How do I move my photos library to an external drive?

The question i have is, all the new photos imported will be copied to the external as long as it is connected, but how do I view the photos on my laptop when i am not around the external

In a nutshell, you don't. The Library is on the external. If you don't have the external you don't have the Library.

Since this won't be backup by time machine how do i make sure there is a backup if anything does go wrong to the external.

Yes it can be backed up by time machine. it's a setting.

In the Time Machine preferences ==> options add any volumes or files you do not want to backup - delete any that you do what to backup (by default external drives are not backed up so you have to remove them from the list)

LN

Two people asked about this at the beginning of the thread, but nobody responded as far as I read so please forgive me if it’s buried somewhere in there:

Do I need to move both the Photos library and the iPhoto library to the external drive? Once the library is moved can I delete both the iPhoto and Photos libraries from the internal drive?

Do I need to move both the Photos library and the iPhoto library to the external drive?

Need? Depends on what you want to achieve. If you want both on the external then yes, if not, then no.

Once the library is moved can I delete both the iPhoto and Photos libraries from the internal drive?

I note the singular "library" an then the plural "libraries". You can delete whichever you move. If you move both you can delete both. If you move one and then delete both you risk dataloss.

I read somewhere that the Photos library just references photos in the iPhoto library and therefore doesn't actually double the space used up when creating the Photos library when initially migrating from iPhoto. This led me to believe they were intertwined in some way.

And as such, if I move just the Photos library and redirect photos to the new location I wasn't sure if not having them in the same folder would break some behind-the-scenes-file-referencing and mess everything up. I guess I'm just gun shy because I've read and heard stuff about people losing all their photos because they messed with libraries.

I read somewhere that the Photos library just references photos in the iPhoto library

Close but not quite...

Both libraries point to the same files on the HD. So no, they are not enmeshed. So: move iPhoto Library and it will copy the files - but copy, not move them, so they are still on the internal for Photos. Move both and you'll get two copies of the files on the external.

1. After selecting the Photos library on the external driver, there is an option to select it as the System Photo Library? Should it be done in the Preferences?

2. Unless it is selected as the System Photo Library, would it work with iCloud and automatically download all the pictures from my iPhone?

Thanks

Dewang

I followed this and everything works as it should and am now using an external drive as my library. I have a 200GB iCloud account that i use to sync and store my photos. I have about 65GB free and it won't allow my to turn it back on because it says I have 164GB in photos to back up, all of these photos are already on my cloud, I just want everything to sync again. Please help me.

1 - iCloud Photo library is NOT a backup service - is is only a syncing service

2 - you have to increase your iCloud storage to complete this - once the upload is complete you can return to the lower storage

LN

Hi there, I am currently being given this advice from Apple support and I'm worried now this isn't correct. I made a time machine backup before allowing the Genius to wipe my MacBook Pro. When I restore from TM there are 50,000 of my photos missing. I can see them in masters by using cmd f and choosing search jpeg. I then selected all and created a new folder with items which I'm currently moving to ED to allow another clean wipe of my machine and the OS replaced. How else can I extract the original jpegs if not in masters? I've come to accept my albums and faces are gone for good but my biggest concern is losing these photos or only saving them in a wrong format.

Terence, I followed your advice perfectly, formatting an external USB3 1TB drive as Mac OS Extended (Journaled). I quit Photos and copied the Photos Library out of my Pictures folder to the external HDD. It was 332GB before and after the copy. I held down the Option key, launched Photos, the chose that library on the external drive. I browsed my photos and videos, and I could go back all the way to 2002, which is the earliest data I had in there. And I found photos uploaded today via my iPhone. No problems with the copied library. I then quit Photos and deleted the Photos library off my internal drive. Sadly, it freed only 26GB on my internal drive! Huh??!!

I then looked at the iPhoto Library on my internal drive. Despite the fact I never use iPhoto or Aperture anymore (I've exclusively used Apple Photos for the past couple years), it would appear the actual photos were stored in my iPhoto Library??? But how can that be since 332GB was truly copied to my external drive when I copied the Apple Photos Library? The iPhoto Library on my internal drive shows 355GB. So I moved that iPhoto Library to the same external drive. I then deleted the iPhoto library from my internal drive. Now I could see 355GB+26GB=381GB freed on my internal drive.

I am now rather confused. On my external drive, I now have 689GB used (both my Photos and iPhoto libraries combined -- nothing else on that drive). All this talk about "both won't take the same amount of space" seems to be FALSE. If true, how then does one explain 678GB on my external drive? If data was truly only in one of the two libraries, I would expect only 332GB or 355GB on my external drive. Can you explain this? And which library (Photos or iPhoto) can I safely delete from my External drive now?

(NOTE: I do NOT use iCloud Photo Library, but I do use iCloud Photo Sharing and My Photo Stream.)

Thank you.

Basically you've just demonstrated what I said 🙂

There is a transitional phases as the developers assume most folks with migrate to Photos from the two discontinued apps.

In this phase, the two libraries point to the same data for their Masters. To delete from the hard drive and reclaim space you need to delete from one app and then the other. Why? Because they two apps share the Masters, deleting from, say iPhoto, would corrupt the Photos Library and vice versa.

So, when you copied the Photos Library to the external, it made copies of all the originals on the external. You then deleted the Photos library but the shared masters were not deleted - as that would corrupt the iPhoto Library.

Then you copied the iPhoto Library over. But the link between the two libraries is broken by the copying them to the external - so all of the Masters were copied over again.

So, twice the space (more or less) is used on the external compared to the internal.

As to you which to delete? Decide which app you're going to use going forward and trash the other one.

Following the directions found here, I'm now stymied as I try to copy my "Photos Library" to a mac formatted hard drive. (BTW: I have successfully copied my "iPhoto Library" in case I want to do something different later)

At any rate, when copying the "Photos Library" I get: "The operation can’t be completed because an unexpected error occurred (error code -8084)." Repeated tries yield the same results.

DESKTOP INFO: iMac 24 inch Early 2008, OS El Capitan, Version 10.11.4

Terence,

I sincerely appreciate your reply.

But as you read in my previous reply, the size of my two libraries are NOT the same. If they were exactly the same, I will follow your line of thought, and it would be a simple matter to delete one of them. But since the older iPhoto library is larger, I'm confused, and I'm not sure that I should delete that. I'm also not sure why it larger. That's the source of my confusion. What do you think about that?