Q: How to move photos to external hard drive?

You do not - you move the entire library - Moving the iPhoto library is safe and simple - quit iPhoto and drag it intact as a single entity to the external drive - depress the option key and launch iPhoto using the "select library" option to point to the new location on the external drive - fully test it and then trash the old library on the internal drive (test one more time prior to emptying the trash)

And be sure that the External drive is formatted Mac OS extended (journaled) (iPhoto does not work with drives with other formats) and that it is always available prior to launching iPhoto

And backup soon and often - having your iPhoto library on an external drive is not a backup and if you are using Time Machine you need to check and be sure that TM is backing up your external drive

LN

I am having the same issue. I have 500GB of pictures and am out of HD space. I bought an external drive and would like to have my library default to the external. The previous reply was very good, but I am unclear on exactly what I am moving to the external drive. Am I just Copying the library to the external? When I connect my camera in the future will it be saving the files to the external drive?

I very much appreciate any help.

Make sure the drive is formatted Mac OS Extended (Journaled)

1. Quit iPhoto

2. Copy the *iPhoto Library* from your Pictures Folder to the External Disk.

3. Hold down the option (or alt) key while launching iPhoto. From the resulting menu select 'Choose Library' and navigate to the new location. From that point on this will be the default location of your library.

From this point on, when you import pics to the Library they will be sent to the Library on the external.

4. Test the library and when you're sure all is well, trash the one on your internal HD to free up space.

Regards

TD

I am unclear on exactly what I am moving to the external drive. Am I just Copying the library to the external?

Yes - the pronoun "it" refers to the previous noun "iPhoto Library"

Moving the iPhoto library is safe and simple - quit iPhoto and drag it intact as a single entity to the external drive

When I connect my camera in the future will it be saving the files to the external drive?

Yes - if you have followed the instructions and

depress the option key and launch iPhoto using the "select library" option to point to the new location on the external drive

LN

Thanks for the help, LN. I'm new to the Mac world and just did not want to do anything to screw up my pictures. I had to do something - everything was really slowing down and I was out of room anyway.

Thanks TD. How do I determine if the Drive is OS Extended? It is a WD My Book for MAC.

Select the Drive in the Finder and go File -> Get Info:


Regards

TDg

You MUST have a minimum of 10 GB of disk space on your boot drive for the OS to work - plus some applications need more - a good rule of thumb is to keep 20% to 25% of the drive free

LN

Excellent! Thank you very much. Looks as if I am all set. Really appreciate the help today. Now I guess I have to get back to some real work.

this thread is actually what I need. my iphoto is so full and it was so much easier on our old pc to just drag and drop photo folders onto the external hard drive. arg.

we bought a Seagate Expansion external drive to export all our photos to. but it's not "formatted Mac OS extended (journaled)," whatever that means - it is Windows NT File System (NTFS). so can i reformat the Seagate or do we need to buy something that already works w/a mac??

furthermore, i don't understand how you would "

2. Copy the iPhoto Library from your Pictures Folder to the External Disk.

3. Hold down the option (or alt) key while launching iPhoto. From the resulting menu select 'Choose Library' and navigate to the new location. From that point on this will be the default location of your library.

"

can you still help me?

EKB

so can i reformat the Seagate or do we need to buy something that already works w/a mac??

You can reformat the drive with Disk Utility in your Mac.

2. Copy the iPhoto Library from your Pictures Folder to the External Disk.

Drag the Library icon in your Pictures Folder to the external

3. Hold down the option (or alt) key while launching iPhoto. From the resulting menu select 'Choose Library' and navigate to the new location.

I don't know what to say except

a: Hold down the option (or alt) key while launching iPhoto - as in, hold the option (or alt) key and click on iPhoto in the Dock.

this will give you a menu to choose your Library:

b: via that menu, point iPhoto at the Library you moved to the external.

Regards

TD

Hello
Will reformatting my external hard drive alter any of the pics ,folders etc already there?
Also, a less important question- how can I rename my external hd (at the moment it refuses to be anything but 'Untitled')

many thanks

Will reformatting my external hard drive alter any of the pics ,folders etc already there?

It will erase them so *back up before reformatting*

how can I rename my external hd (at the moment it refuses to be anything but 'Untitled')

You can do this in Disk Utility when you reformat the drive

Regards

TD

many thanks- thank goodness I asked first!