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Multiple libraries in Foto

Hi everybody,


I just found out that migrating from iPhoto to Foto made a duplicate library, I have an iPhoto archive as big as 31GB and a Foto one being 27, first of all I was wondering if I can safely delete the old iPhoto one and then trying to figure it out if there is a way to also import two other libraries I have in iPhoto so that I can get rid of iPhoto once for all (I use another editor to post process and as such Foto is just a quick way to keep the old collection of pictures not included in my main archive and, especially, those shot with the mobile phone).


Any hint suggestion welcome


Grazie



Giovanni

Posted on Oct 4, 2015 1:56 AM

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Question marked as Best reply

Posted on Oct 4, 2015 8:41 AM

Giovanni,


when you migrate an iPhoto Library to Photos, it will create a new library for Photos, but both the old iPhoto Library and the ne w Photos Library are sharing all image files using hard links. Even if they are showing as both the same size, the disk space is only used once. You can delete the iPhoto Library, but will not gain much free storage by deleting the iPhoto library, so keep it, until you are sure that the migration worked well and you do not need the iPhoto Library to retrieve books or metadata that did not transfer. See these documents for background reading:


At least keep a backup of the iPhoto Library and the iPhoto application. Photos does not transfer all metadata tags from iPhoto to Photos.


if there is a way to also import two other libraries I have in iPhoto so that I can get rid of iPhoto once for all (I use another editor to post process and as such Foto is just a quick way to keep the old collection of pictures not included in my main archive and, especially, those shot with the mobile phone).

Photos has no tools to merge libraries. You can only export the photos from one library and import them into the other library.

2 replies
Question marked as Best reply

Oct 4, 2015 8:41 AM in response to Giovanni Aprea2

Giovanni,


when you migrate an iPhoto Library to Photos, it will create a new library for Photos, but both the old iPhoto Library and the ne w Photos Library are sharing all image files using hard links. Even if they are showing as both the same size, the disk space is only used once. You can delete the iPhoto Library, but will not gain much free storage by deleting the iPhoto library, so keep it, until you are sure that the migration worked well and you do not need the iPhoto Library to retrieve books or metadata that did not transfer. See these documents for background reading:


At least keep a backup of the iPhoto Library and the iPhoto application. Photos does not transfer all metadata tags from iPhoto to Photos.


if there is a way to also import two other libraries I have in iPhoto so that I can get rid of iPhoto once for all (I use another editor to post process and as such Foto is just a quick way to keep the old collection of pictures not included in my main archive and, especially, those shot with the mobile phone).

Photos has no tools to merge libraries. You can only export the photos from one library and import them into the other library.

Multiple libraries in Foto

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