Merging photo libraries
Is it possible to merge 2 existing photo libraries?
Mac mini, macOS 13.4
Is it possible to merge 2 existing photo libraries?
Mac mini, macOS 13.4
It will depend on what you want to preserve of the structure of the library (folders, albums) and the metadata.
You will get the best merge with Photos, if you merge the two libraries in iCloud Photos.
Make both libraries in turn your iCloud Photos Library to let them upload into iCloud, one after the other. iCloud will merge the two libraries, preserving the folders, albums, all photos and videos, with all metadata and adjustments, keeping the adjustments reversible, while skipping duplicate items.
Without iCloud Photos you can import the photos and videos directly from the smaller library into the larger library, but that will only import the media files, not the structure of the library, and the keywords will not be imported. This is supported in macOS 12 or later.
For more details see: Notes on Merging Photos Libraries, 2019 V… - Apple Community
If you own PowerPhotos, you can use PowerPhotos to merge libraries.
If you have a lot of organizational effort in the library to be merged PowerPhotos may be your best bet. Here's a comparison between the paid version of PowerPhotos and Photos regarding merging libraries:
PowerPhotos: Photos:
Albums*** -----------
Smart Albums (as regular albums)** -----------
Captions Captions
Titles Titles
Keywords* Keywords (some but not all in tests)
Original images Original images
Edited images Edited images
--------------- Locations
Favorites Favorites
Can detect and exclude Duplicates
duplicates upon import or not
Neither method could import/merge projects.
Both methods could import older iPhoto libraries into a Photos library when the iPhoto library couldn't be migrated into a Photos library.
*The Photos app only imported 84 keywords our of 97. PowerPhotos merged 147 keywords, some which apparently were in the images but not read by Photos at the time of import or keywords delete along with photos but not purged from the database.
**The original library had 90 Smart Albums. All were merged by PowerPhotos but, as indicated above, the Smart albums were brought over as regular albums. No album of any kind were imported by Photos.
The original library had 34 regular albums and 1 folder with some nested albums. PowerPhotos merger all of them successfully.
The original library had 72 videos. Photos imported only 57. PowerPhoto got all 72 in its merge.
Merging photo libraries