Combining iPhoto Libraries

I copied the old iPhoto library (the one I want to import into the newer library) to an external hard drive, cleverly titled 'iPhoto library'

First of all, how is your external drive formatted? Make sure your drive is formatted MacOS X Extended (Journaled) before you move any photo libraries there. And set the flag "Ignore Ownership on this Volume in the "Sharing & Permissions" section of the "FIle > Get Info" panel for this drive.

Newer iPhoto versions will not be able to open a photo library on a drive with a different formatting.

Dragging the old 'iPhoto library' to the new, exisitng 'iPhoto library' doesnt work, i'm assuming because they are the same name

No, that is not the problem. The problem is, that iPhoto has no built-in features to merge photo libraries; the advanced Pro version "Aperture" has, but not iPhoto.

In iPhoto you will have to export the photos from your old library to a set of folders and then to import these folders in your new library. But this way you will lose all your albums and projects, like books, slideshows.

A better way would be to invest in iPhoto Library Manager - a really versatile tool to have in addition to iPhoto - and use it to merge the two libraries into one:

http://www.fatcatsoftware.com/iplm/

See this discussion: merge iphoto libraries with iphoto library manager

Regards

Léonie

Tnx, Leonie

What I did was export the pictures from one iPhoto library and then just import them back into the Library I wanted to use.

You can export whole 'Events', and you can save the photos as you like. You can select the 'events' tag, which automatically saves each event in a separate folder. You can also choose jpeg files as a 'maximum' quality, which kept the photo file size. It does not keep alblums or anything like that, but it works if you just want the "Events" kept sorted.

Click on the Event or Events (you can highlight them all if you want to export your whole library), then go to "File/Export" and take it from there.

Each 'event' will then have separate 'folder' containing all the photos.

It worked fine.

That's moving versions from one Library to another, it is not combining Libraries.

The difference? Combining Libraries means getting the original and the edit history, all the metadata, edits and verions from one to the other.

True.

As I said, it does not keep ablums etc. But it does keep some semblence of organization.

Depends on if you are concerned about messing up your current Library by importing photos (per the question in the original post), or if you really need to keep both of the iPhoto Library information.

Just wanted to be clear there is an option to easily import just the photos.

The goal is to have one library with the photos from the 'old' library merged with the 'new' library

Exporting from one library and importing into another is not merging. Merging is as Terence described, merging originals, previews, edited versions, keywords, titles, etc. from one library to another.

Happy Holidays

"How do I easily move/copy the existing photos on the iPhoto library (on the EHD) into the library on the MBP?"

IF you just want to do this, as originally asked, you can export exisiting photos (and which keeps the edited version, the keywords, the titles and the Event folders if you choose).

I merely offered it as an ALTERNATIVE to fully merging....

Correct, you did, and all we're doing is pointing out the limitation of that. It worked for you and you got what you wanted and that is good. But those of us who post on here frequently are aware that these forums are searched by folks looking for answers, so when we see an answer that's not complete we tend to post for the benefit of someone who may search in a month/year's time.

So, the point is, it's not an alternative to merging, it's a different thing, and there is dataloss involved.

With merging there is no dataloss - that's the point. If that's what some one wants, well and good, but if they want merging, then that's not what you're offering, and they need to see that.

And it's a five month old thread... That's all.

I found the best fastest way to do this is as follows:

1.)Locate your old iPhoto library on your hard drive.

2.) Right mouse click (Control click) the library you'd like to import and choose from the drop down menu "Show Package Contents". An iPhoto library is nothing more than an enclosing folder that holds all the thumbnails, data, etc.

3.) Once inside the package, locate the "Masters" file. This contains all of your original photos.

4.) Open the "Masters" files. You will now see folders named chronologically by year.

5.) Select all of the folders within "Masters" and COPY them to a folder outside of the iPhoto package. It's important that you COPY these folders and not simply MOVE (drag and drop) them in case there is a system hiccup.

6.) Once you have these folders copied to a separate folder outside of the iPhoto package, you can use iPhoto's "import to library function" as you normally would. The chronologically numbered folders contain all of the original images in sub folders grouped by event/date imported. So you only have to import the enclosing folders and not all of the sub folders. iPhoto will take care of parsing the images and metadata for you.

It is important that you maintain the original iPhoto libraries in the event that the import fails, it's also a good idea to have your data backed up :)

Note that this does NOT combine iPhoto libraries -- It only gives your the original photos from one library in an other library - it does not keep edits or metadata changes or other library elements

CjPacheco wrote:

I found the best fastest way to do this is as follows:

1.)Locate your old iPhoto library on your hard drive.

2.) Right mouse click (Control click) the library you'd like to import and choose from the drop down menu "Show Package Contents". An iPhoto library is nothing more than an enclosing folder that holds all the thumbnails, data, etc.

3.) Once inside the package, locate the "Masters" file. This contains all of your original photos.

4.) Open the "Masters" files. You will now see folders named chronologically by year.

5.) Select all of the folders within "Masters" and COPY them to a folder outside of the iPhoto package. It's important that you COPY these folders and not simply MOVE (drag and drop) them in case there is a system hiccup.

6.) Once you have these folders copied to a separate folder outside of the iPhoto package, you can use iPhoto's "import to library function" as you normally would. The chronologically numbered folders contain all of the original images in sub folders grouped by event/date imported. So you only have to import the enclosing folders and not all of the sub folders. iPhoto will take care of parsing the images and metadata for you.

It is important that you maintain the original iPhoto libraries in the event that the import fails, it's also a good idea to have your data backed up 🙂

If you want the above it is better and safer to export the original photos form one iPhjoto library and import them into another one - same results with less effort and no danger to either library

The only to totally combine libraries is using the latest versions of iPhoto and Aperture -- iPhoto Library Manager - http://www.fatcatsoftware.com/iplm/ - can merge libraries also

LN

^Thanks for the insight

Thanks for this info. I just tried and there is no "masters" folder. Can you give me any more hints? I'm running on 10.9.1

When I hit "show package contents" I get a Contents folder which takes me to half a dozen other folders, none of which are masters and none of which have photo files in them.

And while we're at it, can you think of a quick way to delete redundant files when I finally do merge them? My husband and I have been adding to our respective iphoto libraries for years, often with the same photos. I just want ONE family iphoto library with ALL our photos and no duplicates.

Thanks in advance for any assistance.

You are clicking on the iPhoto application and not the iPhoto Library.

Given that you're not sure what you're doing can I suggest that you use iPhoto Library Manager, which will merge the Libraries and can be set to avoid duplicates. It's safer.

Thanks for the tip! I found the iphoto library. I don't want to pay for the merger, and don't think it should be necessary. Does anyone have a suggestion as to how to merge and avoid duplicates?

there are only two possible ways of merging libraries - eh latest version of iPhoto with the latest version of Aperture which can open iPhoto libraries and can merge them - oriPhoto Library Manager - http://www.fatcatsoftware.com/iplm/ -

What you think should be has absolutely zero effect on reality - reality has been documented for hyou

LN