Albums lost when migrating from iPhoto (on old Macbook) to Photos (new iMac)

Question

Level 1

8 points

Albums lost when migrating from iPhoto (on old Macbook) to Photos (new iMac)

I have bought a new iMAC from Apple and as part of the initial setup I have used the migration assistant to migrate my iPhoto library from my very old Macbook to the new iMAC.

Since iPhoto is no longer supported I understand that the migration goes into Photos and after opening the application the pictures itself seem to have been copied over.

However unfortunately I do not see any album names being migrated and since I have maintained lots of them I fear to recreate them from scratch.

Have read the instructions on other posts here but none of them seem to work for me. I do not see any iPhoto event folder on the sidebar in Photos and as such I do not know where and how to get this information from.

Do you have any advise for me on this? Any feedback would be highly appreciated.

Stefan

Posted on Jan 19, 2021 11:01 PM

Reply

Answer 1

léonie

Level 10

197,321 points

Jan 20, 2021 12:49 AM in response to Stefan2902

I hope, that your albums are already there, as Tony described.

But just in case, that they should still be missing - you wrote "my very old Macbook". Which version of iPhoto have you been using on your old macBook?

Photos for Mac can migrate iPhoto Libraries that have been used with iPhoto 8.x.x or newer, but if you should have used iPhoto 7.x or older the library needs to be prepared with the iPhoto Library Upgrader tool. In that case you would need to run this tool on your old Mac (on a copy of your iPhoto Library). Using the iPhoto Library Upgrader tool - Apple Support

Also, you may want to check, if you have more than one iPhoto Library. Photos for Mac will automatically open the last used iPhoto Library. Since never used iPhoto on the new Mac, Photos may have converted the wrong library. To switch between libraries hold down the options key ⌥, when you launch Photos. This will bring up a dialog with all available photo libraries. if there is more than one library, try them all.

Reply

Answer 2

Stefan2902 Author

Level 1

8 points

Jan 21, 2021 9:13 AM in response to TonyCollinet

Thanks for your support. A mixture of your feedback has helped me to solve the issue. For reference here is what I did.

Set iMac to factory Standard.
installed OS from scratch
Updated to latest OS version
not used the Migration assistant during initial setup
copied the iPhoto library via network
Option key when starting Photos > selecting the copies librarY

and voila.

thanks again!

stefan

Reply

Answer 3

Jan 20, 2021 12:26 AM in response to Stefan2902

Hi

I've just tried migrating a copy of an old iphoto library of mine. Have a look under the sidebar under "my albums" - expand it with the triangle if needed. You should see an iPhoto Events folder under My Albums. See screenshot.

Reply

Answer 4

Stefan2902 Author

Level 1

8 points

Jan 20, 2021 3:32 AM in response to léonie

Here are the data required. The old Macbook is running OS-X version 10.7.5. It is from roughly 2012. The iPhoto app is called iPhoto '11 (version 9.2).

When setting up the new iMac I have used the migration assistant to migrate the user account including the iPhoto library. I am not using any other photo library. According to your explanation this should then work right?

Any other idea? Am a bit clueless.

Thanks Stefan

Reply

Answer 5

Jan 20, 2021 6:35 AM in response to Stefan2902

Can you manually copy a second version of the library accross - using an external drive, or if you can connect the two machines over the network. Give it a new filename so it doesn't conflict with the one already copied.

If you can, then opening it with the photos app should upgrade it for photos. (I am wondering if the migration assistant hasn't converted it properly)

Also - as Leonie has pointed out, you need to be sure if there are more than one iPhoto library on the old mac, that the correct one is being copied.

Reply

Answer 6

Jan 21, 2021 9:20 AM in response to Stefan2902

Wow - that was a lot of effort. Still sorted now. Thanks for letting us know.

Reply

Answer 7

Jan 20, 2021 12:45 AM in response to TonyCollinet

PS - what version of MacOS do you have on the new mac?

And how did you upgrade the library from iPhoto to Photos? Or was it done automatically by the migration assistant?

Reply

Answer 8

Stefan2902 Author

Level 1

8 points

Jan 20, 2021 2:57 AM in response to TonyCollinet

Thanks for the swift reply. Unfortunately i do not see any of these iPhoto events in that hierarchy. Any idea how to get this fixed?

stefan

Reply

Answer 9

Stefan2902 Author

Level 1

8 points

Jan 20, 2021 3:34 AM in response to TonyCollinet

The OS version of the new MAC is 10.15.7 (Catalina). The migration was done using the migration assistant. Is there any other option how to do the migration?

Reply

Answer 10

Stefan2902 Author

Level 1

8 points

Jan 21, 2021 1:22 PM in response to TonyCollinet

Great support of yours!

Reply

Albums lost when migrating from iPhoto (on old Macbook) to Photos (new iMac)

Similar questions