Moving from Aperture 2 to 3 with multiple libraries

I'm planning on installing 3. I'm presuming it will try to integrate my old projects, but which library will it try to do this from are there any potential conflicts I need to be aware of? For example any other files located elsewhere involved.

Aperture 3 will try to launch any library called 'Aperture Library' located in the '~/Pictures' folder by default and certainly on first launch. If it starts to load the Aperture 2 library named 'Aperture Library' you should see a dialog telling you that the library will need to be updated before Aperture 3 can work with it.

Personally, I would rename the Aperture 2 libraries to anything other than 'Aperture Library' and move them out of '~/Pictures' folder if any currently reside there.

There are Application Support / Aperture folders in both the '~/Library' and '/Library' folder for sure, and there may well be a 'com.apple.Aperture' folder in '~/Library/Caches' folder that may create issues - although I am not sure on that point. When some users upgraded from AP2 to AP3 during original release, many resorted to removing and/or deleting all Aperture related contents from those folders to fix performance, crashing and failed library upgrade issues.

You might create a folder on the desktop to hold the contents of the Application Supoort / Aperture folders for the AP 2 stuff since this will have plug-ins, import and export presets, etc. you are using in AP2.

Note - there is also a 'ProApps' folder in '/Library' that had always held a system ID file used for licensing Aperture 2, but I am not sure if that is of any consequence.

You may already be familiar with the Aperture 2 troubleshooting basics information, but here is the link which among other things mentions support file locations:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2945

Lastly.. is it possible (and more stable) to keep Aperture 2 separate and only go in there when I need to? Is this recommended and would it create any conflicts?

You should be able to rename the current Aperture.app to say Aperture 2.app in the applications folder. This should allow you to have both AP2 and AP3 co-exist on your system without issue. This was Apple's recommendation for the Aperture 3 trial when it used to be offered.

Note - you would launch an Aperture 2 library with Aperture 2.app by dragging the library icon onto the app icon since Aperture 3 will become the default app OS X will try to launch if you double-click any of the libraries.

If it were me, I would rename the Aperture 2 libraries and not use Aperture 3 to upgrade them (at least for now) as well as renaming the Aperture 2 app as described above to allow use of both as needed.

At the bottom of the linked release notes below are some hints on upgrading libraries from Aperture 2 to Aperture 3 if you decide to do that instead:

http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2518

As always, make sure you have good backups before proceeding.

So when I install Aperture 3, and it creates a new library, will it create a new set of support folders also (so that it only accesses these, not those from Aperture 2 - and vica versa?) Ie are the steps above ok for running the two.

Aperture 3 will create a new empty library in '~/Pictures' folder on first launch (which will become the default library for Aperture 3). The 'Application Support' folders in both '~/Library' and '/Library' will be created automatically when needed. The one in '~/Library' will be created on first launch since it stores any user specific settings made in Aperture (e.g., import settings, export settings, etc.). The one in '/Library' will only be created if needed. This one is typically used by Plug-Ins and now iPhoto (if running 9.3.x or 9.4.x or better where the unified library system was started).

Note - Aperture 3.3 or 3.4 started enforcing sand-boxing of plug-ins, so some of the older ones (especially for Aperture 2) may have issues. This is why I suggested moving the current ones to a folder outside of those support folders. This will give you a clean install of Aperture 3 to start. Since I don't currently run my Aperture 2, I haven't tested how this would impact the use of both Aperture versions (because the plug-ins still need to be in the same folder since Aperture 2 or 3 will look there to add to the edit menus and to launch said plug-ins).

If you have plug-ins, then you might try placing them in the proper 'Library/Application Support/Aperture' folder and see how they do. You can always remove them if they fail in Aperture 3 or if they don't work but don't cause problems in Aperture 3, you could leave them in place if Aperture 2 still works with them.

The only real issue to me might be that any presets and settings that Aperture 3 creates in '~/Library/Application Support/Aperture' folder would not be fully compatible when you run Aperture 2 with your older libraries. I am not sure how Apple programmed those files. It may be that most - if not all - of the presets and settings would be compatible with both Aperture versions, I just don't know for sure - sorry.

If problems arise, then the manual workaround for me would be to have two 'hold' folders (one for Aperture 2 and one for Aperture 3) located in say Documents, where I would keep copies of the 'Aperture' folders from the Application Support folders. I could then simply swap the needed folders when I wanted to run a session in Aperture 2 and then swap back to the Aperture 3 versions when done. Not a seamless exercise, but one that would work if needed.

At least if you do the Aperture 3 install as intended, you would have fresh copies of those support files and of course the ones you moved out for Aperture 2. At that point, you can experiment to see if simply running Aperture 2 and Aperture 3 works without issue. 😉

Sorry if that was too long winded. 🙂

Message was edited by: CorkyO2 to remove 'Aperture 2 used' and replace with 'Aperture 3 creates' in paragraph 4.