creativevision
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Q: Time Capsule as Hard Disk ONLY and clean up Photos!

I have a spare Time Capsule which is not needed for anything (not even extending wifi network as we have sufficient coverage). Looking at the eBay prices, it's probably not worth selling.

 

Now, my MacBook Pro has about 300Gb of Photos plus several more of Movies and it would be great to vacate that space on the Macbook Pro for other use (as it's fast becoming full).

 

I understand from various discussions that using the Time Capsule as a quasi NAS drive is basically a bad idea as very slow.

 

So all I want to do is move across all of my older, less used photos to store here as an archive and free up space on Macbook Pro. I would not access those photos regularly but when I do, I would ideally like them easy accessible.

 

To make matter a little more interesting, at the moment I have various folders built up over time in my MBP HD, which are basically a mess. See attached screenshot. The "Photos Library" folders (for current and Old Mac) contain a bunch of folders I don't understand plus three other folders (Masters, Modified and Originals) all of which contain actual JPGs (sometimes very far down a folder chain). As you can also see from the screenshot there appears to be a large file called iPhoto Library - old Mac 2.migratedphotolibrary which may be a duplicate of the "iPhoto Library - old Mac 2" folder but I have no idea. There is also a separate 'manual' folder called Original Photos where I once chucked a load of JPEGs off an old computer. I am sure many (but maybe not all) of these are duplicated somewhere else in the iPhoto Library folders (either on the current one or the Old Mac 2 one).

 

So here's the question, how do I easily achieve the following please:

 

- ALL original photos into one place with album, folder, time, date information intact

 

- ALL modifications related to any of above intact

 

- REMOVE all duplicates

 

- END up with one large library that has all my photos with albums, modifications etc all there for easy editing.

 

I would ideally like this then to be backed up to the spare TC - i.e. one library containing all above.

 

Is that possible? I assume there may be some software that does this? What I don't want to do is just move all JPEGs within all those folders as I would love all album, modification history etc.

 

But not all the photos are iPhoto sourced.

 

If it makes things easier, I have access temporarily to a new iMac which I am trialling so could move all photos onto there (? How is the easiest way) and sort out in iPhoto or other app and then export?

 

Any help appreciated!

 

Best

 

Amer

 

 

 

Screen Shot 2015-07-15 at 12.05.15.png

Time Capsule 1TB

Posted on Jul 15, 2015 4:14 AM

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creativevision

Q: Time Capsule as Hard Disk ONLY and clean up Photos!

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  • Helpful answers

  • by LarryHN,Helpful

    LarryHN LarryHN Jul 15, 2015 7:09 AM in response to creativevision
    Level 10 (85,673 points)
    Photos for Mac
    Jul 15, 2015 7:09 AM in response to creativevision

    1 - there is nothing wrong with using a TimeCapsule as a hard drive - it is by default formatted Mac OS extended (journaled) - verify this - and can be directly connected via a fast cable connection - as long as it meets those and is not being used for the TimeMachine backup volume it is a good drive for the iphoto or photos libraries

     

    2 - stay out of the inside of the libraries where you are seeing things you do not understand like Masters, etc - there are no user serviceable parts in there and no duplicates (unless you see duplicates using photos or iPhoto - ad if you do you fix them using Photos or iPhoto -not the finder) - do NOT go in there and do NOT make any changes of any sort

     

    3 - as to the other you have to know wha you have - we can not  --  the .migrated libraries can be deletes if there is a Photos library matching them - but it will not save much space (Photos saves disk space by sharing images with your iPhoto or Aperture libraries - Apple Support) and if later you need the old libraries you can be in trouble

     

    4 - there is no way to merge Photos libraries currently - iPhoto Library Manager will merge iPhoto libraries - it also will find duplicates in iPhoto libraries (and FatCat's PowerPhotos will find duplicates in Photos libraries)

     

    5 - assuming you have the default managed libraries then once a photo is imported you do not need the original so the folders of photos you have can be deleted i you have imported them

     

    6 - I have no idea what the folders named Photos library - oldMac 2 and Photos library are - any valid library shows as a package not as a folder - I'm thinking that in messing around you have damaged them but that is only a guess - something is wrong there - does Photos work correctly? is there possibly a valid library inside each of those folders?

     

    LN

  • by creativevision,

    creativevision creativevision Jul 15, 2015 7:44 AM in response to LarryHN
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 15, 2015 7:44 AM in response to LarryHN

    Thank you Larry for the detailed response, much appreciated. A few follow up points/questions:

     

    1. I have the connectors to connect my MBP to the TC via Thunderbolt to the Internet WAN or one of three Ethernet inputs. Is one better than the other? And are these better than using straight USB from MBP to TC's USB?

     

    2. I haven't messed around with any of the files, but the reason the Finder image was showing folders for the two packages is that I've run out of disk space and my restore won't allow me to add on iPhoto or Photos app (literally completely out of memory!). I have copied that whole folder across to the temp iMac and those files are showing as packages. Apparently what I have in that list is two Photos Libraries and the corresponding two iPhoto Libraries (migrated packages).

     

    Thank you for the tips on FatCat's PowerPhotos  ... I think I will use the temp iMac (which is a clean machine) to import my two Photos Libraries and then merge them, then add my Original Photos folder (which may or may not contain unique images and definitely contains some of what is already in the two Photos Libraries) and then finally clean them for duplicates using PowerPhotos ... and then export one new clean large library to the TC!

     

    Unless anyone thinks that's a mad long-winded way around?!

     

    Best

     

    Amer

  • by LarryHN,Helpful

    LarryHN LarryHN Jul 15, 2015 10:28 AM in response to creativevision
    Level 10 (85,673 points)
    Photos for Mac
    Jul 15, 2015 10:28 AM in response to creativevision

    1 - Thunderbolt is the best with USB a close second - Ethernet is not good

     

    2 - you must alway have at least 10GB of free disk space - if you have less than that you will experience degraded performance and possibly data loss and damage to databases and the OS potentially making it impossible to even boot up

     

    LN