Transferring Photos from System Library to External Drive Library

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Level 1

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Transferring Photos from System Library to External Drive Library

For a very long time I've been (successfully!) transferring photos from the system library on my MacBook Air to a photo library on my external drive, as follows:

Open the System Photo Library, select 'all', export to a folder, I delete all the photos from this library and then close it
Open the External Drive Photo Library, then the Import window
Open the folder with all the exported photos, select 'all' then drag and drop into the Import window
The little circle spins around and then all the photos appear as imported with todays date

However today - despite doing everything exactly the same - I received the error "Cannot import 389 items. Some items cannot be added to your Photo library because they may be an unrecognisable file format or the file may not contain valid data".

My files are .jpeg and .mov like they always are. I did nothing different in my process. My External Dive Photo Library is showing everything perfectly up until the last successful import.

The strange thing is that I can successfully import todays folder of 389 items back into the Systems Photo Library - presumably if the file format is 'unrecognisable' or the files doesn't 'contain valid data' this would not be possible.

I'd be most grateful for any kind advice. Many thanks ☺️

MacBook Air

Posted on Aug 20, 2021 8:42 PM

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Answer 1

Best reply

Yer_Man

Level 10

162,308 points

Aug 21, 2021 11:08 PM in response to teconmara

No you can't reformat without erasing the drive. So copy the Library to another drive (properly formatted) and then reformat that one.
Because the drive in inappropriate. It goes this way sometimes: things seem to work fine until they don't.
Make the Library on the external your System Library (which you can do in the Photos Preferences). Then the Cloud Photos will show up there instead.

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Answer 2

teconmara Author

Level 1

4 points

Aug 21, 2021 6:12 PM in response to teconmara

Many thanks for responding Yer_Man and Old Toad ☺️

Format is ExFAT
1. 1. Am I able to reformat to Mac OS Extended (Journaled) or apfs without losing all my photos & videos?
  2. A curiosity, can you suggest why this would have stopped working all of a sudden?
The ‘why' I’m doing this is possibly a bad process on my part! The situation is that I take photos and videos on my iPhone, which I view on my Mac Air through the system library (they automatically appear there through iCloud I think). I then export from the system library to a folder then reimport to the external library. I don’t do any editing or anything in the system library and just use it to get the photos & videos from my iPhone to the external drive.
1. 1. Your suggestion to import directly to the external drive - does this mean having both libraries open and copying from system to external? Or does it mean opening the external library and importing direct from the iPhone plugged in?
  2. As the end result is photos & videos from iPhone to external drive (without any editing or managing in between) and I don’t store anything in the system library maybe I don’t need the PowerPhotos or an App?

I have a feeling I’ve been making a simple process a lot more complicated than it needed to be! Your kind help is very much appreciated, thank you ☺️

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Answer 3

Old Toad

Level 10

207,409 points

Aug 21, 2021 10:39 AM in response to teconmara

Besides making sure the the external HD, as Yer_Man pointed out, is formatted either one of these:

use the paid version of PowerPhotos to copy new photos and their metadata from your System library to the library on the external HD. It will also copy any edited versions, albums, etc. The only item it can't copy is a project. Those are converted to albums with the same name and photos as were in the project.

OR:

use an app that does incremental backups, i.e. only copying the new or changed files, like ChronoSync. It will keep both libraries identical.

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Answer 4

Yer_Man

Level 10

162,308 points

Aug 20, 2021 11:01 PM in response to teconmara

Two questions:

What format is the external? It needs to be formatted Mac OS Extended (Journaled) or apfs
Why are you doing this? Why not just import directly to the library on the external?

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Answer 5

teconmara Author

Level 1

4 points

Aug 24, 2021 6:22 PM in response to Yer_Man

Many thanks Yer_Man, will implement your suggestions, thank you ☺️

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Transferring Photos from System Library to External Drive Library

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