Moving Select Photos from iPhoto to External Drive

In the Finder, select iPhoto Library which is located Pictures folder with mouse left click, then right click to show pop up menu to select "Show Package Contents".

"Original" folder contains original pictures which is organized by the numbers(date?) you import to iPhoto.

Select number folder you wish to back up and back them up to external drive.

you should be but are not in iPhoto or MacBook Pro forum.

kaz-k wrote:

In the Finder, select iPhoto Library which is located Pictures folder with mouse left click, then right click to show pop up menu to select "Show Package Contents".

"Original" folder contains original pictures which is organized by the numbers(date?) you import to iPhoto.

Select number folder you wish to back up and back them up to external drive.

This is not a good idea - the iPhoto library ia a SQLite database and even the smallest change cna corrupt it causing dataloss - it is strongly recommended that you do not go directly into it - the is never any reason to and doing so may create major problems for you

additionally the structure changes form time to time and your instructions are outdated so will not work with current version - which if you use iPhoto using only support access methods will never be a problem for you since they always work with the current structure

You access your photos using Export - see the user tips on accessing files in iphoto and on the export options for details

LN

Braddock54 wrote:

Hi new to Mac computers, and so far, hating it.

Coming from a PC, I backup all of my pictures to an external hard drive for safekeeping, which in turn goes in a fire proof safe. I do this every so often.

My hard drive is arranged by year. What I want to do is take all the photos from November 15th for example, and put them in the "2013" folder on my 1TB MyBook. Nothing I have tried works. Heaven forbid I drag and drop. I have tried exporting with Iphoto and I receive a message that it cannot create the volumes.

When they copy over, I want them to have their respective dates from Iphoto. Ie, I want the photos from November 20th, to go in a subfolder November 20th.

I find my self frustrated with tasks that were so simple on a PC.

Any help would be great.

And unless you learn how to use iPhoto properly you will never like it and will have continually problems - iPhoto is NOT a file manager and you never dirctly access the files -it is a photo manager using a SQLite database and the structure of that database is not designed for finder access - you only access photos using the iPhoto program or the supported methods - see the user tips on accessing your files and on exporting for more information on the supported methods

If you want to manage your files yourself rather than have iPhoto do it leaving you to only manage photos then you need to use a different program - iPhoto is optional and if you do not like the way it works then do not use it

The best thing to do for a secure backup is to make a copy of the iPhoto library intact on your external hard drive which must be formatted Mac OS extended (journaled) and put that in the safe

As to your specific problem of exporting not working - that is a different and very solvable issue - but details are needed - what version of iPhoto and of te OS do you have? Where are you exporting to? What format is your MyBook? Will the photos export to a desktop folder? Have you been mucking around inside of the iPhoto library renaming folders to your choice or other user actions affecting the content or structure of the iPhoto library (Hint - NEVER do this) If using iPhoto you select one of the photos that will not export and double click on it to edit does that work? If you select it and use the reveal original in finder does that open a finder window with the photo?

LN