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Level 1

6 points

moving iphoto to external hdd...and yes i searched

before i get bashed by everyone, i have searched the discussion forms for my particular issue and cannot find it anywhere.

like many of you, i want to move my iphoto library to an external library. i have 20k pictures in travel alone, and it's taking a toll on my small 500gb internal hard drive. i have read many people's posts on how to move the library, and i'm ok there, but i have another add-on question.

i see that many people use iphoto directly to import their photos onto their computer. i on the other hand use image capture, and copy them into folders in my pictures folder based on dates. for instance, christmas 2012 would have a root folder as pictures, followed by 2012, and the pictures would be contained in the folder 12-25-12 christmas. then, if i choose to add that folder to iphoto, i import the photos. however, many albums have photos from different cameras, thus, i took loads of time to reorder the pictures chronologically.

my question is this: if i move my library to an external, followed by all my pictures to that same external, will i lose the specific ordering of the photos in these albums?

iMac (21.5-inch Mid 2010), OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.2)

Posted on Dec 23, 2012 10:58 AM

18 replies

Old Toad

Level 10

207,679 points

Dec 29, 2012 5:13 PM in response to mckristof

mckristof Author

Level 1

6 points

Jan 25, 2013 3:16 PM in response to Old Toad

sorry for such a late reply...bringing up my thread from last month.

i have a managed library.

to reiterate, my overall goal is to move my entire library to an external and retain the photo structure/ordering of each album. i won't be creating dozens of libraries...just one or two...my travel photos take up at least 10k and i still have two more trips in the pipeline this year.

my problem is that when i successfully copy everything over to an external, when i doubleclick the iphoto library icon on the external, will my iphoto look and act exactly as it did on my internal drive.

again, lots of people have contributed, and i appreciate all the assistance.

LarryHN

Level 10

106,110 points

Jan 25, 2013 3:26 PM in response to mckristof

do not double click on anythi - as instructed depress and hold teh option key and launch iPhoto - use the select library window that appears - test and move forward

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

moving iphoto to external hdd...and yes i searched