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

Your understanding is incorrect.

When you updated the OS a new app was added - Photos - but nothing was "done away" with. iPhoto did not "become" Photos, you had both on your machine.

The migratedphotolibrary was created after you first launched Photos.

You have since created several other libraries, from your description.

As all those libraries are different sizes, there is a strong chance that deleting some will lose photos. You need to open them and carefully compare the contents.

Hi, I'm sorry but I'm a complete beginner. I've just ordered an external hard drive to relieve pressure on the storage in my Mac Book Pro. Where can I find the Pictures Folder referred to in these answers and how does one 'format' the HD? I apologies in advance if these are basic issues i should understand. Jenny

You format the drive using the disk utility in your utilities folder in the Application folder - the Pictures folder is part of the standard set up for each user

and yes these are really basic questions - you probably need to take a beginning Mac user class at your local Apple store

LN

Hi Terence,

Thanks for the information on how to move the photos library to the external drive. I ran into a problem and wonder if you have any advice on this. While the library is copying, about 4GB into the process it stalls with the following error message: The Finder can't complete the operation because some data in "Photos Library.photoslibrary" can't be read or overwritten. (Error code -36). I made sure that the sharing and permissions are set to read/write and can't find anything unusual in my photos.

For those waiting a long time (more than 2 hours) for photos to copy FROM an external hard drive TO Mac: After consulting with at least 4 Apple support staff members, including the senior advisor, I figured it out on my own. When transferring to a new Mac, make sure you OPEN the photos app so that it automatically creates the photos library first. THEN copy the photos from your hard drive to your Mac. After that, took less than an hour (I had 83 gigs of photos to transfer). Ugh, I wish Apple support thought of this as reason when troubleshooting!

Hi PixelTacos,

Did you get an answer to this question? Or did you try moving your library? I have my Photos system library on an external drive (and on iCloud) and I want to move it to my Mac internal drive but can't find advice about this. Hoping you'll know.

Hi,

I have this same problem too! but the very first few seems to miss the main question..

or maybe they are too advanced.

I wonder if there are others like me who dont what they are up to?

Maybe there should be a more simpler explanations for computer illiterates like me!

mike

I had the same question but now I'd like to give my family a full copy of the entire catalog including all the pictures, all 40K of them sorted into folders and albums.

Is the procedure the same?

Thanks

Hi there. Hate to bother you. But I'm trying to move my photo ibrary to an external drive. I use iCloud drive storage, but my photos on the Mac (the back up) still take up almost 200G and I need to move them out to get back functionality. The copying to the GTech drive, Mac OS extended journaled goes well until the last 10 minutes of the approximately 60 min transfer when I get the dreaded error 36 below. But there is no dialogue box that lists the files causing the problem. So I have no idea what to delete or repair. Sounds like you actually did have a box that listed the files? Or did you have to click into something else to get a description of the files?

Any suggestions from any users would be helpful. Several of the answers in the thread have already been quite helpful.

Thanks!!

Rosa

"The Finder can’t complete the operation because some data in “iPhoto Library.migratedphotolibrary” can’t be read or written.

(Error code -36)"

This is simple, and it's done exactly the same as with iPhoto.

Make sure the drive is formatted Mac OS Extended (Journaled)

1. Quit Photos

2. Copy the Photos Library from your Pictures Folder to the External Disk.

3. Hold down the option (or alt) key while launching Photos. From the resulting menu select 'Choose Library' and navigate to the new location. From that point on this will be the default location of your library.

4. Test the library and when you're sure all is well, trash the one on your internal HD to free up space.

Regards

TD

Hello,

I'm having to do a similar operation and have a couple questions:

Basic info:
-I'm using a 2008 iMac, upgraded to Yosemite 10.10.3

-The drive I bought is "WD Elements Basic Storage 1TB" -- and I've already reformatted to Mac OS Extended, Journaled format.

First question:

When I open pictures folder, it shows both a "photos library" as well as my old "iPhotos library". I'm pretty sure photos incorporated all the data from the iphotos library into the photos library, but I'm not sure how it all works. Do I have to copy them both? Or, once I copy the photos library, can I just trash the iphotos one. (or is there a reason it was retained in the first place?) Anyway, I've started by dragging the "photos library" to the newly formatted drive. Which leads me to my next question...

Second question:

How long should this transfer take??? after some prep time, it finally gave an estimated time of 23 hours....then a few minutes later is shot up to "about a day, then a few minutes later...."about 4 days" (!!!) ...now it seems to have settled back down to "about a day". I did some googling and found that transferring roughly 200gb of data via USB 2.0 could take up to 7-8 hours. Long time, but that I could accept as reasonable. But given the situation I've described, something seems to be going wrong, am I right?

The only other pertinent info I can think of is that the drive is USB 3.0, but clearly states that it's compatible with USB 2.0. And the other main issue with the iMac (which is the main reason I'm going through all this in the first place) is that it only has about 3gb of space left on it. and has been running quite slow lately.

ok, before I send this off, I checked once more and now the time has finally dropped to 7 hours...so maybe my poor old iMac just needed some time to get all the gears turning...but I'm going to leave the questions and post them anyway for the first one, and in case something goes wrong again regarding the second one.

Thanks for any help or advice you can offer!

-Paul

Hello Everyone. I have a problem related to this topic. I just moved my photos library to an external hard drive and followed all the procedures you guys mentioned in this post. Its working fine as well. Only problem I am facing is that the photos I click with my iPhone now are not coming in my photos app. I even tried icloud dot com and they are not even showing there. I unchecked all my icloud settings on my iphone and on photos app on mac and rechecked them to make sure something changes. But no luck 😟 If anyone of you can help me with this problem it will be highly appreciated.
Thanks In Advance

Paul_Adrian

have you found an answer to your first question?

First question:

When I open pictures folder, it shows both a "photos library" as well as my old "iPhotos library". I'm pretty sure photos incorporated all the data from the iphotos library into the photos library, but I'm not sure how it all works. Do I have to copy them both? Or, once I copy the photos library, can I just trash the iphotos one. (or is there a reason it was retained in the first place?) Anyway, I've started by dragging the "photos library" to the newly formatted drive. Which leads me to my next question...

I am about to move the Photos Library to an external drive and have the same exact question in mind.

Thanks