My mac is almost full. And iPhoto is the culprit. I want to move my iphoto's library to an external hard drive and thus eliviate my macs. The drive that will lodge iphotos labrary will be connected to my mac via firewire.
Thanks in advance for your wisdom.
evf
MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.7.3)
No exporting - just move teh library -
Moving the iPhoto library is safe and simple - quit iPhoto and drag the iPhoto library 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
No exporting - just move teh library -
Moving the iPhoto library is safe and simple - quit iPhoto and drag the iPhoto library 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
LarryHN,
Thank you so much for your prompt response. Will do right away!
Sincerely,
evf
LarryHN
Thanks so much! Worked like a charm. One last Q. I asume this procedure applies as well for aperture's library?
Thanks again,
evf
No idea the Aperature forum is the best place for Aperature questions
But I do love Palya del Carmen - stayed a week at El Faro a few yeras ago - what a great place
LN
Ok will try at aperture. Yes it is beautiful down here. Can't complain.
Thanks so much!
evf
LarryHN,
When you say "drag the iPhoto library intact as a single entity to the external drive", do you mean drop and drag the iPhoto applications icon from the task bar, to the external? I tried that and the mouse icon turned into the cloud, as if to delete iPhoto. I am sorry for my very novices skills. Can you please help?
Thanks
J
When you say "drag the iPhoto library intact as a single entity to the external drive", do you mean drop and drag the iPhoto applications icon from the task bar, to the external? I tried that and the mouse icon turned into the cloud, as if to delete iPhoto. I am sorry for my very novices skills. Can you please help?
No - "drag the iPhoto library intact as a single entity to the external drive" does not mean "drop and drag the iPhoto applications icon from the task bar, to the external"
It means exactly what it says - drag the "iPhoto Library" to the external drive - by default your iPhoto library is in the pictures folder -- the only thing you do with the iPhoto application is to "depress the option key and launch iPhoto then use the "select library" option to point to the new location on the external drive "
LN
Thanks so much LN
Hello
Not sure if it can still help but the trick to press the 'ALT' key while opening iPhoto to select the library also works with Aperture too (version 3.4.3).
Best wishes
Thx for this post!
Thanks for this info. I have a question regarding this. When I drag the iphoto library file icon to my external hard drive, it starts copying and says it will take 5 hours to copy the library to the external drive. Is this normal? Your post did not say anything about copying the photos, but that 's what my mac does.
Is there a way to avoid this long copying process? (I have a ton of photos)
thanks,
bammill
Norman totally depends on the size of your iPhoto library, the speed of your computer, your hard drive and the connection you are using - 5 hours is not unusual - there is no "normal"
By default your photos are contained in the iPhoto library so dragging it to the EHD copies everything including your photos
LN
Larry,
My question was not about how long the photos take to copy, but that they must be copied at all.
You said, "Moving the iPhoto library is safe and simple - quit iPhoto and drag the iPhoto library intact as a single entity to the external drive ". What you failed to mention is that when you do that, the images must be copied to the EHD, which will take some time.
The phrase "iPhoto Library" includes the images. Like it also includes the thumbnails, previews, database files, caches and metadata files. Should they also be be named?
Unless you're running a Referenced Library - in which case you can't really move the Library without using Aperture or hacking the sql database.
I've moved the iPhoto library but now I want to remove the external hard drive and it will not let me eject it from the computer, stating it's still in use! Can I somehow eject it and only plug in when I want to access my photos or am I now stuck with having my EHD permanently attached to my computer?
Running iPhoto '08 on Snow Leopard.
Please help!!!
How to export iPhoto library to an external hard drive?
