Have downloaded camera to photos library then trying to copy "Photos Library" to one of three externals and neither one will take the download. I keep getting this pop up. The down load all ways stop before completion.
[Re-Titled by Moderator]
Original Title: Photos Library
Mac mini, macOS 26.3
It looks like there's already one there. Did you try Keep Both? or Replace?
You can change the name, to "Photos Library 2.photoslibrary" maybe, of either one, and it should work.
It says it will take an hour to move a 500GB Library-- are you sure the drive is OK? Does it have room for this?
It looks like there's already one there. Did you try Keep Both? or Replace?
You can change the name, to "Photos Library 2.photoslibrary" maybe, of either one, and it should work.
It says it will take an hour to move a 500GB Library-- are you sure the drive is OK? Does it have room for this?
One external is 4 TB the other two are 2TB and plenty of room on both. On the 4TB I tried all three options and erased the SSD twice no luck. The other two externals I tried Replace and Keep Both no luck. Late last night I tried a 2TB and on the pop up I did not select any of the three options and the "PHOTOS LIBRARY" down loaded completely all 518 +GB's.
As far as the drives being ok I can move anything else and the drive accepts with no problem.
thanks for your help.
jms54 wrote: …I did not select any of the three options and the "PHOTOS LIBRARY" down loaded completely all 518 +GB's.
That's quite weird!
And that's a big Library. It might be worthwhile to divide it up. I have a Favorites Library, a Wife's Family Library, My Family Library, Work Library, and so on. Favorites has the best of them. I have a lot of pictures that I don't need to see or share with my phone.
I think the downside of a large library is mostly time. Photos spends a good bit of time scanning the entire Library to record details that will make searches quicker. So searches work fine, but when something changes there can be delays and slowdowns as it re-scans. Photos checks new imports for duplicates, and that can become cumbersome. Also, I spend some time adding keywords and captions and titles, but I really only do that for my Favorites, since doing it for the whole pile of pictures would wear me out. Just thinking…
jms54 wrote: … Are you talking abut have two Photo Library's hence the splitting?
Exactly. Unlike iDevices, Macs can have multiple Libraries. You can just double click on the one you want to see or work on. Pictures from my Nikon go into a Nikon Z.photoslibrary where I edit and rate them. 85% are either failures or just less quality version of the ones I pick as favorites. Then I copy those to a Favorties.photoslibrary that is my System Library-- the one that connects to iCloud Photos and my phone and iPad.
Those of us who use multiple Libraries use the trusted 3rd party app PowerPhotos ($40) to make keeping up with them easy. PowerPhotos conveniently lists your Libraries so you can quickly switch between them, maybe viewing one while working on the other. It lets you do a search through all the Libraries together, copy stuff back and forth while maintaining folder and album organization, batch edit metadata, show list views of albums and Libraries, and all that kind of stuff. When I'm working on Photos, I always have PowerPhotos open.
I have quite a few Smart Albums and each is labeled by year and place visited (National Parks, East Coast Foliage, Birthday Parties, Reunion etc.) My keywords are for each SA. Are you talking abut have two Photo Library's hence the splitting?
I am currently copying "PHOTOS LIBRARY" from one external to the other two one at a time.
Thanks
Can't copy my Photos Library to an external drive on Mac
