iPhoto and Photos Library Won't Back Up

Question

Level 1

5 points

iPhoto and Photos Library Won't Back Up

In my Pictures folder is the old "iPhoto Library" as well as the new "Photos Library", although each are significantly different in size.

iPhoto Library 172.13 GB

Photos Library 142.14 GB

I was told in an old thread that one is just a "hard link" to the original file. If that is the case why are they so different in size? My main questions though are:

1. If the migration did not complete how do I resume it?

2. When I try to back up these files to an external drive they start, but then eventually slow down and basically stop. The transfer time increases to 10+ hours.

Any advice is greatly appreciated!

MacBook Pro (15-inch Mid 2010), OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.2), External Hard Drive

Posted on Aug 25, 2015 9:58 AM

Reply

Answer 1

LarryHN

Level 10

106,142 points

Aug 25, 2015 12:33 PM in response to hawkeyext

They are not just inks - the original and previews are hard lines to the Photos library - Photos saves disk space by sharing images with your iPhoto or Aperture libraries - Apple Support

the difference in size is probably due to some un-needed files in the iphoto library like the iPhone Cache as one possibility - Photos does not migrate them as it will create its own when needed

1 - If it is not complete then you stopped it - how did yo do that? I do not believe there is any way tot stoop and start the migration - I believe you will have to start over - so please explain how and why you stopped the migration

2 - and like the last question the answer depends on undisclosed information - how are you backing up and what exactly happens and wha exact error message do you get?

LN

Reply

Answer 2

hawkeyext Author

Level 1

5 points

Aug 25, 2015 2:48 PM in response to LarryHN

The difference in folder size is rather huge, that is why I thought maybe migration stopped for some reason. I did not intentionally stop it, if it stopped at all. I noticed there is a folder in the package called "ipod photo cache" that is 39.48 GB (Yes, I have an iPhone now. Not sure why this did not rename itself). You mentioned Photos does not migrate the cache over, so can I delete it?

I manually back up my computer by dragging the Users folder over to an external drive. I then do any library and system folders as well. In this case since the Pictures folder wouldn't transfer over I tried dragging the iPhotos package and Photos package over and they would not either. It says "Copying xxxx items..." and typically gets to about 5 GBs transferred when the time starts increasing to 10 hours or more and the file size stops moving. It just stays at this state basically.

I was able to Show Package Contents and copy the files within there over, although I don't know what kind of issues I'll get should my computer crap out and I need to use this backup. I did a Software Update and it's still not working.

Reply