How to backup the entire iPhoto Library (only) directly to an extrenal hard drive ? ( Os10.6.8, iphoto 11 ver. 9.2.3 from a iMac Itel core 2 duo) -- thanks in advance.

This thread has been really useful even though I only understand about 20% of it as I am not technical. I have a related question I hoped you wouldn't mind answering. I have been looking at getting an app as mentioned at the beginning of the thread that will back up my iPhoto library to an exHD and automatically sync with it every now and then when I plug it in. Essentially, I would like to remove my iPhoto library up to a certain year (say 2012) as I think it is getting huge and slowing our macbook down (53.31gb storage remaining). Question: if I copied over everything on iPhoto up to 2015 to the exHD, but then deleted just the photos to 2012 on iPhoto, then on the next sync with the exHD would the photos I deleted up to 2012 delete off the exHD since they don't exist on iPhoto anymore?

In other words, is a sync always a direct copy of whatever is on iPhoto? I want to be able to view more recent photos on the Macbook if possible, without accessing the exHD, while still having it backed up, and ultimately being able to delete the next set of photos without deleting it off my backup. I hope this question makes sense. Many thanks in advance for your wisdom.

if I copied over everything on iPhoto up to 2015 to the exHD, but then deleted just the photos to 2012 on iPhoto, then on the next sync with the exHD would the photos I deleted up to 2012 delete off the exHD since they don't exist on iPhoto anymore?

That would be a setting on the app you choose.

This reply is to whoever, I just didn't know how to create a post on this thread that wasn't labeled as a reply to a specific person.

What information would I loose if I only backed up the "masters" folder by opening the package contents of iPhoto? It has been mentioned that the whole library needs to be backed up. I came across this thread looking for the answer to my own questions and it has answered some of my questions but also made new ones for me. I mainly just want to backup my photos and any data attached to them by my iPhone or camera. Is that data called meta data?

Could I then just update it by replacing the 2015 folder periodically (or the current year)?

The reason I ask is because I really want to use the cloud and I really want to do it cheaply. Backing up to other hard drives in my house is not good enough for me since tornadoes frequent my area and there's always the possibility of other natural disasters.

All help is appreciated, thanks. Should I be starting a new thread?

What information would I loose if I only backed up the "masters" folder by opening the package contents of iPhoto?

You will lose any work you've done in iPhoto - adding keywords, faces, places, titles (that's metadata btw) - as well as any editing you have done, along with all your organisation.

That said do not open the package contents of iPhoto. With respect, if you're asking questions this basic then you risk significant data loss if you muck around inside the library. You can achieve exactly the same result simply by exporting the originals -

File -> Export. : In the resulting dialogue you can choose to export the Orginal.

This User Tip

https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-4921

has details of the options in the Export dialogue.

Even better, this way you won't have to keep overwriting the 2015 folder, just export the new additions to add to the 2015 folder, making it faster too.

But, and this is even easier and safer, if you want to save just this version of your photos in the Cloud, the easiest and cheapest way is to upload the lot to Flickr.

Thanks, this helped a lot. I went back through the whole thread this morning and I read the user tip link you provided.

So I was correct in thinking that the camera writes metadata to the picture files. I just didn't know iPhoto also wrote metadata, but it doesn't touch the original files. I haven't really done any work in iPhoto other than Faces. (No keywords, places, titles.) It has automatically detected places on some of my photos because that information is in the original files.

Let me see if I have this right:

So if I don't care about work done in iPhoto, then I can export using the 'original' option to a location of my choice (which will keep metadata from the camera). Then I can back that up anywhere, rather that be an external hard drive or a cloud service and not worry about if the server or external HD is formatted in Mac OS Journaled or whatever it's called. Because it's just either jpegs or tiffs or pngs, and all popular hard drive formats can store all of these, right? And to restore I would have to import all those photos into iPhoto and redo any work that I want done. Is this all basically correct?

I would be interested in backing up the work I've done with faces but if I understand your earlier post, the only way to do that is to back up the whole iPhoto library and that can only be done on correctly formatted hard drives (whether those hard drives are local or remote). And most cloud services don't offer that. Is this all basically correct?

If all of this is correct then I think I'll use Flickr for the original files and also back up the entire library to an external hard drive. That way if I have a problem with the hard drive in my computer, I'll have the whole library that I can restore but if I loose my whole house then I at least I have the originals on Flickr or a similar website.

I just dragged my Photos Library.photoslibrary into my synced dropbox folder. Its always synced so no worries about backup. Have never had a problem with missing data.

And once every year I make a duplicate of the library and put it in another folder on the dropbox. Done

There is a problem though, and that is that folks who have restored Libraries from Dropbox frequently report them on here as corrupted on restore. Dropbox is not a suitable location for an iPhoto Library for back up or sharing. It will damage the Library.

I backed up my iPhoto library on an iMac a year ago on an external hard drive. I went to do it again now( I have been very lax about backing it up I know) . I wanted to back it up completely again, but now I get an error message saying that there is a problem with a file that cannot be read.

Is there anything I can do to back it up completely? Can I try and find the corrupted file, if that is the problem?

Thanks

You're dragging the library over to an external disk as back up? IF so, then use a back up application to do this for you. It will take care of the glitch you're getting plus, as these can be set to run automatically, also solves your bad backing up habits 😉

Google up apps like

Chronosync

Deja Bu

Carbon Copy Cloner

or search on the App Store.

Thank you for the response! Would you recommend a back up application? Another problem, my iMac is from 2008 and running OS 10.5 something. Is there back up software that stills on the older systems? I haven't upgraded as I can't back up the iMac anymore.

Take care.

John

TimeMachine is a good backup system and is included with your Mac (in the applications folder)

LN

I'e had perfect results with all thee of the apps I named above. But check their websites for information on working with your OS.