jsharrow wrote:
When I opened up Photos and the back-up drive I thought I have pulled pictures from was not attached to my computer, photos got confused and could not find a library.
Photos wasn't confused; there is no way it can find a Library on a drive that isn't attached to your Mac! In that case, unless you hold down the option key when you launch it so you can choose an available one, it will create a new, empty Library on the startup drive.
Seems, when I chose the iPhoto library to update, photos updated the correct iPhoto library from my external backup, and save the new photos library on the external drive instead of on my computer that photos is running on.
During migration from iPhotos, Photos creates the new Photos Library on the same drive as the iPhotos one. The assumption is that if the iPhoto Library is on another drive, that is probably because that's where the user wants it, & because the hard links that reduce the amount of storage space required can't span two different drives.
Please tell me there is a setting I missed and can just redirect ...
Assuming you have enough space on your startup drive for the entire Photos Library & that is where you want it, just copy the entire Photos Library from the external drive to your startup one. The normal location for it is in your Pictures folder, so if that is what you want, just drag the Photos Library from the external into your Pictures folder & drop it there. Then launch Photos with the option key held down, select the library on your startup drive, & in preferences, make it the System Photo Library.
Otherwise, use the option key launch method to reselect the library on the external & make it the System Photo Library if necessary ... & remember to keep the external drive connected whenever you use Photos!