jennacloud

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

What are the step by step instructions for moving the new Photos Library to an external hard drive in able to free up space on my MacBook's drive?

 

I searched the forums and did not find anything related to moving the new photos library, not the old iPhoto library.  A concern I have after reading through older threads is if videos will transfer over properly.  I read that videos will turn into stills.  I don't want to lose my videos.  I plan on making a back up of my entire MacBook via Time Machine to a separate external hard drive before I even start this process at all but I want to make sure I do all of this correctly.

 

I have a MacBook Pro running OS X Yosemite version 10.10.3.

I will have 2 separate external hard drives.  One for the MacBook back up and one for the photos library to be stored on.

 

Thanks!

MacBook Pro, OS X Yosemite (10.10.3)

Posted on May 6, 2015 11:41 PM

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

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  • by coolpontiac,

    coolpontiac coolpontiac Jan 13, 2016 5:32 PM in response to Terence Devlin
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Notebooks
    Jan 13, 2016 5:32 PM in response to Terence Devlin

    I back up my everyday Mac files and folders (using simple copy/paste commands) to a 2TB drive that was formatted for a pc. this seems to work fine

     

    MY QUESTION - can i copy that photos library  (mine is now 15G) to that same drive (which is NOT formatted in OS) for safe keeping? yes, i will not try to "open it" there but can i copy it back to the Mac and have it work properly . im just trying to be able to recover from a crash of my MAC.

     

    extra credit question: what exactly is a 'library' file. i see that it shows with  a different icon in finder compared to a folder or a file.  im guessing it is some kind of package that has hierarchy inside that everyday user doesnt need to dive into...  ? but in the context of my Q.. can i copy/paste this library (from location 1 to location 2) like it is a garden variety file ?

     

    thx

  • by aurorange,

    aurorange aurorange Feb 5, 2016 4:39 AM in response to jennacloud
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Feb 5, 2016 4:39 AM in response to jennacloud

    Hi, I have a question.   I have done all the steps that you shared. 

     

    However, would deleting the Photos Library in the internal HD also delete the files in the external HD too when the external HD is connected to the comp?

     

    Thanks

  • by Terence Devlin,

    Terence Devlin Terence Devlin Feb 5, 2016 5:08 AM in response to aurorange
    Level 10 (139,582 points)
    iLife
    Feb 5, 2016 5:08 AM in response to aurorange

    No.

  • by AndrewRR,

    AndrewRR AndrewRR Feb 24, 2016 8:00 PM in response to jennacloud
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Feb 24, 2016 8:00 PM in response to jennacloud

    Will I be able to download new photos to my external hard drive when I plug it in?

    Example: I plug in my camera, and want to download new photos. Will my backup drive automatically add the new photos to my library?

     

    Thanks!

  • by Terence Devlin,

    Terence Devlin Terence Devlin Mar 3, 2016 10:39 PM in response to AndrewRR
    Level 10 (139,582 points)
    iLife
    Mar 3, 2016 10:39 PM in response to AndrewRR

    Your back up drive all do nothing. Photos will add the images to the opened library. If you have the correct library open it will add them to that.

  • by Beardenean,

    Beardenean Beardenean Mar 3, 2016 10:52 PM in response to jennacloud
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Mar 3, 2016 10:52 PM in response to jennacloud

    If I understand correctly, you want to backup your iOS devices to a drive other than your Mac's (because they have small SSDs). It is possible to backup multiple Macs to a single Time Capsule.

    Sadly though, it seems that Time Capsule doesn't support backing up iOS devices (yet. I really do hope this becomes an option soon, and I'm not the only one). Here are ways you can make sure those 50GB in your iPhones don't end up in your Mac's SSDs though.

    Photos

    In terms of pictures, iOS8 should have you backed up with iCloud Photo Library. If enabled, all your pictures and video will automatically be stored in iCloud, which gives you 5GB of free storage (or 20GB for $1/mo, 200GB for $4/mo).

    If that is not your jazz though, you can always sync to iPhoto, but move the iPhoto library to an external hard drive. iPhoto stores all your photos a single archive, the iPhoto Library on your Pictures folder, which you can move as you please. When iPhoto opens, it will automatically look for the iPhoto Library where it last saw it, but if it can't find it it will ask you were it is, and keep working as if nothing had happened.

    Backups

    iTunes backups might be a little more tricky, but it seems to be possible to move the folder where iTunes stores its backups to an external hard drive, and then trick iTunes into backing up there.

    I haven't tried doing this myself, but here's a post that claims you can do it and outlines the steps to follow, both for Windows and OSX. The instructions for OSX aren't too bad, as long as you aren't too scared of using the Terminal application (Applications/Utilities/Terminal). In a nutshell:

    1. Copy ~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/ to a new location, say /Volumes/~Your External HDD~/MobileSync. This directory has a folder called Backups, which is where iTunes stores backups for mobile devices.
      • Note 1: ~/ is an alias computers use for your home folder.
      • Note 2: Your ~/Library folder is hidden by default. You can open it in Finder by opening Terminal typing in open ~/Library.
    2. Remove/rename ~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup. We won't need it anymore.
    3. Create a symbolic link to the new location for Backups in your external hard drive. This is basically like an alias in the old location of Backups to its new location. To do so open Terminaland type in
      ln -s /Volumes/**~Your External HDD~**/MobileSync/Backup ~/Library/Application\ Support/MobileSync/Backup 

    If you launch iTunes now it should follow the symbolic link and go on with business as usual, not knowing that in fact it's now working with a folder that's on an external hard drive.

    You'll need to have the hard drive connected to backup,

    Hope it helps!

     

    <Link Edited by Host>

  • by Terence Devlin,

    Terence Devlin Terence Devlin Mar 3, 2016 10:57 PM in response to Beardenean
    Level 10 (139,582 points)
    iLife
    Mar 3, 2016 10:57 PM in response to Beardenean

    You don't understand the question - it make no mention of iOS at all, and it's from last 9 months ago.

  • by Pommerougemtl,

    Pommerougemtl Pommerougemtl Mar 6, 2016 6:43 PM in response to Terence Devlin
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Mar 6, 2016 6:43 PM in response to Terence Devlin

    Hi

    Once you transfer your Photo library on an external disc, will it back up to your time capsule too?

    thanks.

  • by NNCPLA91,

    NNCPLA91 NNCPLA91 Mar 7, 2016 2:03 AM in response to jennacloud
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Mar 7, 2016 2:03 AM in response to jennacloud

    Good morning to all of you! I want to ask what happened in my case, I have an external hdd 1tera with MS-DOS format on which I moved the files PHOTOS LIBRARY.photoslibrary containing 12GB of important files for me.

    I had to do an action very fast and sudden cause my iMac died unexpectedly... now I bought a new iMac and I wanted to return the file PHOTOS LIBRARY.photoslibrary on new Mac but going to open pictures with the command options (Alt) and going to select that file as a library to open the result is: NOTHING! no photos from here... how can I recover those 12GB inside photos and videos?

     

    p.s. Sorry for my poor english

  • by NNCPLA91,

    NNCPLA91 NNCPLA91 Mar 7, 2016 2:10 AM in response to coolpontiac
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Mar 7, 2016 2:10 AM in response to coolpontiac

    in my case, for now, I'm not able to recover the files ... I have the 12gb file saved pictures but I will not open the file ...

  • by Terence Devlin,

    Terence Devlin Terence Devlin Mar 7, 2016 10:41 PM in response to NNCPLA91
    Level 10 (139,582 points)
    iLife
    Mar 7, 2016 10:41 PM in response to NNCPLA91

    It's an on inappropriately formatted disk that's why. Drag the Library to a disk formatted Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and then try open it from there.

  • by NNCPLA91,

    NNCPLA91 NNCPLA91 Mar 7, 2016 11:39 PM in response to Terence Devlin
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Mar 7, 2016 11:39 PM in response to Terence Devlin

    Very well, so if I take an external hdd and I format with the format Mac and I copy the library in theory should reread    later I try it!!! Thanks so much!

  • by micah212,

    micah212 micah212 Mar 24, 2016 3:58 PM in response to Terence Devlin
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Mac OS X
    Mar 24, 2016 3:58 PM in response to Terence Devlin

    Why does my drive have to be in Mac OS X Journaled? Can I use ExFAT?

  • by Terence Devlin,

    Terence Devlin Terence Devlin Mar 24, 2016 4:28 PM in response to NNCPLA91
    Level 10 (139,582 points)
    iLife
    Mar 24, 2016 4:28 PM in response to NNCPLA91

    Did you copy it back to the Mac?

  • by PaulDi,

    PaulDi PaulDi Apr 4, 2016 1:16 PM in response to Paul_Adrian
    Level 1 (14 points)
    Apr 4, 2016 1:16 PM in response to Paul_Adrian

    Paul_Adrian wrote:

     

     

    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?)

     

     

    Paul_Adrian

    Did you ever find a solution the your first question? I am looking to do the same thing as you.

    Paul D

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