Cannot copy iPhoto library from network drive to MacIntosh drive

You should move it to a different folder, when you start iPhoto you will need to select the iPhoto library by holding down the option key.

First off, try dragging the file to your desktop or somewhere other than your Photos folder to make sure that it's not trying to overwrite an existing file.

If that doesn't work, it's possible that the file is larger than 2GB and if your NAS is not formatted for the Mac it may have trouble copying.

Either way, right click (or control click) on the iPhoto Library and choose "Show Package Contents".

Create a new folder wherever you want on your computer called iPhoto Library Copy (you can name it anything you want).

Slowly drag the contents from inside the old iPhoto Library into the new folder you've created. Since it handles the files like a normal folder system, it should give errors on whatever may be corrupted, anything corrupted you can skip.

Once it's done copying, go to file--> get info, and go down to permissions, unlock it, then make sure you have read/write access to the files. Click the Cog and choose "Apply to Enclosed Items".

Once you've got everything copied locally, launch iPhoto with the Option key down, and choose to create a new iPhoto Library. Once a new one is created, quit iPhoto, show contents of the iPhoto library you just created, and drag copy your old contents into the new library.

Open iPhoto again and see how it does!

Zip it. Copy over the zip file. Unzip it.

Regards

TD

Hi Wizdom,

When you say "drag copy your old contents into the new library," what does this include? The "Masters" folder? Every folder and file?

Thanks,

Mark

If you had a similar issue as above, you would want to drag copy all of the folders and files.

Your main goal is to be creating a new iPhoto library that contains the same content as the old one, but circumvents any weird permissions or corruption issues.

So, yes, every file and folder you'd want to grab.

Hope that helps Mark!

- David

David,

I copied all the files from a previous iPhoto library to the new iPhoto library. The old iPhoto library was pretty big (~250 GB) and so it took most of the evening. With all of the old files copied into the new library, I double-clicked on the icon for the new iPhoto library. iPhoto launched, but I'm just seeing the spinning spokes/wheel. Also, the Library bar on the left shows "Photos (0)." Do you think it is just taking a while to load all ~25K photos, or could there be another problem here?

Thanks for your help,

Mark

Your library issue is probably different than the original poster's issue.

My guess is that you have corruption on your iPhoto library and/or your computer.

Make extra sure you have backups of your system and iPhoto library before going much further!

First I would check your system with Disk Utility (Applications-->Utilities), and choose "Verify Disk".

Second I would hold down Command, Option when you click on iPhoto, and try several of the first options in order until one of them works.

Good luck!

Ricky_Bobby wrote:

David,

I copied all the files from a previous iPhoto library to the new iPhoto library. The old iPhoto library was pretty big (~250 GB) and so it took most of the evening. With all of the old files copied into the new library, I double-clicked on the icon for the new iPhoto library. iPhoto launched, but I'm just seeing the spinning spokes/wheel. Also, the Library bar on the left shows "Photos (0)." Do you think it is just taking a while to load all ~25K photos, or could there be another problem here?

Thanks for your help,

Mark

Exactly what did you do? You can not move an iPhoto library by copying all the files - you have to drag it over as a single entity - no pieces - no files - the whole iPhoto library intact as a single entity

LN

My library issue is slow iPhoto performance. I have ~25K photos in my iPhoto library on a network drive in my basement. The iPhoto library is ~250 GB. I can get iPhoto to run from any computer in my house using my network drive, it's just slow and stalls frequently.

Here's my setup:

Computer: iMac 2 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo with 4 GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM

Network Drive: Western Digital My Book World Edition II 4 TB (supports HFS+ which I understand means it supports the Mac OS Extended (Journaled) file system)

Local FireWire Drive: WD My Book Studio II 2TB, HFS+, 2x FireWire 800 ports

I initially tried to drag my iPhoto library from the network drive to the local FireWire drive attached to my computer. It didn't work for the same reason BGMail (above) was unsuccessful: "The operation cannot be completed because an item with the name "iPhoto Library" already exists. I do have other iPhoto libraries on this drive, but they have different names. I don't have enough disk space on my computer to copy the iPhoto library to my Desktop.

So I followed the instructions above using the Show Package Contents approach and dragged all the individual files to a new iPhoto library created on my local FireWire drive. I successfully copied all the photos in the various folders, so I now have them locally as well as on the network drive. I just can't get iPhoto to open / recognize the photos stored on my local FireWire drive. I went through the 4 steps using Command-Option when launching iPhoto, but this didn't seem to have any effect.

I am now trying again to copy drag the iPhoto library from my network drive to the local FireWire drive. If it bombs out, I will check that I have current firmware on both drives and try again. After that, I don't know where to go. Thanks David / Wizdom and LarryHN for your advice and help.

Mark

LarryHN, David/Wizdom,

OK, I got it to work. There were no corruption or permission issues.

Initially, I was unable to drag and drop my 250 GB iPhoto file from the Western Digital network drive in my basement to my local WD FireWire drive on my computer. Turns out the WD network drive has a USB connection, as does the WD FireWire drive. So I moved the FireWire drive to the basement, attached it to the network drive, and then used Western Digital's "Copy Manager" to copy my iPhoto library file (as a single entity) from the NAS drive through the USB to the FireWire drive. It took 16 hours.

The resulting file structure looked like I had copied folders and files individually, even though I did not use the "Show Package Contents" command. I copied my iPhoto library file as a single entity, but all the contents appeared on the target drive with the subdirectories, files, etc. visible. After I launched iPhoto, using the Option key to select the new directory, the directory then looked like a regular iPhoto library icon (no contents visible).

I now have all my photos local to my computer and performance is much improved!

Thanks for your help,

Mark