Can i delete my iPhoto library (since I have Photos)?

With Photos, it created a parallel (same size) Photos library next to my iPhoto library.

The size you are seeing in the Finder is misleading. The new Photos Library and the iPhoto Library are sharing the image files and each photo is stored only one, see: Photos saves disk space by sharing images with your iPhoto or Aperture libraries - Apple Support

Also: http://sixcolors.com/post/2015/02/the-hard-link-between-photos-and-iphoto/

You could delete the iPhoto Library and the Photos library will continue to work, but deleting the iPhoto Library will not free much disk space, because of the hard links from Photos. I would wait a bit, before taking this step and deleting the iPhoto Library. Check your photos library thoroughly, before you delete if.

If you should discover later, that the migration of your libraries has been faulty and you need to repeat it after repairing your libraries, you will be out of luck.

Remember, it is is just a few days after the first release of Photos as version 1.0. There are very likely some bugs and I would not burn all bridges before the library has been thoroughly tested and you are very confident, that this early Photos release is working well on your Mac.

No! Don't delete your iPhoto library. Photos is sharing the same iPhoto Library, and it's new structure only points to your original photos and thumbnails. It may look like duplicate disk space, but it is not a duplicate. Any changes you make in iPhoto or Aperture will not show in Photos, and same if you make changes in Photos won't appear in iPhoto or Aperture. See this knowledge base article for more info.

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

When/how is Apple going to remove the need for the older (iPhoto) library and allow us to get rid of it? The duplicative "library" is very confusing when it comes to file management.

When/how is Apple going to remove the need for the older (iPhoto) library and allow us to get rid of it? The duplicative "library" is very confusing when it comes to file management.

You can delete the iPhoto Library and Photos will continue to work, but it is risky to give up on iPhoto completely. You have to every confident, that there are no bugs in Photos, that will make it necessary to revert to iPhoto, until the bugs have been fixed, or to repeat the migration of the iPhoto library, because there are missing photos or similar. I recommend to be cautious and to wait with this step.

léonie wrote:

When/how is Apple going to remove the need for the older (iPhoto) library and allow us to get rid of it? The duplicative "library" is very confusing when it comes to file management.

You can delete the iPhoto Library and Photos will continue to work, but it is risky to give up on iPhoto completely. You have to every confident, that there are no bugs in Photos, that will make it necessary to revert to iPhoto, until the bugs have been fixed, or to repeat the migration of the iPhoto library, because there are missing photos or similar. I recommend to be cautious and to wait with this step.

You cannot delete the iPhoto Library if you migrated the library to Photos. Photos is hard linked to the iPhoto Library as noted in the knowledge base article above, which you did not read. Photos links to the original photos in the iPhoto Library, as a shared library, the same way Aperture shared the iPhoto library. The disk space noted by the Photos Library is not a duplicate of the iPhoto Library, it is not taking up twice as much space. If you delete the iPhoto Library, you will lose all your pictures. Photos 1.0 needs a lot of work before it could replace iPhoto.

Peter Hillman wrote:

léonie wrote:

When/how is Apple going to remove the need for the older (iPhoto) library and allow us to get rid of it? The duplicative "library" is very confusing when it comes to file management.

You can delete the iPhoto Library and Photos will continue to work, but it is risky to give up on iPhoto completely. You have to every confident, that there are no bugs in Photos, that will make it necessary to revert to iPhoto, until the bugs have been fixed, or to repeat the migration of the iPhoto library, because there are missing photos or similar. I recommend to be cautious and to wait with this step.

You cannot delete the iPhoto Library if you migrated the library to Photos. Photos is hard linked to the iPhoto Library as noted in the knowledge base article above, which you did not read. Photos links to the original photos in the iPhoto Library, as a shared library, the same way Aperture shared the iPhoto library. The disk space noted by the Photos Library is not a duplicate of the iPhoto Library, it is not taking up twice as much space. If you delete the iPhoto Library, you will lose all your pictures. Photos 1.0 needs a lot of work before it could replace iPhoto.

Actually, you can. I moved mine to an external hard disk and Photos runs just fine with that hard disk disconnected.

I only really use the photo app that is part of the OS X with downloads from my mobile devices. I had already set up the new iCloud thing and deleted my iPhoto library as it was showing the same file size as the new photo library. It's well and truly trashed! No error messages so far. I have deleted out a lot of the rubbish that I did not need to keep too. I have kept copies of the photos on my Mac so all seems to be well. So, provided you're not referencing photos stored on your hard drive, it is probably okay to delete the iPhoto library. We'll see because It can't be recovered. I well and truly trashed it!

You are braver than I am! With the newness and current lack of understanding of how this change from iPhoto to Photos really works, the most I was willing to do was relegate it to an external drive. I mostly did that because I wasn't sure how my online backup service would deal with it and didn't want both libraries going there.

You cannot delete the iPhoto Library if you migrated the library to Photos. Photos is hard linked to the iPhoto Library as noted in the knowledge base article above, which you did not read.

Photos creates hard links to the files in the iPhoto library- and a hard link is very different from an alias or a symbolic link. If you create a hard link to a file, you can delete the original file without actually erasing the shared data. The hard linked file will continue to work; as long as there is a link the data will not be erased.

So you can either delete the original iPhoto Library or the migrated Photos library, and the shared image files will work in the remaining library. Hard links are actual entries in the file table and not symbolic links.

Photos links to the original photos in the iPhoto Library, as a shared library, the same way Aperture shared the iPhoto library.

Which sharing are you referring to? It was possible to import an iPhoto Library with the original image files referenced in the iPhoto Library, but that created symbolic links, and was disastrous. When the iPhoto library was deleted, the original image files were missing. This time the sharing is much safer.

For further reading: Six Colors: The (hard) link between Photos and iPhoto

So that means I'm okay?

When I looked in finder, the two directories and the same size and same content. I didn't want the other directory as I'm never going to use iPhoto again.

I just want to sync iPhone photos with iPad and my MacBook.

Since people value their photos, I would never take the chance by deleting the library and hope that my photos are in the inferior new Photos app. Too risky with a 1.0 product.

Here is one of the biggest faults of Photos. When you import photos from your camera's SD Card, you cannot drag and drop those photos into one your albums. Apple removed that feature. How is that photo management when you cannot drag photos to an album to import them? The only way you can do it now is to import the photos, go to Last Import, select all, and then drag them to the album of choice. Totally stupid.

So that means I'm okay?

When I looked in finder, the two directories and the same size and same content. I didn't want the other directory as I'm never going to use iPhoto again.

Yes, just keep the old iPhoto Library. You may need it for trouble shooting, and deleting the iPhoto Library will not free any storage used by photos, as long there are hard linked images in the new Photos Library using these image files.

I second that. Yes, I did something similar just to make sure Photos would not complain. Photos did not complain and ALL my photos are in Photos. So I have deleted the iPhoto library. It simply means that all the files that iPhoto library referenced on the HD are still there. They are now being referenced by Photos. Deleting the iPhoto Library did not actually destroy the referenced files. Convoluted yes, but it works for me 🙂