iPhoto Event Albums - can they be deleted, without losing original photos?

The only albums that you cannot delete without losing photos will be the Shared Albums, as Shared Albums are storing copies of the photos, optimized for sharing.

You can delete the standard albums and smart albums without deleting the photos, as Richard explained. Perhaps you are hesitating because of the name "Events". In good old iPhoto we could not delete events without deleting the photos from the library. But Photos is just faking the Events as albums.

First, make a backup.

Deleting a picture from an album doesn't remove it from the Library. Picture aren't in albums--albums are just lists of pictures to see together. Deleting the list doesn't delete the pictures.

Deleting an album permanently removes the album, but the pictures that were in it remain in the Library. Deleting a Folder permanently removes all the albums inside the folder, but the pictures remain in the Library. So, deleting the iPhoto Events Folder would remove all those albums but not hurt the pictures.

I still have my iPhoto Events

I wonder why I keep them-- sentimental reasons? They're all in other albums, as well. But all the iPhoto Events albums are in the folder iPhoto Events, and that is usually closed, so I don't really notice them

down there at the bottom of everything, and they don't take up any room. Almost all of my albums are in folders-- like albums inside month folders inside year folders inside decade folders-- so all those albums fit on the screen. There are also folders for Smart Albums (used for checking and organizing) and there are folders for albums not about years. Getting rid of a few albums wouldn't simplify my list by much at all.

But-- be sure to make a backup.

O yes, in iPhoto (and Aperture) we could structure the library. If I remember correctly, the first versions of iPhoto had the "film rolls" as the basic container for the photos in the library. And the film rolls got renamed to "events" in iPhoto and "projects" in Aperture. If we wanted to have the same photo in two events, we had to duplicate it.

I am glad that Photos is now doing the job for us and automatically structuring the library into Days, Months, and Years. It s saving a lot of work. The Days seem to correspond to the iPhoto Events. Only, we can no longer move photos between Days.

léonie wrote: … In good old iPhoto we could not delete events without deleting the photos from the library.

Oh. I didn't remember that!