How do I export and upload Photobooth videos and photos from an old iMac to iCloud?

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Level 1

6 points

How do I export and upload Photobooth videos and photos from an old iMac to iCloud?

We have a pretty old 2015 era iMac. My daughter, when she was much younger, made a lot of videos on Photobooth, unbeknownst to us. They are a wonderful record of her youthful exuberance, and we absolutely do not want to lose them. I have searched and searched and cannot find a specific answer to my conundrum. We are going to eventually get rid of this computer, and I have photos, documents etc automatically saved to iCloud already. But apparently photobooth does not save automatically. How can I do this? Do I export the photobooth videos to Photos or to a folder that I can then command iCloud to upload? Any assistance would be appreciated!

[Re-Titled by Moderator]

iMac 27″, macOS 12.7

Posted on Feb 15, 2025 3:58 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Richard.Taylor

Level 7

22,670 points

Feb 16, 2025 12:19 PM in response to szpowell

"automatically saved to iCloud" isn't very meaningful to me-- are you putting things in iCloud Drive? Are you using iCloud Photos? Do you have iCloud Drive on our 2015 Mac? I don't know much about Photo Booth, but I don't see an Export function. You can get to the pictures, though.

In the Pictures folder there is a package called Photo Booth Library. It's really just a folder that has a bit of extra protection, but it's pretty simple. If you right-click (or control-click or two-finger-click) on the package, you will bring up a sub-menu like this:

and you can open the package. (There is also a package called "Photos Library"-- don't open that! )

Inside the package I find a Pictures folder, and that seems to have all the pictures and videos. There is an Originals folder, but for me it's empty.

You can just copy the files from there to a folder in iCloud Drive. Or you can copy them a flash drive, for instance.

Does this do what you asked?

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Answer 2

r4lf

Level 3

502 points

Feb 16, 2025 12:28 PM in response to szpowell

On your 2015 era iMac, go to the User folder, then Pictures, and you will find the Photobooth.library file. You can move that to your newer Mac and open it in the Photos App. This will show the photos and you can move them around into iCloud.

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