How best to reduce iPhoto Library size?

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Level 1

8 points

How best to reduce iPhoto Library size?

1. Can I delete big HD movie files from iPhoto (that were uploaded from camera) after I have run iMovie so they are now iMovie Events, without any subsequent impact (ie, deletion of) my iMovie Events?

2. How can I find out size of iPhoto Books to see if it's worth moving them (and all those photos) to a second Library on an external drive?

I have 100GB in 15K photos & 227 movies, but Finder says iPhoto Library is 134GB. That implies that the Book Projects are big and self-contained rather than pointers, but I think I read somewhere that if I just move photos from this Library to a second Library, it will "break" the books still left on the first Library?

A search found an old link to Old Toad's application note about duplicating/moving Libraries on web.mac.com but that's no longer available. Is there a new link?

Thanks.

iPhoto '11, Mac OS X (10.6.8), iMac 500GB and external 1TB HD

Posted on Jan 30, 2012 1:27 PM

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Answer 1

Best reply

Yer_Man

Level 10

162,402 points

Jan 30, 2012 1:37 PM in response to bobinma

1. Can I delete big HD movie files from iPhoto (that were uploaded from camera) after I have run iMovie so they are now iMovie Events, without any subsequent impact (ie, deletion of) my iMovie Events?

You really need to ask that on the iMovie forum. It's very possible that it just links to the material stored in iPhoto.

2. How can I find out size of iPhoto Books to see if it's worth moving them (and all those photos) to a second Library on an external drive?

Book projects are not large. They are entries in the database only. They take up negligible amounts of space.

There is no way to move a book from one Library to another.

I have 100GB in 15K photos & 227 movies, but Finder says iPhoto Library is 134GB.

The iPhoto Window reports the nominal size of a folder if you exported everything from iPhoto at the Current setting.

The Finder reports the size of the Library Installation. This includes: Original shots, Preview of Edited shots, thumbnails, database files, cache files and so on. All of these are required for iPhoto to work. There is no material in the Library that can be deleted.

If space is an issue you can run a Library from an external disk:

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.

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

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Answer 2

bobinma Author

Level 1

8 points

Jan 30, 2012 2:04 PM in response to Yer_Man

Thanks for quick reply. I will ask in iMovie forum. I made that assumption after a few trial deletions that didn't seem to affect iMovie Events, but now I see that other deletions did make the Events disappear.

Thanks for clarity about Book sizes and not moving them, and about the different size measurements.

So my choice seems to be use the external disk for all iPhoto work, keeping it together, or creating a second library there for future work, but NOT trying to 'archive' older portions of the current library to the external disk. Either way I'll need to add the external drive to Time Machine backups.

Again, thanks.

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Answer 3

bobinma Author

Level 1

8 points

Jan 30, 2012 2:16 PM in response to bobinma

ok, just to close this out, I did find this old answer in iMovie forum:

"iMovie does not make a duplicate copy. It refers to the copy in iPhoto. If you delete the movie in iPhoto, it will be deleted in iMovie, too."

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Answer 4

Old Toad

Level 10

207,751 points

Jan 30, 2012 8:02 PM in response to bobinma

But you can copy them out of the iPhoto library and into your Movies folder. Then delete them from the library. iMovie may have to rescan your Movies folder to reimport them.

That will reduce the library size but not the amount of space taken up on the hard drive.

OT

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