Want all of my iPhotos libraries combined to 1

I am trying to get my system down to 1 iPhotos library. I did a search and found 5 different ones on either my MacBook Pro or external drives. I was able to eliminate 2 that only had a few images in them. I believe I now have each of my devices set to use iCloud Photos. (MacBook Pro, iPad, iPhone). I am going to try to attach 3 screen shots to show each library, what is in each and where they are located. If my library is in iCloud, would I still see a file on my system called - "............. .photos library"? I appreciate any help you can give to me !!!

MacBook Pro 15″, macOS 10.15

Posted on Nov 20, 2023 5:32 PM

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Posted on Nov 21, 2023 1:27 AM

Is the system version given below your question still the system version you are currently using? MacBook Pro 15″, macOS 10.15?


I am asking, because you may want to upgrade to a more recent system version, if possible. On macOS 12 Monterey re later you can directly import photos from one library into another library, as described here: Import photos from another library in Photos on Mac – Apple Support (UK)

This will only import the photo and videos, not the albums or folders, however. So you should import the smaller libraries into the largest libraries, to preserve the structure of the largest library.


As you "believe" that all your photos are in iCloud, you could get the best, lossless merge by making all your Photos Libraries your iCloud Photos Library in turn. Only one library at a time can sync with iCloud. If you make a different library your iCloud Photos Library, this library will be merged into the existing iCloud Photos Library, avoiding duplicates, and the merged library will sync back to devices. This will give the best results, merging the albums, folders, keywords, faces as well, but it will take a lot of patience for large libraries.

If your system is still older than Monterey or you want to merge the libraries in iCloud, you may want to have a look at this user tip: Notes on Merging Photos Libraries - Apple Community



iCloud Photos does not remove your Photos Library from your Mac. You need al local library on all your devices as a handle to work with your photos and videos in iCloud. The iCloud Library will be mirrored on all your devices.

You can save some storage locally on your devices by turning on "Optimize Storage" for iCloud. Then not all original image files will be mirrored locally on your Mac, but this will make it harder to make backups of your photos. Time Machine can only backup items, that are stored locally on your Mac. I am avoiding the "Optimize" feature, because I want an easy and automatic backup of my photos and videos.




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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Nov 21, 2023 1:27 AM in response to lindafromphillipsburg

Is the system version given below your question still the system version you are currently using? MacBook Pro 15″, macOS 10.15?


I am asking, because you may want to upgrade to a more recent system version, if possible. On macOS 12 Monterey re later you can directly import photos from one library into another library, as described here: Import photos from another library in Photos on Mac – Apple Support (UK)

This will only import the photo and videos, not the albums or folders, however. So you should import the smaller libraries into the largest libraries, to preserve the structure of the largest library.


As you "believe" that all your photos are in iCloud, you could get the best, lossless merge by making all your Photos Libraries your iCloud Photos Library in turn. Only one library at a time can sync with iCloud. If you make a different library your iCloud Photos Library, this library will be merged into the existing iCloud Photos Library, avoiding duplicates, and the merged library will sync back to devices. This will give the best results, merging the albums, folders, keywords, faces as well, but it will take a lot of patience for large libraries.

If your system is still older than Monterey or you want to merge the libraries in iCloud, you may want to have a look at this user tip: Notes on Merging Photos Libraries - Apple Community



iCloud Photos does not remove your Photos Library from your Mac. You need al local library on all your devices as a handle to work with your photos and videos in iCloud. The iCloud Library will be mirrored on all your devices.

You can save some storage locally on your devices by turning on "Optimize Storage" for iCloud. Then not all original image files will be mirrored locally on your Mac, but this will make it harder to make backups of your photos. Time Machine can only backup items, that are stored locally on your Mac. I am avoiding the "Optimize" feature, because I want an easy and automatic backup of my photos and videos.




Nov 21, 2023 9:25 AM in response to lindafromphillipsburg

If you have a lot of organizational effort into those other libraries that you want to preserve, i.e. like albums, keywords, comments, etc., you might want to consider the paid heron of PowerPhotos. It can import albums, smart albums (as album) and folders whereas Photos can't. Here is a comparison between PowerPhotos and Photos in regards to what they can and can't import:


PowerPhotos: Photos:


Albums -----------

Smart Albums (as regular albums) -----------

Folders -----------

Captions Captions

Titles Titles

Original images Original images

Edited images Edited images

Locations Locations

Favorites Favorites

Can detect and exclude Duplicates detected after import

duplicates (or not) during import


Neither method included projects.


Both methods could import older iPhoto libraries into a Photos library when the iPhoto library couldn't be migrated into a Photos library.


Just some food for thought.





Nov 21, 2023 8:50 AM in response to léonie

I just purchased the MacBookPro I am working on now - attached is a screen shot of my system inf. Knowing this, what is my best way to combine them. It seems strange to me that the first 2 libraries are almost identical in #'s of images and seem to look pretty much the same. How could LRoom be putting all of them in 2 different libraries?? The third library is much smaller, so that would seem normal if I began a new one at some point and then didn't use it anymore. I keep trying to think back and I may have used "Consolidate" one time not really knowing what I was doing and could that have resulted in the first 2 libraries being pretty much the same?


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Want all of my iPhotos libraries combined to 1

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