How to merge all iPhoto Libraries without losing ALBUMS

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Level 1

15 points

How to merge all iPhoto Libraries without losing ALBUMS

😕 I want to merge all my photos into just one iPhoto Library and put it on my external hard drive without losing the Albums I've created. I have several iPhoto Libraries in various locations (iMac, MacBook, and iOmega external drive). Although I've been a Mac user for 4 years now, I've never figured out iPhoto. I don't like the "Events" so I make Albums for everything. I thought there was a 3rd party application that would do this which I thought I'd downloaded at one point but now I can't figure out what it is or if I have it. I do see that I have iPhoto Library Manager, but it sure isn't intuitive and there's nothing there that screams out a way to do what I need to do.

HELP!

macbook, Mac OS X (10.5.2)

Posted on Jun 12, 2012 4:06 PM

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Answer 1

Old Toad

Level 10

207,751 points

Jun 12, 2012 4:49 PM in response to ascotsgranny

iPhoto Library Manager is the only application available that can merge libraries and keep albums as well as keywords, comments, places and other meta data. Keepsakes like books and slideshows will come across as albums.

The following is from the iPLM help file:

What can and can't be copied

Due to technical limitations with iPhoto, not every type of item in an iPhoto library can be copied to another library. The table below summarized what can and can't be copied in each version of iPhoto, with more details explanations of each item below. This applies to copying albums and events between libraries via drag and drop, merging libraries, and rebuilding a library.

	iPhoto 6 or earlier	iPhoto 7	iPhoto 8	iPhoto 9
Photos with basic metadata (rating, keywords, date, description, title)	Unsupported	Yes	Yes	Yes
Modified versions of photos paired with originals	Unsupported	Yes	Yes	Yes
Individual photo edits (e.g. cropping, filters, color adjustments, etc.)	Unsupported	No	Yes	Yes
Places data	Unsupported	n/a	Yes	Yes
Faces data	Unsupported	n/a	Yes	Yes
Regular albums	Unsupported	Yes	Yes	Yes
Folder albums	Unsupported	Yes	Yes	Yes
Smart albums	Unsupported	Yes	Yes	Yes
Events	Unsupported	Yes	Yes	Yes
Keepsake items (books, slideshows, etc.)	Unsupported	No	No	No
MobileMe galleries	Unsupported	iPhoto auto-syncs	iPhoto auto-syncs	iPhoto auto-syncs
Facebook/Flickr galleries	Unsupported	n/a	No	iPhoto auto-syncs

OT

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