HT204259: If Photos won't open a library that you already migrated

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PaulSelden

Q: Photos no longer opens migrated Aperture library

I migrated my old iPhoto and (much larger) Aperture libraries to Photos. Quite why these cannot easily be merged is beyond me. Anyway, after working fine for several months, Photos now refuses to open the migrated Aperture library, and will only open the Photos library. I suppose I could change the name of the Aperture library and re-import it, but are there any better ideas. And why did it do it in the first place?

 

Thanks, Paul

MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X Yosemite (10.10), 16GB RAM, 1TB SSD

Posted on Aug 17, 2015 2:26 AM

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Q: Photos no longer opens migrated Aperture library

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  • by Winston Churchill,

    Winston Churchill Winston Churchill Aug 17, 2015 3:07 AM in response to PaulSelden
    Level 10 (103,651 points)
    Apple TV
    Aug 17, 2015 3:07 AM in response to PaulSelden

    Assuming you mean the library created by 'Photos' post migration, Try repairing the library by holding down ⌥ and ⌘ while launching the app.

  • by PaulSelden,

    PaulSelden PaulSelden Aug 17, 2015 5:33 AM in response to Winston Churchill
    Level 1 (35 points)
    Aug 17, 2015 5:33 AM in response to Winston Churchill

    No, I don't think so.

     

    I have two libraries: Photos Library.photoslibrary (about 20GB, 4,726 items) and, on an external drive, Aperture Library.migratedaplibrary (about 215 GB, 13,385 items). So, the aperture library pictures are not contained within the Photos library, which seems to have only the previous iPhotos images. I used to open Photos and the Aperture library would open, together with previous iPhotos, all together. Now, Photos will only open the Photos Library. Repairing simply repaired the Photos Library. What is missing is all the albums which were created in Aperture (and also since then in Photos); these no longer appear in the list in the sidebar, only old iPhotos

     

    When I try to open the Aperture Library.migratedaplibrary, I get a message saying it is already migrated and I get the message "Cannot open migrated library" when I try. However, I tried opening it in Aperture and, after closing again, it reverted to an aplibrary (i.e. unmigrated) and is, at this moment, apparently being prepared in Photos.

     

    Can somebody explain how to merge these two libraries?

     

    Thanks

  • by LarryHN,Solvedanswer

    LarryHN LarryHN Aug 17, 2015 8:58 AM in response to PaulSelden
    Level 10 (84,530 points)
    Photos for Mac
    Aug 17, 2015 8:58 AM in response to PaulSelden

    You do not understand

     

    1 - you can not merge libraries with Photos (or with iPhoto for that matter)

     

    2 - Photos does not work with any .migrated library - those are only used by the original applications - and when you open them with the original application the .migrated goes away because you can change the contents so it is no longer the same library that was migrated

     

    3 - iPhoto and Aperture still both work as does Photos so you have three applications for photos now - and each has its own database with no connection to the others - changes made in any program are not reflected in an other program

     

    4 - when you migrated each database a new photos database was created matching that migrated database (the .photoslibrary database) - each of these is self contained and you can not see the contents of one from another - you switch between them by double clicking on the desired one or by holding down the option key while launching Photos and using the select library window that appears

     

    I hope that this helps

     

    LN

  • by matthias204,

    matthias204 matthias204 Aug 17, 2015 9:19 AM in response to PaulSelden
    Level 1 (12 points)
    Apple Watch
    Aug 17, 2015 9:19 AM in response to PaulSelden
    
    
  • by matthias204,

    matthias204 matthias204 Aug 17, 2015 9:23 AM in response to PaulSelden
    Level 1 (12 points)
    Apple Watch
    Aug 17, 2015 9:23 AM in response to PaulSelden

    post.user_wrote.label:

     

    I migrated my old iPhoto and (much larger) Aperture libraries to Photos. Quite why these cannot easily be merged is beyond me. Anyway, after working fine for several months, Photos now refuses to…
  • by LarryHN,

    LarryHN LarryHN Aug 17, 2015 9:42 AM in response to matthias204
    Level 10 (84,530 points)
    Photos for Mac
    Aug 17, 2015 9:42 AM in response to matthias204

    Ok - already answered

     

    1 - you can not merge libraries with Photos (or with iPhoto for that matter)

    LN

  • by Winston Churchill,Helpful

    Winston Churchill Winston Churchill Aug 17, 2015 10:56 AM in response to matthias204
    Level 10 (103,651 points)
    Apple TV
    Aug 17, 2015 10:56 AM in response to matthias204

    You can merge two Photos libraries by syncing them with iCloud Photo Library if you have enough storage.

     

    Enable iCloud Photo Library with the first library, let it sync, open the next library in Photos, enable iCloud Photo Library, let it sync.