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chewsa Author

Level 1

0 points

iPhoto onto External Hard drive

I am trying to be able to completely remove iPhoto from my internal hard drive and move it to my external hard drive. I have over 8000 and have no plan on stopping soon 😉

I want to be able to open iPhoto from my external hard drive and see my sorted folders I have already created while it was in my internal hard drive.

I have backed up my iPhotos by copying my iPhoto library to the hard drive, but this does not allow me to actually use iPhoto once it is on the hard drive and/or see the photos as they are saved as a mass amount of unnamed .jpg files and I can never find what I need.

I have read that you copy pictures file to external hard drive then hold options key to select iPhoto to use, but I do not have the iPhoto logo anywhere but in my applicatons folder and not in my pictures file. Am I doing this wrong?

Please help, computer is really starting to run slow!

MacBook, Mac OS X (10.4.8)

Posted on Oct 10, 2010 8:50 PM

77 replies

Yer_Man

Level 10

163,872 points

Feb 8, 2011 3:37 PM in response to IslandGirl811

You don't delete the pics from the Library on your Internal HD. You delete the entire Library. As in go to your Pictures Folder and find the iPhoto Library there and put that in the trash.

You'll need to empty the trash to see the disk space increase.

oh... and by deleting the pix off my hard drive but hosting them in iphoto on my external does that effect which pix are available from mobileme (like in the gallery) and on my ipad, or does it just pull them from the hard drive when connected?

It won't make a difference.

*But don't launch iPhoto without that disk connected.* If you do, iPhoto - unable to find the library - will create a new, empty one.

Regards

TD

Feb 8, 2011 4:08 PM in response to Yer_Man

I was trying to quote someones post on this thread where they advised to delete the pix this way. why i chose this way is because someone else asked about keeping a portion of iphoto lib on the internal, so when you dont have ehd connected you have pix to work with.... i thought they advised to delete them individually from internal but in batches smaller than 100..... do you have any idea where the pix would have gone? i dont see how move to trash would remove them from internal library but not put them in trash??? weird. well... so you think it is all or nothing with taking all the pix off my internal?

Whats the difference between the trash bin at the doc and the drop down menu option empty iphoto trash? Is there an iphoto trash? if so, where do you see its contents and how would i retrieve anything i put in there, presuming I havent yet emptied it?

I am also creating some of this space on my internal hd so i can upgrade to snowleopard -- this wont effect everything im doing negatively in regards to iphoto on my ehd???

Message was edited by: IslandGirl811

Yer_Man

Level 10

163,872 points

Feb 8, 2011 11:05 PM in response to IslandGirl811

why i chose this way is because someone else asked about keeping a portion of iphoto lib on the internal,

If you don't tell us that we have no way of knowing.

What trash did you use? The one in iPhoto? Or the one on the Dock?

In iPhoto you need to use the iPhoto trash. It's on the left hand pane.

Regards

TD

May 25, 2011 5:48 PM in response to LarryHN

Hi LarryHN

Can you help me pls? I tried following the steps you recommended to move iphotos to an external drive (in this discussion thread) but made an error. I dragged the iphoto library to external hard drive, depressed option key, was asked to select a library option and was unable to select iphoto on external hard drive so created a new library thinking that iphotos would be placed there. I now have no photos on my internal or external hard drive.

1. what should i have chosen for the library option?

2. where do you suggest i look for the photos/ iphoto library? the pics must still be available as my internal hard drive has no additional space and I didn't trash anything. I did a back-up of important pics but not everything so I would like to find them again.

On another point, as you seem knowledgeable...why does iphoto sometimes place images into the iphoto library and at other times put them under Pictures? This has confused me as I do not know how to organise the images. Can I delete Modifieds? Are they just duplicates of Originals? I have searched for help with this but not come up with an answer.

I would appreciate any advice that might improve my day!

ross207

Level 1

5 points

Nov 22, 2011 6:19 PM in response to chewsa

I have the same problem - thousands of photos that I dont want cluttering up my hard drive. I want to store them on my Mac Mini Server, and access them from any Mac laptop.

I have a number of external drives on my Server, and I want the server iPhoto app to point to one of those drives. Anyone know where the file location setting is in iPhoto?

Ross

Yer_Man

Level 10

163,872 points

Nov 22, 2011 10:58 PM in response to ross207

Hold down the option (or alt) key key and launch iPhoto. From the resulting menu select 'Choose Library'

I want to store them on my Mac Mini Server, and access them from any Mac laptop.

A strong warning: If you're trying to edit the Library (that is, make albums, move photos around, keyword, make books or slideshows etc.) or edit individual photos in it via Wireless be very careful. Dropouts are a common fact of wireless networking, and should one occur while the app is writing to the database then your Library will be damaged. Simply, I would not do this with my Libraries.

ross207

Level 1

5 points

Nov 29, 2011 6:13 AM in response to Yer_Man

Thanks Terence. I would have thought iPhoto would have included the ability to point to multiple locations from within the app, but it seems it cannot. You have to chose where you are working before you start.

Re wifi, I'm not sure I agree with you about dropouts. The average photo is around 3Mb, and most servers will push files that size out all day long via wifi in any corporate environment. I don't see the difference between a word or excel file and a photo, unless you mean the library has inherent problem, in which case it's a software weakness not a wifi issue.

Yer_Man

Level 10

163,872 points

Nov 29, 2011 8:45 AM in response to ross207

For that kind of file management capability you need to look at Aperture. iPhoto is a $15 app. For that you get a lot, but not everything. As for the Wifi: you might want to re-read what I wrote. If there's a drop out - which do happen frequently with wi-fi - while the app is writing to the DB then the library will be corrupted. This can happen anytime the app is disturbed while writing to the DB - by crashes, for insatnce. The file size of the photos has nothing to do with it.

Regards

Dec 1, 2011 11:37 AM in response to chewsa

Hi All,

I tried to do the same thing and followed the instructions from your original post religiously. However, when I selected the iphoto library on the EHD (WD passport, formatted in Mac OS extended) as the new library, I got the message that it has to be upgraded - so I tried to upgrade and got the error message that the library is damaged and should be restored from a backup......

When I change everything back to the original library all is fine. Any ideas how to fix this?

Thanks

Yer_Man

Level 10

163,872 points

Dec 1, 2011 12:00 PM in response to Chatham17

Redo the copy to the external. Obviously it didn't go properly.

Regards

Dec 2, 2011 4:54 AM in response to chewsa

Done that twice - same results. Any other ideas?

Jan 2, 2012 4:40 PM in response to chewsa

Hi -- I've successfully transfered the iPhoto library to an EHD and am able to access it from the iPhoto app without any problem. However, my Events albums have lost their key photos and iPhoto won't let me create new ones -- I click on that option, choose the photo, apply, but there is still no key photo. Is this a result of corruption in the file(s) before or during transfer, or is there a logical explanation (and remedy) for this. I haven't yet deleted my original iPhoto library, but my IHD has less than a gig free, so I'm getting desperate.

Yer_Man

Level 10

163,872 points

Jan 3, 2012 12:35 AM in response to jonifromalexandria

Try trash the com.apple.iPhoto.plist file from the HD/Users/ Your Name / library / preferences folder.

(On 10.7: Hold the option (or alt) key while clicking on the Go menu in Finder to access the User Library)

(Remember you'll need to reset your User options afterwards. These include minor settings like the window colour and so on. Note: If you've moved your library you'll need to point iPhoto at it again.)

What's the plist file?

For new users: Every application on your Mac has an accompanying plist file. It records certain User choices. For instance, in your favourite Word Processor it remembers your choice of Default Font, on your Web Browser is remembers things like your choice of Home Page. It even recalls what windows you had open last if your app allows you to pick up from where you left off last. The iPhoto plist file remembers things like the location of the Library, your choice of background colour, whether you are running a Referenced or Managed Library, what preferences you have for autosplitting events and so on. Trashing the plist file forces the app to generate a new one on the next launch, and this restores things to the Factory Defaults. Hence, if you've changed any of these things you'll need to reset them. If you haven't, then no bother. Trashing the plist file is Mac troubleshooting 101.

but my IHD has less than a gig free, so I'm getting desperate.

You are beyond desperate.

OS X needs about 10 gigs of hard drive space for normal OS operations - things like virtual memory, temporary files and so on.

Without this space your Mac will slow down as the OS hunts for space on the disk, files will be fragmented, also slowing things down, apps will crash and the risk of data corruption - that is damage to your files, photos, music - increases exponentially.

Your first priority is to make more space on that HD.

Jan 5, 2012 3:07 PM in response to LarryHN

I too am trying to transfer my photo's to an external hard drive, and then I wish that when I load more photo's on i am taken straight to the iphoto in my external harddrive. The problem is when you say drag iphoto as a single enterty, I am assuming that you mean drag to iphoto icon from the bottom on my screen and drop it into "my Passport" which is my external hard drive, but when I do this all that happens is the icon goes up in a puff of smoke and the photo's are not transferred. what am I doing wrong. Please help 😟

LarryHN

Level 10

106,124 points

Jan 5, 2012 3:10 PM in response to pinkellice

pinkellice wrote:

I too am trying to transfer my photo's to an external hard drive, and then I wish that when I load more photo's on i am taken straight to the iphoto in my external harddrive. The problem is when you say drag iphoto as a single enterty, I am assuming that you mean drag to iphoto icon from the bottom on my screen and drop it into "my Passport" which is my external hard drive, but when I do this all that happens is the icon goes up in a puff of smoke and the photo's are not transferred. what am I doing wrong. Please help 😟

NO!

You simply quit iPhoto and drag the iPhoto library intact as a single entity to the external drive and then depress the option key and launch iPhoto use the select library option to select the new location - fully test your library and then delete the old one from the internal drive (i suggest testing one more time before emptying the trash)

You drag the iPhoto library (the icon in the DOCK is an alasis to te iPhoto application - you do nothing to either - only move the iPhoto library as stated)

iPhoto onto External Hard drive