Error-36 when copying aperture 3 library to external hard drive

Check the file system of the external hard drive.The error message you get is very typical for trying to copy an Aperture lobrary to a drive with an incompatible file system. That can result in conflicting pathnames.

See: Format external drives to Mac OS Extended before using with Aperture

Your external drive needs to be formatted MacOS Extended (Journaled). You can check the file system with "File > Get Info" in the Finder. Select the icon of the drive and press ⌘I. Then disclose the "General" tab of the Info panel.

Then there may be one single item in your Aperture library that cannot be read.

Try to copy the library file by file separately.

• Open the Aperture library and reveal the package contents: Select the Aperture library in the Finder and use the command "Show Package Contents".
• On your external drive create a folder named "Aperture Library" (without the filename extension .aplibrary) and open this folder.
• Now drag items from your Aperture library to the folder on the external drive. Don't try the large folders "Masters", "Previews" at once, but open them and copy the items inside in smaller installments.

At some point you will hit a problem get again the copy error. Then try to identify the file that is causing this problem and post back, so that we know, if it is a file that is essential.

I think I found a solution or at least a work around for this problem.

I encountered the same issue while copying a 270GB Aperture library to an external LaCie disk. Error 36 kept appearing after 60 or so GB. Rebuilding and repairing the library database did not work. Checking and repairing permissions did not solve it either.

As an experiment I tried to export my photo's from aperture in the following way.

• From Aperture select: FILE -> EXPORT ->SMART ALBUM AS NEW LIBRARY
• Type a Library name in the top field
• Then check both the COPY and PREVIEW checkboxes and choose a location where to export to. Then click EXPORT LIBRARY

Aperture starts exporting the complete library to the new location. No errors occurred. I replicated the same method on another mac and that worked too.

The whole process takes no longer than copying with Finder.

I found that when comparing the original library on my internal drive with the new library that in the new library there where 7 images less. I figure that those where corrupt images causing the error 36 while copying with Finder and Aperture left them out automatically in this export proces.

The new Library now works normally.

Hope this helps

I'm a couple years behind replying to this but I was having the same issue on 10.11.6 with ALL MY FILES on my LaCie HDD and couldn't get anything off the drive without encountering the error 36. Tried DiskWarrior (as everyone and their dog recommended it) and it did nothing except get hung up on Step 5 for over 50 hours. I cancelled the "rebuilding" and found one more piece of Software called Carbon Copy Cloner (https://bombich.com) and it WORKED! I was able to transfer the data to my new external hdd where it can be read/wrote/copied/moved on the new hdd. Hope this helps someone!

I'm another couple years later but I want to second the Carbon Clone program. That's what worked for me. I drilled down to select only the Aperture Library file for duplication. I knew from my previous attempts to transfer that it would snag at about 27.80gb if it was going to fail. Sure enough it hung up. However, CCC has the added benefit of showing you the file names as it transfers so I was able to see exactly which video file caused the issue. And, unlike transferring via Finder, the corrupt file didn't stop the transfer. CCC was smart enough to let me know it had skipped that file and then it just kept moving. Perfect. They offer a free trial so if this is all you need it for, you should be good to go.