My Mac's iPhoto library is larger than my iPad's photo library, despite containing the same photos???

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My Mac's iPhoto library is larger than my iPad's photo library, despite containing the same photos???

Hello everyone.

My iPhoto library is 22.91gb when shown in finder, and 13.8gb when shown in the iPhoto window inside iPhoto. There are 4665 photos. I understand why there's a difference - that's not my question.

What is confusing me is that when I sync my MacBook and my iPad, on itunes I select to sync ALL my photos from iPhoto to my iPad. However, on my iPad they take up only 6.66gb of space, with a total of 5670 photos on the iPad (duplicates within albums, recently deleted folder and camera roll I guess).

4665 photos on mac - 22.91gb (13.8 in real terms)

5670 photos on ipad - 6.66gb

What's going on? The quality doesn't seem reduced on the ipad at all. I only have a little 120gb macbook air hard drive so could really do with extra space.

thanks very much

MacBook Air (13-inch Mid 2013), OS X Yosemite (10.10.2), also using iPad mini, iOS 8

Posted on Feb 20, 2015 1:40 PM

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Answer 1

léonie

Level 10

194,733 points

Feb 20, 2015 1:47 PM in response to colin100

What is confusing me is that when I sync my MacBook and my iPad, on itunes I select to sync ALL my photos from iPhoto to my iPad. However, on my iPad they take up only 6.66gb of space, with a total of 5670 photos on the iPad (duplicates within albums, recently deleted folder and camera roll I guess).

Syncing with iTunes will store only smaller versions on your iPad, not the full sized originals, so the storage required will be less.

But the syncing will also create a cache inside the iPhoto Library with the optimised versions and require additional space on your Mac, see: iTunes: Understanding the iPod Photo Cache folder

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