iPhoto vs Photos storage

spaghetti2520 wrote:

I'm trying to clean up some storage space on my Mac. I'm looking at my storage and this is what it's showing.

https://discussions.apple.com/content/attachment/add8fb92-2bf9-432a-b90f-94cc66fe3d21

So if I delete the iPhoto app and it's contents will I free up that memory and not lose all my pics? How do I make sure all the pics are in Photos?

Thanks

Where is your Photos Library located? If the Photos Library is located in the same folder as the iPhoto library then if you delete the iPhoto library you won't gain any significant additional free space. That's because the original image files in each library share the same space on the drive via symbolic links. However, you won't lose any of your photos if you delete the iPhoto library.

Which system version do you have installed? iPhoto does no longer run on macOS 10.15 or later. If you are having a system version installed, that no longer supports iPhoto you can delete the app. The iPhoto.app is huge, roughly 1.7GB, and it is worth to reclaim this storage, if you can no longer use iPhoto.

The photos have been stored by the iPhoto.app, not in the app. Deleting the app will not delete your iPhoto Libraries, but give you 1.7GB back. To see your photos, you have to check the iPhoto Library.

Which system version is installed on your Mac?

If you are running macOS 12 or macOS 13, you can easily compare the iPhoto Library to your Photos Library by importing the iPhoto Library into your current Photos Library. When you use the command "File > Import" in Photos and select an iPhoto Library for import, Photos will show you in the Import dialog in the action "New", which photos are not yet in your Photos Library. However, it will take a very long time, if the library is large and may not work at all, if your system is running out of storage. And you do not need to go through with the import - just use it to compare the two libraries and identify missing photos.

I would simply move the iPhoto Library to an external drive, to free some storage and then try to import the moved library. Photos, that are in both libraries will use the storage only once, because Photos is saving storage for identical photos by using hard links, as OT pointed out. This is explained here: Six Colors: The (hard) link between Photos and iPhoto or in Apples support document: Photos saves disk space by sharing images with your iPhoto or Aperture libraries

Better be safe than sorry. If the migration has been done long ago, we have to check, if we still have all migrated photos. The extension .migratedphotolibrary is only telling us, that we once have opened the Library in Photos, but not, what has happened to the new Photos Library since then, if we have kept the resulting Photos Library and all migrated photos. If we do not remember clearly, what we have done with the resulting Photos Library, we have to compare the old iPhoto Library to our current Photos Libraries to be sure, if we are still having all photos from the iPhoto Library inquisition, that are important to us.

Please see this thread: What is a migrated photo library? - Apple Community

Seems you have already migrated so not much more to do.

Deleting the app will not delete the photo library. There’s no point in deleting the app at this time.

The iPhoto library was last accessed 8 years ago.