Can I delete iPhoto library after upgrade to Photos

After having done some investigation, I've found this answer to be partially true. After having done an inventory of all the files, I have located all files which are known to be unique, and it turns out that some of the largest files are .MOV and .mp4 files, and these don't appear to be using the space-saving technique (hard links) everyone is heralding that Apple accomplished:

Using OS-X Terminal:

$ cd /Users/clint/Pictures/iPhoto\ Library.migratedphotolibrary/Masters $ ls -ali "./2010/Aug 15, 2010/IMG_1008.MOV" 1144687 -rw------- 1 clint staff 124405327 Aug 6 2010 ./2010/Aug 15, 2010/IMG_1008.MOV

The first number is the inode (unique to every file on the drive). That number "1" in column 3 before my username (clint) means that this file has 1 link, meaning it's not shared anywhere else on the filesystem. If it were shared, it would be larger than one. Many of the files in here are shared, however, there are quite a few that are not. And movie files tend to be some of the biggest in your collection.

If I go and search for that file above in Photos, I have in most cases (not all) found an identical filename with the same content and having a different inode.

One thing to check is to go into your Masters directory (see previous command) and find all files with one link:

$ find . -type f -name "*.???" -links 1 -exec ls -ali {} \;

I would go through some/all of these files and make sure you have copies of them somewhere in your Photos Library. Note: Filenames are not uniquely identifying information for a file! Also pay attention to file size. Cameras use a rather repetitive naming strategy for filenames, and you will get duplicates occasionally.

After you've done this, THEN it's probably safe to nuke the old iPhoto library. If you have many files that are not shared, then you will recover more space.

Good luck.

Once you've imported to Photos and verified all is OK, you don't need the iPhoto library any more.

However, I STRONGLY recommend you archive it off to an external drive for safe keeping and backup, at least for a few months, just to be extra sure.

The reason the disk spaces are as you see is because Photos does a little "magic" under the hood, using a UNIX technology called "hard links." Basically, there are two pointers to the same file on disk, so in Finder it looks like there are two files. If you delete it from iPhoto, its "pointer" will be removed, but the file will stay because Photos still is pointing to it. Only if you delete it from both locations will it be removed from the disk. If you don't understand this, no big deal, but just saying what you're seeing is what's expected.

When I started using Photos in beta a few months back after import and checking to make sure everything transferred over I went ahead and deleted my iPhoto library. Never had an issue.

And whatever the above guy said about hard links is probably true. BUT, if you upload everything to iCloud Photo Library and choose to optimize your Mac, it should shrink that down to maybe even 25GB.

hi,

i have recently upgraded to photos through yosemite and migrated iPhoto library to photos.

i have deleted the iPhoto library afterwards and there has not been any issue at all.

i have gained the disk space, so it is worth deleting that extra library indeed.

keeping a backup is a good idea, but that is a never ending race in my opinion.

you create a backup and then make a backup of that backup and so on and forth!

anyways, hope this helps!

And what happen five years down the road when I keep taking pictures and I have no way to split and merge Photos libraries and the one library continues to grow and fill up my hard drive and my iCloud account? I will need to buy larger and larger drives and higher and higher iCloud storage subscriptions. I would like to be able to split my libraries into one library per year and save off old years to an external drive and continue using the current year on my phone and main computer. Anyone have any thoughts on this? I think it's related to the topic here as we continue to manage the space of our storage and library files. Thanks.

What happens five years from now - No one knows - but we do know that there will have many upgrades and changes between now and then - tell Apple your concerns and I'm sure they will be addressed in much less than 5 years - think about the differences between iPhoto '09 five years ago and Photo 1.0 today - there will be as much difference in five more years

https://www.apple.com/feedback/photos.html

LN

not to derail the thread, but you can do what I did today:

1) close photos

2) go to finder > pictures

3) locate the file called "Photos Library"

4) rename the file to "Photos Library 2015" or "Photos Library 2-15-15 to 6-27-15" or whatever

5) move (command + drag) the file to your external drive. you might be prompted to enter your admin password

6) once that is done, the file should be gone. if not, then you copied it rather than moved it. CHECK THAT THE FILE IS ON THE EXTERNAL DRIVE AND IS THE SAME SIZE and then delete the one on your computer

7) when you open Photos, you'll be prompted that Photos can't find any photo libraries and you'll have the option to create one. Do so.

8) once it is opened, make sure to go to preferences in photos and make it the "system photo library" so that iCloud will work with it

note that I am not using iCloud photo library, just photo stream. I would imagine that you need to select the option to download originals to this computer before doing the steps above if you have iCloud photo library enabled. Hopefully this helps!

If I only backup to the computer, can I delete iPhoto & just use Photos? Photos is linked to my iPhoto library. I have used TimeMachine to do a complete backup, so I'm ready to free up space. It says I have 157.28 GB space for iPhotos & 179 for Photos.

5) move (command + drag) the file to your external drive.

It's best to just drag the file to the EHD. There are cases where the move/copy process is interrupted or doesn't go well leaving you with a damaged file/library on the EHD and no library on the boot drive. It's best to just do a drag/copy, test the library after the copying is complete with iPhoto before deleting the original library on the boot drive.

so I'm ready to free up space. It says I have 157.28 GB space for iPhotos & 179 for Photos.

But both libraries combined do need much less space, because they are sharing the image files inside. You will not gain much free space by deleting the iPhoto Library. It just looks like both libraries are needing twice the space, because the storage for the photos is counted twice.

See: Photos saves disk space by sharing images with your iPhoto or Aperture libraries - Apple Support

A lot of these suggestions sounded overly complicated so after I fully migrated to Photos from the latest version of iPhoto, I ensured there was a Photos Library file in the Pictures folder, then renamed the iPhotos Library file to iPhotos Library.old and moved the iPhoto icon in Applications to the Trash. I relaunched Photos and all was fine. Also, the iPhotos upgrade notification from the App Store no longer appears.

Hope this helps, Scott

The problem with your solution is that is you ever want or need iPhoto again you are up a creek without a paddle

Your choice but for most it is best to keep both the iPhoto application and the library for a few months to be sure

Deleting them does not affect Photos - it simpy cuts off future options for you that might be needed

LN

Thanks Larry.

I could be mistaken but I thought Photos was a replacement for iPhoto so not sure why I would want to go back to it. Also, I didn't delete the iPhoto Library, I just renamed it. But I will delete it in a couple of months if all is well.

Scott

I could be mistaken but I thought Photos was a replacement for iPhoto so not sure why I would want to go back to it.

Just for trouble shooting. And to save content that Photos will not show.

1. Photos cannot migrate all items of your iPhoto Libraries (How Photos handles content and metadata from iPhoto and Aperture - Apple Support). The projects may not have been migrated correctly - your books and calendars will look differently. So if you previously created projects and want to continue to use them or print them again, you will need the original iPhoto library.
2. If your iPhoto libraries had an issue before you migrated them to Phots, it might be necessary to repair them in iPhoto, because Photos repair option might not be able to fix this.