Photos 6.0 on external drive--

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Level 1

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Photos 6.0 on external drive--

An earlier post on the question of my external drive running out of space as new MacMini tried to update it. The question was not solved though I got a helpful answer.

My updated question is below.

Apr 18, 2021 4:10 PM in response to David Porter9

OT--- further update. I made the mistake of plugging the external drive with my backups on it back in to the older Mac and it immediately started a backup and completed it before I sat down to work. So I now do not have access to the earlier backups although that folder and the files in it is still visible on the drive index.

So I went back to your original suggestion to look for the '...library.migrated' file. There isn't a 'migrated' version---I think since the Photos update didn't complete. Can I just move the 'iPhoto library-photolibrary to the larger external drive via drag and drop and then use it to open Photos on the new MacMini?

Mac mini 2018 or later

Posted on Apr 18, 2021 4:15 PM

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Answer 1

léonie

Level 10

195,169 points

Apr 20, 2021 1:40 AM in response to David Porter9

An add-on to Tony's reply: This documents describes in detail, how an external volume needs to be prepared, if you want to use it for a Photos Library: Move your Photos library to save space on your Mac - Apple Support

Have you tried OT's suggestion to use the "Browse other backups" option of Time Machine, to access the old backup on your new Mac? Did it work? See: Back up your Mac with Time Machine - Apple Support

If you back up to multiple disks, you can press and hold the Option key, then choose Browse Other Backup Disks from the Time Machine menu.

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Answer 2

Apr 18, 2021 11:40 PM in response to David Porter9

First things first. Is your drive correctly formatted for a photos library. It needs to be formatted APFS or MacOS extended (journalled) - preferred for a spinning drive, with the ignore ownership checkbox checked. It must be directly connected (not via ethernet, or wifi).

Second thing second - yes, you can just drag / drop your library to the new drive, and if it has not been damaged by partial conversion, it should open in photos and convert then.

Or you can restore the untouched version from time machine backup by "entering time machine" From the menu bar, and navigating to the date you want to restore from, then restoring that copy to your new drive.

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Photos 6.0 on external drive--

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