updlake
Level 1 (1 points)

Q: Deleting iPhoto library after Photos is installed

Once the Photos Application is installed and is running, can the original iPhoto library(s) be deleted to recover space?

Posted on Apr 9, 2015 9:58 AM

by William Lloyd,Solvedanswer
William Lloyd William Lloyd
Level 7 (21,183 points)
A:

OmniDiskSweeper is confused.

 

Photos is using an OS X feature (actually, it's a UNIX feature) called "hard links" which makes it LOOK like there are two copies of a photo, but in fact there is only one on disk. If you "delete" one of them, one of the links will be removed, but the original photo itself will only be removed from disk if the second "link" is deleted (making the "link count" to the photo 0).

 

This makes it look like twice the space is taken up, but in fact that's wrong.

 

Once you have safely imported your iPhoto library to Photos, you can delete the iPhoto library and Photos will be fine. HOWEVER, Apple (and I) STRONGLY recommend that instead of deleting the iPhoto library, that you archive it off on storage somewhere, and leave it there for a long time "just in case" anything bad ever happens. Because if you don't, and you lose the photos, I'll be all out of sympathy

Posted on Apr 9, 2015 1:25 PM

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Q: Deleting iPhoto library after Photos is installed

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  • by Evil Ted,

    Evil Ted Evil Ted Jul 6, 2015 8:03 AM in response to LarryHN
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 6, 2015 8:03 AM in response to LarryHN

    maybe your mac is different to mine, all i can tell you is that when i look in finder i see two folders, almost identical in size (because ive used photo app since its installation/migration whatever). Maybe finder is lying to me? if there are these magical links i would expect the 'photos library' to be approximately 3gig, and not the 25 it is?

     

    Screen Shot 2015-07-06 at 2.53.14 pm.png

     

    please then can you explain to me why the contents of these 'library's' are identical???


    Screen Shot 2015-07-06 at 3.02.14 pm.png

  • by Terence Devlin,

    Terence Devlin Terence Devlin Jul 6, 2015 8:25 AM in response to Evil Ted
    Level 10 (139,597 points)
    iLife
    Jul 6, 2015 8:25 AM in response to Evil Ted

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_link

     

     

    In computing, a hard link is a directory entry that associates a name with a file on a file system. (A directory is itself a special kind of file that contains a list of such entries.) The term is used in file systems which allow multiple hard links to be created for the same file.

  • by léonie,

    léonie léonie Jul 6, 2015 8:35 AM in response to Evil Ted
    Level 10 (108,930 points)
    iCloud
    Jul 6, 2015 8:35 AM in response to Evil Ted

    When you create a hard link to a file, it creates a second file.  Both files have the same size and will look identical. That is different from an alias or symbolic link, where you have an original file and a link to it.

     

    But a hard link and the original file will share the same blocks on the disk by referencing the same entry in the file table. Both libraries have nearly the same size because the hard linked files are regular files, but the amount of disk space used is less than the sum of the file sizes of both libraries.

  • by LarryHN,

    LarryHN LarryHN Jul 6, 2015 8:41 AM in response to Evil Ted
    Level 10 (85,678 points)
    Photos for Mac
    Jul 6, 2015 8:41 AM in response to Evil Ted

    Nothing is lying to you. as stated several times above you simply do not understand how it works

     

    after three rounds of several people trying to help you you simply have to choose what you do and do it - it makes no difference to us

     

    but keep in mind that

    your suggestion will not save much space at all

     

    and will remove future alternatives thereby limiting your ability to respond to some issues as IPhoto will not along be available to you

     

    LN

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