Migrating an old iPhoto Library

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Level 1

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Migrating an old iPhoto Library

Hello,

I have an iPhoto Library with a size of 1.1 Terabyte on my early 2009 iMac with OS X Yosemite and I'm currently trying to figure out what is the best way to migrate it.

I just bought a new MacMini M2 Pro and when I tried to open the iPhoto library with Photos I got an error message saying that the Library can only be opened with macOS Monterey (version 12) or earlier. So I had the idea of upgrading my old iMac from Mavericks to Yosemite, and then doing the migration to Photos there. The upgrade worked, but I'm now a bit reluctant to launch the migration for 3 reasons:

From what I understand, once I start the migration process, a Photos library will be created by default on the HD, but there is not enough space on the HD for 1.1 Terabyte of photos. Is there a way to create the photos library on a location of my choice ?
How long will it take my early 2009 iMac to perform this task ?
I'm also considering to switch to a 3d party software. I assume in this case migration must always be made manually ?

Posted on Apr 3, 2024 1:03 PM

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Answer 1

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léonie

Level 10

200,531 points

Apr 4, 2024 12:11 AM in response to TCVilabier

When you migrate an iPhoto Library with Photos 4, the new Photos Library will recreated in the same folder as the iPhoto library. You will not need twice the storage as identical image files in both libraries will share the storage by hard links. This will be a bit confusing, as the sizes of the new Photos Library and the old iPhoto Library shown in the Finder will be nearly identical, but they will be sharing the storage. The iPhoto Library will remain unchanged; only the name will be changed from "iPhoto Library.photolibrary" to "iPhoto Library.migratedphotolibrary". if something should go wrong you can repeat the migration after changing the filename extension from .migratedphotolibrary back to .photolibrary .

Be prepared to wait several days for the migration to be completed, for such a huge library. If you want to do the migration on an external drive, use one that has been prepared as described here: Move your Photos library to save space on your Mac - Apple Support

The external drive must not be a drive used for backups like Time Machine. The "ignore ownership on this volume" needs to be set, and the file system format should be APFS or MacOS Extended (Journaled).

While you still can use iPhoto on the for this library, you may want to check all videos in the library and all image files for items in a legacy format (this list is for iMovie, but will also help for Photos: https://web.archive.org/web/20240123090939/https://support.apple.com/en-us/102232). Such items need to be converted to a more compatible format, before you migrate the library to macOS 10.15 or later. Remove all audio files from the iPhoto library, all images in PDF format or images that are neither JPEG, TIFF, PNG, or HEIC, or a supported RAW format, videos that are neither H.264, HEVC, or Apple ProRes. Some older codecs or colour sync profiles are no longer supported and incompatible items can make the more recent versions of Photos hang, when Photos tries to upgrade the library.

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Answer 2

Yer_Man

Level 10

165,912 points

Apr 3, 2024 3:38 PM in response to TCVilabier

I'm not sure but I believe that it will ask you to choose a location. Sorry but it's a long time since I did it
How long is a piece of string? How much Ram? Don't forget as well as converting the library it also has to catalogue it. So for a library that size conversion could take a day or more, and weeks for the cataloguing.
NO not necessarily. I depends on what app you go to. Lightroom Classic has a migration path, and migrating ca b assisted by an app like https://cyme.io/avalanche-photo-conversion/

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Migrating an old iPhoto Library

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