatively if you prefer to copy just the image files, try using the file/export option rather than copy/paste

3 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Oct 21, 2020 7:36 AM in response to Davidsthubbins

Hi.


Is this just for a backup?


First make sure the drive is correctly formatted for photos (APFS, or MacOS extended Journaled) as described here:

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT201517


Then probaby your best solution is to copy the whole photos library to the external drive. (If you are talking about pictures in a photos library)


Alternatively if you prefer to copy just the image files, try using the file/export option rather than copy/paste

Copy Photos from iMac to SSD external drive

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