Migrating old iPhoto library to Photos?

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Level 1

4 points

Migrating old iPhoto library to Photos?

I have a MacBook Pro 2021 (running Sonoma 14.3). I have been going through my external harddrives to recover old photos, and I have found a few backups of old iPhoto libraries.

When I click them, I get a popup stating that "The library (...) is not supported and it can be opened with macOS Monterey (version 12) or earlier. Alternatively you can use Library import add photos from one library to another."

As stated, I have macOS 14.3, so I cannot open with Monterey. When I try to import them in Photos, they're greyed out, so that is not an option either.

What to do, hope someone out there can help me.

MacBook Pro 15″, macOS 10.12

Posted on Feb 20, 2024 11:43 AM

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Answer 1

léonie

Level 10

202,245 points

Feb 21, 2024 6:11 AM in response to bjarkebrint

Have you tried to copy one of the iPhoto Libraries to your Pictures folder? Perhaps the external drive, where the iPhoto Libraries are stored, is not compatible with Photos.

Once your iPhoto Library is on a compatible volume, you should be able to import the photos from it into a Photos Library by using the command "File > Import"; then select the iPhoto Library and click the button "check for import". After a while you should be seeing a window with two lists of photos, one with new photos and one with photos, that are duplicates of photos already in your library.

But Photos can only import from iPhoto Libraries from iPhoto version 8.x or iPhoto version 9.x . if the iPhoto version number starts with 7, the libraries willed to be prepared with the iPhoto Library upgrader tool, and this tool does no longer run on macOS Sonoma.

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Migrating old iPhoto library to Photos?

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