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Using an external hard drive to back up iPhoto

I have around 250GB of images and with the recent arrival of child number two, that figure is just getting larger and larger. I have a Mac Mini (2010 320GB) and I am about to replace my 6 year old MBP with a new retina one with SSD and the obvious small hard drive. Ideally, I would like to run an iPhoto Library from an EHD and not bother having any images on iPhoto on the MacMini or the MBP. My question is what is the best/slickest/easiest way to manage it? Also, what is the best way to back up the iPhoto library that lives on one EHD to another EHD?


I have three EHD's that i can use.


Many thanks in advance for all and any help.

Posted on Sep 19, 2013 2:20 PM

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Posted on Sep 19, 2013 3:01 PM

To move an iPhoto liobrary -

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


Time Machine will backup multiple drives to ots backup - you need to be sure that it is set up correctly (time Machine Preferences) adn check to verify that it is doing it - TM appears not to backup the iPhoto library if iPhoto is running


LN

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Sep 19, 2013 3:01 PM in response to nathanormshaw

To move an iPhoto liobrary -

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


Time Machine will backup multiple drives to ots backup - you need to be sure that it is set up correctly (time Machine Preferences) adn check to verify that it is doing it - TM appears not to backup the iPhoto library if iPhoto is running


LN

Dec 16, 2013 1:35 PM in response to LarryHN

Hey LarryHN:

My internal HDD is getting full and I would like to significantly reduce the space taken up on my internal hard drive. I have come with a scenario that would mean three external drives. One as the primary photo drive, one as the photo drive backup and one as a total backup for my early 2011 MacBook Pro 15inch. Is this overkill? If so, what do you recommend.

Thanks

Dec 16, 2013 1:52 PM in response to mike.back9

Not at all - in fact it is probalby not quiet enough - I do basically that (except my internal drive is large enought that i tcontains my iPhoto library) - in addition to my working iPhoto library (and a few older copies) I I run Time Machine gving me hourly backups of my system and I do a daily bootable clone - and I do not delete photos form the SD cards for at least a year (I rotate 4 32GB cardsthat hold about 2000 photos each) and I do an occasional off site backup in case of major disastor or robbery


Others here do some variation of my scheme taylored to their personal situation


LN

Jan 6, 2014 8:45 AM in response to katetx2001

A bootable clone is an exact copy of your entire system that you can boot from - so at all times I have a duplicate of my system that is never more than 24 hours old which I can switch to by rebooting in case of a major problem with my internal hard drive - Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper are good packages for bootable clones


LN

Jan 10, 2014 4:07 AM in response to LarryHN

Thanks for the info on how to do this guys.


I have a few questions:


1. As a MP Pro user, if I move my library onto an EHD, what's the best way to manage any photos that happen to sync with iPhoto when I am say travelling etc (iPhone or iPad plugged into MBP)? How to get them back into my master library file?


2. Once I have my new library on my EHD, what's the max safe size of a single library? Do you recommend running multiple libraries - say one for each year or capped at 100GB a piece etc?


3. Following on from Q2, if I then plug this EHD into the back of my new Time Capsule so I can access wirelessly, can Time Machine still backup to that drive plugged into the back of the TC?


Many thanks.

Jan 10, 2014 4:14 AM in response to zman11

1. As a MP Pro user, if I move my library onto an EHD, what's the best way to manage any photos that happen to sync with iPhoto when I am say travelling etc (iPhone or iPad plugged into MBP)? How to get them back into my master library file?


The only way to move all the versions, edit history, metadata between Libraries is with iPhoto Library Manager

If you've not edited, then simply exporting from the internal library and then importing to the external one won't lose any data.


2. Once I have my new library on my EHD, what's the max safe size of a single library? Do you recommend running multiple libraries - say one for each year or capped at 100GB a piece etc?


I don't recommend ruuning multiple libraries. They are inconvenient and usually unnecessary. The amount of disk space a Library uses is of no consequence to iPhoto - as long as there's enough space of course. What matters to iPhoto is the number of items. The latest version of iPhoto is good for 1,000,000 items.


3. Following on from Q2, if I then plug this EHD into the back of my new Time Capsule so I can access wirelessly, can Time Machine still backup to that drive plugged into the back of the TC?


About wireless access:


A strong warning: If you're trying to edit the Library (that is, make albums, move photos around, keyword, make books or slideshows etc.) or edit individual photos in it via Wireless be very careful. Dropouts are a common fact of wireless networking, and should one occur while the app is writing to the database then your Library will be damaged. Simply, I would not do this with my Libraries.


Further: See this article


http://support.apple.com/kb/TS5168


Note the comment:


“Additionally, storing the iPhoto library on a network rather than locally on your computer can also lead to poor performance or data loss.”


Tha said, you can set Time Machine to back up external disks.

Jan 10, 2014 6:12 AM in response to Yer_Man

Terence, you are a legend - thanks for the prompt and detailed reply. I will be doing just as you suggest.


Since the previous post, I have just discovered that one of my old libraries (45GB) only contains aobut 10 photos which seems completely wrong. I tried repairing the permissions by holding option + command on launch but no success.


Any tips on how I can get my photos to display from the huge file? There are a LOT of photos in there...I hope.


Thanks in advance.

Jan 10, 2014 6:25 AM in response to zman11

If that rebuils didn't work then try


Download iPhoto Library Managerand use its rebuild function. (In early versions of Library Manager it's the File -> Rebuild command. In later versions it's under the Library menu.)


This will create an entirely new library. It will then copy (or try to) your photos and all the associated metadata and versions to this new Library, and arrange it as close as it can to what you had in the damaged Library. It does this based on information it finds in the iPhoto sharing mechanism - but that means that things not shared won't be there, so no slideshows, books or calendars, for instance - but it should get all your events, albums and keywords, faces and places back.


Because this process creates an entirely new library and leaves your old one untouched, it is non-destructive, and if you're not happy with the results you can simply return to your old one.

Feb 12, 2014 11:35 AM in response to Yer_Man

Hi Terrence,


Thanks for all your iPhoto posts. Quick question as I've seen you reference exporting to move photos between files in many, many discussions.


I'm setting up an archive library on an EHD (for space reasons) and then I'll have the local copy of newer photos. Maybe a few times a year I'll move old photos to the external.


If I do this by exporting, what is the best export format to use. I rarely modify the photos, but do every so often. I also create albums for them and would love if those transferred. This seemed a close recent post and so thought I'd reply in it, rather than start yet another thread discussing this.

Feb 12, 2014 12:05 PM in response to bal819

Best???


The best format to export is TIFF since it is lossless


However maybe it is not best since it uses so much space - for most people that far out exceeds the small quality inpovement you get form TIFF



The Best thing to do is not to export at all but to have a seond library on the EHD and use iPhoto Library Manager - http://www.fatcatsoftware.com/iplm/ - to move select events/photos/albums to it there by keeping all versions and all metadate, etc



If you for some reason want to use export and only have one version of the photo archived then you have to make the trade off of size vs quality - probably hight quality PEGs of teh current version is not bad


But bottom line is that only you can make the many trade offs involved here - having a seond iPhtoo library and moving photos using IPLM eliminates all of those decisions


LN

Mar 26, 2014 10:54 AM in response to LarryHN

Hi LarryHN


Your posts are very helpful, thank you.


I'm also full up with photos and need to start using iPhoto from an EHD. I would like to maintain my album titles as I have a comprehensive library categorised. You mention iPhoto Library Manager, which I have… but what are the steps I need to take in order to utilize the library from an EHD?


I have tried exporting albums and renaming them on my EHD but it is hugely time consuming, painstaking work!


If I move my library completely off my iMac (and I will take care to check before deleting), what is the best way to access and use particular photos and albums? Will I need to re-import those ones to a new empty library on my iMac? The trouble seems to be that iphoto stores the albums as numbers, and not the names i have titled each album.


Tess77

Using an external hard drive to back up iPhoto

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