MacBook Air won't allow me to copy from ecternal drive to Photo library

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Level 1

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MacBook Air won't allow me to copy from ecternal drive to Photo library

Aloha everyone, I appreciate in advance any help that can be provided.

Historically, I've always used an external hard drive to move my photos library from the old mac to the new mac (my photo library is ~300gb). I recall it being as simple as copying it over and then opening. Late last year, i purchased a new m3 air. my old macbook pro is running the same os version as the new air. i copy photos onto an external hard drive and connect to the air. I delete the photo library file on the new air, which in theory is empty because i've never used it. it starts copying and about 75% through, the copying stops and i receive a message saying "the operation can't be completed because an item with the name "photos library" already exists." apparently the photos library "auto creates" after some amount of time not existing. Has this happened to anyone? Surely I'm not the only one, but I can't seem to find another instance of this.

I'd love to know how Apple wants us to transfer photos libraries from one mac to another. THANKS!

[Re-Titled By Moderator]

Posted on Mar 10, 2025 12:27 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

léonie

Level 10

201,807 points

Mar 10, 2025 2:16 AM in response to cayresc

As a work-around: You could try to rename the library on the external drive to "Photos Library External.photoslibrary", before you try to copy it to the internal drive. That should take care of the "Already Exists" error.

Also, restart the Mac, before you try to copy, to quit all background processes that might be using the Photos Library. Do not start any other app at all, that might try to access your Photos Library, before you try to delete the empty internal Photos Library. Some apps are using the Photos.app for simple image editing and are creating temporary Photos Libraries, if no library exists.

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Answer 2

cayresc Author

Level 1

4 points

Mar 10, 2025 1:50 PM in response to léonie

Thanks, i'll try it today. Yes, it crossed my mind that the library reappears because the OS needs to reference it. Yesterday, I renamed the air's library with a "2" at the end so that it wouldn't think i was trying to copy it. it didn't work.

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