Transfering photos BY ALBUM from one photos file to another

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simon1973 Author

Level 1

5 points

Transfering photos BY ALBUM from one photos file to another

I have a huge photos file "fotos mediathek" with 526GB. I want to reduce the file size by splitting it into about 10 separate files with no file larger than about 50GB. In the original file, I have - with a lot of work - organized all photos into Albums.

So I tried to import the ALBUMS not just the photos. But when I follow the import procedure described on the Apple support pages, the album section in the huge file that I selected to import from is empty. This would mean that I would have to manually redo all the work related to created the albums which would take several days given that this is about all my personal photos since the 1980s.

Is there a possibility to import the photos by ALBUM? Thank you so much for your help!

MacBook Pro Apple Silicon

Posted on Feb 26, 2023 10:52 AM

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Answer 1

Best reply

léonie

Level 10

195,135 points

Feb 26, 2023 3:46 PM in response to simon1973

The import of Photos from a library is still limited. You would also lose the keywords, not just the albums and folders.

Can'tyou use an external drive to create copies of your Photos Library to create split versions?

You will need an external drive anyway to keep a copy of your original library before you split it. It is easy to make a mistake when deleing large quantities of photos from a library - better safe than sorry.

I would create smart albums, based on a date range, to select the photos to keep and the photos to be deleted.

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Answer 2

simon1973 Author

Level 1

5 points

Feb 26, 2023 10:56 AM in response to simon1973

Copying the large photos file (526GB) and then deleting folders from the duplicate file is not really a good option, simply because it is so big that I cannot copy it within my 1TB HDD on my Mac. It did not work to repair the file when I had it on an external SSD so I transferred it back to my Mac SSD to repair it. And now I would like to move the pictures bit by bit to different files... help would be highly appreciated as I have invested a lot of night shifts in sorting the pictures into Albums - covering the timeframe from my own childhood til today... incl. all pics of my kids and family etc...

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Answer 3

simon1973 Author

Level 1

5 points

Feb 27, 2023 10:11 AM in response to léonie

thanks, léonie. Is there an option to delete an Album and the pictures that are within that album along with it? Otherwise, I might consider Old Toad´s solution. I have used a couple of programs to delete duplicates in the past, but none of the programs managed to export albums with meta data to a new library.

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Answer 4

léonie

Level 10

195,135 points

Feb 27, 2023 10:32 AM in response to simon1973

To delete an album plus the photos in it, you would have to select all photos in the album with ⌘A, then delete them with ⌘⌫ and then delete the album.

OT's suggestion to use PowerPhotos will work very well, I am using PowerPhotos regularly to merge albums from my current library into my archive library on an external drive. But you need the full, paid version of PowerPhotos, it is a great helper app for Photos users. And you need the new PowerPhotos 2,if you are using iCloud Photos.

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Answer 5

Old Toad

Level 10

207,787 points

Feb 26, 2023 3:01 PM in response to simon1973

The paid version of PowerPhotos can copy an album of photos from one library to another along with the edited and original versions, metadata, etc. It can also merge one library into another.

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Transfering photos BY ALBUM from one photos file to another

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