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Reinstall iPhoto with Time Machine - limited space

I'm running Yosemite 10.10.2 on a MacBook Pro (late 2011), with iPhoto 9.6. My computer backs up regularly to Time Capsule using Time Machine.

My "Events" are all titled by month/Year (eg. "January 2014") going back 15 or so years - hence about 180 Events and 16,000 photos. I accidentally dragged most of my "Events" into a single event, which screwed the whole structure, as you can imagine. iPhoto then proceeded to shut down and I guess saved that mistake - so I did not have the chance to "go back".

So I thought I'd just step back an hour or so on Time Machine and maybe my structure would come back. Problem is, I have 120GB photos, and only 60GB space on hard drive, and Time Machine told me that's not going to work!!

First question - easy would be to delete my iPhoto files on Mac, and rely on Time Capsule to successfully take me back one hour. But dangerous - is there a better plan?

Second - if I did manage to restore iPhoto from a hour before, would that restore the structure/events anyway - or just restore photos that might have been deleted/lost?

Any thoughts much appreciated!

MacBook Pro

Posted on Feb 9, 2015 3:01 AM

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Posted on Feb 9, 2015 3:16 AM

problem is, I have 120GB photos, and only 60GB space on hard drive, and Time Machine told me that's not going to work!!

First question - easy would be to delete my iPhoto files on Mac, and rely on Time Capsule to successfully take me back one hour. But dangerous - is there a better plan?

Make a copy of your current iphoto library on an external drive, to be on the safe side. The external disk needs to be formatted MacOS Extended (Journaled), see this help document: Format external drives to Mac OS Extended before using with Aperture (it applies to iPhoo as well)


Second - if I did manage to restore iPhoto from a hour before, would that restore the structure/events anyway - or just restore photos that might have been deleted/lost?

If you restore, restore the complete iPhoto Library. Then it should be like before, events and all.

Se: iPhoto '11: Restoring from Time Machine with iPhoto '11 (9.2 or later) and OS X Lion 10.7.2 (or later)

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Question marked as Best reply

Feb 9, 2015 3:16 AM in response to sor67

problem is, I have 120GB photos, and only 60GB space on hard drive, and Time Machine told me that's not going to work!!

First question - easy would be to delete my iPhoto files on Mac, and rely on Time Capsule to successfully take me back one hour. But dangerous - is there a better plan?

Make a copy of your current iphoto library on an external drive, to be on the safe side. The external disk needs to be formatted MacOS Extended (Journaled), see this help document: Format external drives to Mac OS Extended before using with Aperture (it applies to iPhoo as well)


Second - if I did manage to restore iPhoto from a hour before, would that restore the structure/events anyway - or just restore photos that might have been deleted/lost?

If you restore, restore the complete iPhoto Library. Then it should be like before, events and all.

Se: iPhoto '11: Restoring from Time Machine with iPhoto '11 (9.2 or later) and OS X Lion 10.7.2 (or later)

Feb 12, 2015 12:52 PM in response to léonie

MMM - removing iPhoto failed to create enough space for the reinstall. FYI, I have 500GB capacity, and before deleting iPhoto I had 85GB available. After deleting 117GB iPhoto I have 91GB available (and under Logical Volume Group it says 19MB free space - apologies, I have no idea if this is relevant). So I got about 5GB increase in available space after deleting 117GB.

The iPhoto Library backed up beautifully to external hard-drive. I then deleted the Library (117GB) from my MacBook Pro, and emptied the Trash. My trash is now empty.

Tried to reinstall iPhoto, but it failed due to not enough space. Shut down MacBook and restarted, and there seemed to be a 5GB increase in storage. Any idea why removing iPhoto didn't seem to help me there?

Regards

Feb 12, 2015 1:36 PM in response to sor67

So you now have a copy of your current iPhoto library on an external drive? And deleted the library from your Pictures folder?


Have you now tried to restore the previous library from Time Machine?


You may have more free storage, than your Mac is showing you. If you have Time Machine enabled, the Mac will keep local snapshots for backup, when your Time Machine drive is not connected. And it may look like your drive has not much space.

But the mac will release this space, if it is needed.

Jun 11, 2015 8:20 PM in response to léonie

Thanks indeed Leonie - sorry, just noticed I didn't follow up with you.

Time Machine was certainly telling me I didn't have the space, but I went back and cleaned up my deleted files, and created more space, and did the Time Machine back-up as originally planned. All went well.

FYI - yes, I had a further copy of my photos on an external drive (although it is probably 6 months out of date). I hadn't deleted the library from my Pictures folder yet - per above, I thought that might be dangerous relying on Time Capsule as my sole copy of the last 6 months of photos. Maybe I was being precious?

In any event, all good. Thanks

Reinstall iPhoto with Time Machine - limited space

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