Q: Can I safely uninstall iPhoto?
I just started using iPhoto when Apple "upgraded" to Photos. I have seen the various issues with the new software but don't want to stick with an unsupported product (and will probably mostly use Canon DPP anyway). iPhoto keeps launching and jumping up in the dock with the the message that my library has been migrated to Photos. I don't know why it does that (maybe to do with my photos being stored on a NAS). Can I simply uninstall iPhoto or will there be any backward compatibility issues/data loss in terms of my library?
iMac (21.5-inch, Late 2013), OS X Yosemite (10.10.2)
Posted on May 2, 2015 12:11 AM
. I don't know why it does that (maybe to do with my photos being stored on a NAS)
If your Photos are stored on a NAS, then you are using both Photos and iPhoto in an unsupported way. I would not uninstall iPhoto before you are convinced that your iPhoto Library migrated well to the new Photos.app and you have checked each and every Photo in the Photos library, if it has been migrated to Photos and can been accessed in the new library.
You will have no easy way to reinstall iPhoto, if you notice that the new library has issues that only can be solved by fixing the problem in your original library with iPhoto.
. iPhoto keeps launching and jumping up in the dock with the the message that my library has been migrated to Photos.
This message will pop up, if you are trying to open the original iPhoto Library, that can only be read by iPhoto and not trying to open the new Photos library, see this help document: If Photos won't open a library that you already migrated - Apple Support
You migrate from iPhoto to Photos by opening your iphoto Library in Photos, either by dragging the iPhoto Library to the Photos icon in the Dock or launching Photos while holding down the alt/options key while double-clicking the Photos icon. Select your iphoto Library from the Library Chooser panel. If your library on the NAS is not listed there, or iPhoto keeps launching instead, Photos cannot access the library on that volume.
Move the library to a drive with a supported format - the drive should be formatted MacOS Extended (Journaled) and it should be locally mounted, not using a network connection.
After Photos migrated your library successfully, you should be seeing a new library with a colourful icon, the same as the Photos.app, on the same drive as your iPhoto Library and with the same size and the filename extension ".photoslibrary". The original iPhoto Library will have the filename extension ".migratedphotolibrary" and still show the original iPhotolibray icon.
If you don't see a large library like this, your iPhoto Library has not yet been successfully migrated:
Posted on May 2, 2015 12:36 AM

