External hardrive problems

I have plugged in the SONNICS and have followed instructions to format it so it can work with my mac.

What format is it exactly? There are several formats that makers claim will "work with a Mac" but an iPhoto Library can only be on a disk formatted Mac OS Extended (Journaled).

What I want is to export my 20,000 photos in iphoto to the hard drive,

That sentence says: I want to take the 20k photos out of iPhoto and put them on the external drive. Is that what you want? Or are you trying to move the Library.

To move the Library:

Make sure the drive is formatted Mac OS Extended (Journaled)

1. Quit iPhoto

2. Copy the iPhoto Library from your Pictures Folder to the External Disk.

3. Hold down the option (or alt) key while launching iPhoto. From the resulting menu select 'Choose Library' and navigate to the new location. From that point on this will be the default location of your library.

4. Test the library and when you're sure all is well, trash the one on your internal HD to free up space.

If that's what you are doing, then where does it break down?

Regards

TD

since we can not see you we need you to provide details

what format is the external drive? (it must be Mac OS extended (journaled ) to use for the iPhoto library)

exactly how did you move the library?

If the drive is correctly formatted and if you drag the library to it intact as a single entity and then switch to is using the option-launch you will always have exactly the same organization as you had before the copy

LN

Millie,

How have you transferred the photos?

What you need to move to the external drive is your iPhoto library. Simply drag the complete library "iPhoto Library.photolibrary" from your Pictures folder to a folder on your new drive.

What is your iPhoto version? If it is any version of iPhoto '11, double click the iPhoto library in its new location to open iPhoto with this library.

You do not need to import anything, just copy and open the iPhoto library.

By "format it so it can work with my mac", do you mean, it is formatted MacOS Extended (Journaled)?

-- Léonie

I tried the drag and drop but thats when it gets jumbled, also using copy.

Are you really dragging the complete library from your Pictures folder, or dragging the thumbnails from the iPhoto window?

You need to drag the library itself, and then all your events should stay exactly as they are.

Are you perhaps trying to import the transferred library into iPhoto instead of opening it in iPhoto? That would create a mess of events.

After transferring an iPhoto '09 library launch iPhoto with the alt/options key held down and select the new library to open it in iPhoto.

Export the images: File -> Export

This User Tip

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

has details of the options in the Export dialogue.

You can not access the iPhoto library from any window computer (old or new) you have to export the photos from iPhoto to a drive tat can be read by windows

iPhoto has no cross platform capability and you must have a second set of photos outside of iPhoto for Windows to use

LN

Here's how you can get the original photos out of iPhoto to an external hard drive.

1 - select all of the Events in the Events mode.

2 - use the File ➙ Export ➙ File Export menu option with Kind = Original.

3 - set Subfolder Format - Event Name

You can save the exported files and folders directly to the external hard drive. Each event in iPhoto will have it's own folder.

You can not access the iPhoto library from any window computer (old or new) you have to export the photos from iPhoto to a drive that can be read by windows

iPhoto has no cross platform capability and you must have a second set of photos outside of iPhoto for Windows to use

Exporting creates new photos outside of iPhoto which have no connection to the photos in iPhoto - they are copies outside of iPhoto that can be used for any purpose - that is what you have to do to use the photos on a PC - there is no other way

LN