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Need help moving photos to external drive

Hi, all--here's hoping one or more of you Aperture veterans can help.


Here's my situation: I'm not new to photography, but I'm new to Aperture. Just bought 3.3 and still getting to know what it can do. I'm an emigre from iPhoto, and one of the reasons I upgraded within Apple is that I was tired of the non-intuitive nature of PS Elements. I like to take pictures, not spend endless time in the dim glow of a screen digging through sub-menus for stuff, and from what I read, Aperture seemed more intuitive.


But now I've got a seemingly very basic problem that hours of poring over discussion threads and searching through the hundreds of pages of the manual has done little to address with any clarity:


How do I move (not just copy) older photos in projects to external drives, but in such a way that Aperture still keeps track of them, even when the drives are not connected? (The Aperture marketing I read/viewed clearly said Aperture could do this, and I'm running out of space on my MacBook Pro (15" from about 2008, running Lion) with lots of CF cards piling up.)


Info that may help:


-I need to move not just original (imported into iPhoto directly from the camera) photos, but also those I've adjusted in Elements, then re-exported into iPhoto (I would say "and now into Aperture," but as you know, there's no longer an import process b/w iPhoto and Aperture).


-I shoot mostly RAW.


-I have no idea whether the pictures are "Referenced" or "Managed" (for space reasons, I have yet to import any files directly into Aperture; all existing photos are from iPhoto, and if I was given an option when I set up Aperture, I don't now recall it).


-I have external drives with plenty of space to move older pix to (I also have multiple backups, including Time Machine, additional external hard drives, and DVDs)


Can somebody who knows how to do this safely please explain in clear language how to move photos as projects onto external hard drives so that Aperture keeps track of them via viewable thumbnails, even when the photo files themselves live on a hard drive that is not connected at the time?


Thanks in advance!

MacBook Pro (15-inch Early 2008), Mac OS X (10.7.4), Aperture 3.3.1

Posted on Aug 9, 2012 5:19 PM

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Question marked as Best reply

Posted on Aug 9, 2012 7:54 PM

First things first:


You can easily check if an image is managed or referenced by ctrl-clicking on an image version and selecting "Locate referenced files...". If Aperture says "No Referenced Files", your originals are managed by Aperture and stored within the library itself, otherwise it should show you the location of the original, and give you some options to verify the references and so on. I don't know which method is used when importing from iPhoto.


Now, here's something you need to ask yourself:


Does it make more sense for you to keep the library on your laptop and the originals on an external drive, or does it make more sense to move both the library and the originals to the external drives?


In the first case, you can open and look at the thumbnails, but there's not a whole lot else you can do with your images when the external drive is off line.


If you have vast amounts of originals, spread across multiple drives, it might make sense to keep the library on your laptop and connect whichever external drive you need at the time. However, it might also make more sense to split such a huge library into mutiple libraries, stored with their respective originals (which could be either managed or referenced).


In my case, it makes sense to keep multiple libraries, with managed originals, but your mileage may vary.


Here's a tip that might help you decide: A small library is quicker to navigate and work with than a huge one, although performance has improved vastly with later versions of Aperture.


Once you have decided on the appropriate organization, you can start moving things around (after you've created the appropriate backups):


  1. If your library contains all managed originals already, and you want to move the entire library off to the external drive:

    Simply drag and drop the library itself (using Finder) to the new location.

  2. If your library use referenced originals, and you want to keep it that way, or your library manages your originals, and you want to start using referenced originals:
    1. Select all your images
    2. Click on the File menu and select Relocate Originals...
    3. Locate the destination for your originals, and pay special attention to the "Subfolder Format" and "Name Format". I'd suggest choosing "Project Name" and "Original File Name" for the two.
    4. Click on Relocate Originals, and twiddle your thumbs while Aperure moves all your originals to the new location.
  3. If your library uses referenced originals, and you wish to let your library manage the originals:
    1. Select all your images
    2. Click on the File menu and select Consolidate Originals...
    3. Decide if you want to Copy or Move the originals into the library. If you're running out of space, it might be best to Move.
    4. Click Ok, and wait for the operation to complete.
    5. (Optional) If you wish to move your entire library to the external drive, drag and drop the library to the new location.


I hope that answers your question.


Message was edited by: KluZz (oops, premature submission)

17 replies
Question marked as Best reply

Aug 9, 2012 7:54 PM in response to Carbon-Based Life Form

First things first:


You can easily check if an image is managed or referenced by ctrl-clicking on an image version and selecting "Locate referenced files...". If Aperture says "No Referenced Files", your originals are managed by Aperture and stored within the library itself, otherwise it should show you the location of the original, and give you some options to verify the references and so on. I don't know which method is used when importing from iPhoto.


Now, here's something you need to ask yourself:


Does it make more sense for you to keep the library on your laptop and the originals on an external drive, or does it make more sense to move both the library and the originals to the external drives?


In the first case, you can open and look at the thumbnails, but there's not a whole lot else you can do with your images when the external drive is off line.


If you have vast amounts of originals, spread across multiple drives, it might make sense to keep the library on your laptop and connect whichever external drive you need at the time. However, it might also make more sense to split such a huge library into mutiple libraries, stored with their respective originals (which could be either managed or referenced).


In my case, it makes sense to keep multiple libraries, with managed originals, but your mileage may vary.


Here's a tip that might help you decide: A small library is quicker to navigate and work with than a huge one, although performance has improved vastly with later versions of Aperture.


Once you have decided on the appropriate organization, you can start moving things around (after you've created the appropriate backups):


  1. If your library contains all managed originals already, and you want to move the entire library off to the external drive:

    Simply drag and drop the library itself (using Finder) to the new location.

  2. If your library use referenced originals, and you want to keep it that way, or your library manages your originals, and you want to start using referenced originals:
    1. Select all your images
    2. Click on the File menu and select Relocate Originals...
    3. Locate the destination for your originals, and pay special attention to the "Subfolder Format" and "Name Format". I'd suggest choosing "Project Name" and "Original File Name" for the two.
    4. Click on Relocate Originals, and twiddle your thumbs while Aperure moves all your originals to the new location.
  3. If your library uses referenced originals, and you wish to let your library manage the originals:
    1. Select all your images
    2. Click on the File menu and select Consolidate Originals...
    3. Decide if you want to Copy or Move the originals into the library. If you're running out of space, it might be best to Move.
    4. Click Ok, and wait for the operation to complete.
    5. (Optional) If you wish to move your entire library to the external drive, drag and drop the library to the new location.


I hope that answers your question.


Message was edited by: KluZz (oops, premature submission)

Aug 10, 2012 12:54 PM in response to KluZz

Great--thanks, KluZz.


A clarification and a couple of followups:


(Aperture says "no referenced files" for the pix I spot-checked, so I'm guessing they're all currently managed.)


To clarify, all my images (thousands of RAW files) are currently on the internal drive (though of course there are backup copies on externals). I'm looking to move some, but not all (several years' worth of photos but not the most recent ones) to externals, because I don't generally need to work with these older ones very often.


For simplicity's sake (and for peace of mind), I'd like Aperture to keep track of where all my photos are, even if they're located on externals that are not attached at the time. Ideally, I'd like to also be able to preview any given photo (even if via low-grade jpegs) even if that photo is located on an external that is not attached at the time, in case I forget what year/project a particular image is in.


Does that mean I need to keep everything referenced, or will Aperture still be able to keep track of where particular photos are (which project, which detached drive) if they're managed?


For example, you mentioned that you use multiple libraries (presumably on different drives) with managed originals. So are you able to preview photos of photos in those libraries without knowing which drive they're on and attaching that drive?


Thanks for your help!

Aug 10, 2012 2:26 PM in response to Carbon-Based Life Form

Sounds like a mixture of referenced and managed originals is what you're looking for. Don't worry, its not an either/or situation: Simply relocate the originals you don't need quick access to.


Aperture creates previews for all versions, so even if you disconnect the drive that holds your originals, you'll be able to view low resolution versions. There's a tab in your Aperture preferences where you can change the preview resolution and you can turn on and off automatic preview generation.


Versions that reference external originals show a little icon in the lower right corner, by the way, and if the referenced original is unavailable, that icon shows a little yellow warning triangle. Thus it's very easy to spot the status of the referencing.


Managed originals are stored inside the library directory structure, so if you move the library around, the originals will necessarily have to follow along. If you use Show Package Contents on your library, you'll see a directory called "Masters" which is a big directory structure containing all of your originals, organized by the date and time on which they were imported. Some people have this strange notion that when an original is managed by Aperture, it dissappears irretrievably into a black hole, and you can never ever get to it again except through Aperture.


If you wish to know more about the innards of Aperture libraries, check out this article.


Personally, I have a large'ish raid permanently connected to my Mac Pro, so disconnected archives are a non-issue for me. I organize my work into various libraries, ranging from 0.5GB to about 500GB, and all originals are managed by Aperture.

Aug 10, 2012 2:29 PM in response to Carbon-Based Life Form

Use one library on your internal drive. Use smart filters to gather up all the images you want to move off the internal to the external drive. The smart filter can find by rating or date or whatever criterion you choose.


Once all the image you want to move are in one place select them all and do File->Relocate originals....


Here you'll be able to choose the external drive you want to move the originals to and the file structure you want to set up to store them in.


Once this is done if the external drive is off line Aperture will still be able to show you the previews of these images. You wont be able to do any adjustments or export them for sharing but you will be able to do things like add ratings and other metadata,


If you need to get the image to export or adjust just put the drive back on-line and Aperture will find it.


regards

Aug 10, 2012 3:10 PM in response to Carbon-Based Life Form

The photos (originals) moved to the external drive will be referenced. The ones not moved and still in the Aperture library are managed.


KilZz's suggestion of creating a new library and playing around with it to get a feel for all this is a good one.


Also before doing any of this make sure you have a good working backup of your library. Nothing written here will cause problems but it's always better to be safe.


regards.

Aug 11, 2012 7:22 AM in response to Frank Caggiano

Frank, thank you--somehow I'm missing some crucial step.


I've got everything I want to move selected (just selecting a big group of projects within the library), but "Relocate originals" is grayed out.


What am I missing?


When you say "all in one place," do you mean create a new folder? Tried that, but for some reason it won't let me drag and drop a project into a sample folder I created.


Neither will it let me export the project except as a new library, which doesn't seem necessary as I read over your recommendation.


I tried following your recommendation by setting a date range for a smart album, but it appeared to just slush all photos within that date range together, and I'm trying to keep them organized by project.


I feel like I'm really close but missing one tiny thing that will finally solve this for me.


Help!

Aug 11, 2012 7:37 AM in response to Carbon-Based Life Form

In order to relocate originals individual images must be selected, you don;t relocate projects which is why the option is grayed out in your case.


But...


The organization of the images into projects is a function of the library. Where the originals that make up the library are stored doesn;t matter. So when you relocate the originals to the external disk you're library will still have the same structure and the images will still be in the projects they are in now.


The all in one pace reference was to a smart album that selects the images you want to relocate. In one of your earlier posts you mentioned wanting to move older images off the internal drive to the external so I suggested a smart album based on date to get all these old images in one place to make it easier to select them.


So you relocate the individual originals which will move them off your internal drive to the external but to the library it won't matter where they are stored your library structure (projects and albums and such) will still look and work the same way.


regards

Aug 11, 2012 8:31 AM in response to Carbon-Based Life Form

When you create a Smart Album or other means to collect photos and move them from Managed to Referenced, they will appear 'slushed together' in the Browser but you can refine settings in the 'Relocate Originals' stage to observe a folder/directory/naming convention. You can also preserve the original image filenames or you can customize them, too.


A typical choice (which you can customize and save) might be a 'year' folder with a 'project name' folder inside it. (Note that this might split projects into 1990/Birthday, 1988/Birthday, etc., but you can develop your own model.)

Aug 11, 2012 12:12 PM in response to Frank Caggiano

Thanks for sticking with me on this, Frank.


I followed your directions, creating a smart album of all the photos I need to move to an external, then selecting and relocating the originals to the external. It just completed the relocation, and the files appear to be on the external, but:


I just checked the internal hard drive. It somehow now has slightly LESS available memory than before I did the relocation. And as you mentioned, the whole point of this whole thing is to create available space on the internal hard drive.


Does "relocating" not mean actually relocating?


Do I now need to delete these files from the internal drive? What am I missing here?


Thanks again.

Aug 11, 2012 12:41 PM in response to Carbon-Based Life Form

User uploaded file

Check, if you really relocated the originals to the external volume. After relocating the thumbnail should be marked with an arrow badge.

To check the new location of the original files select one of the originals in the browser and from the main menu bar use the command "File > Show in Finder". This should reveal a folder on your external volume, if the relocation has been successful. But if the menu option is greyed out, your originals are still in the Aperture library, and you maybe have used "consolidate originals" instead, or something similar.

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