After trying El Capitan for a week I realized that some of my Adobe audio programs weren't compatible and need to revert back to Yosemite.
Now my problem is that I can't migrate my iPhoto library because the library is a newer version. How can I import my photos?
MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X Yosemite (10.10.4)
Photos has no tools to downgrade a Photos Library.
If your Photos Library is completely in iCloud you can create a new, empty Photos Library and sync that library with iCloud. Then your Photos will download back from iCloud to the empty library and create a new Yosemite Photos Library.
If you are not using iCloud Photo Library restore the last version of your Photos Library from before the El Capitan upgrade from your Time Machine backup, but don't replace the newer El Capitan version.
You may need to import again the photos that are not yet in the older Photos library you restored.
Thanks! I'm not using iCloud Photo although this makes me thing I probably should.
My TimeMachine backup drive wouldn't let me access it with migration assistant because it says it too needs a newer version of OS X. Am I going to have to go into the photo packaged contents and do this manually? I also have both the older iPhoto Library (dating back to 2004) and the new Photos library (from April). Do I only need one of these?
Thanks for the help!
I also have both the older iPhoto Library (dating back to 2004)
You could try to create a new Photos Library from your iPhoto Library. Drag the iPhoto Library onto the Photos icon in the Dock. When the library opens in Photos, try to find out, which newer photos are missing.
Then ctrl-click your El Capitan Photos Library and select "Show Package Contents" from the contextual menu.
Look at the folder "Masters". It will have all original image image files, sorted into folders by the date of the import Year > Month > Day. Copy the the photos out that have been imported after you last used iPhoto and import the into your restored Photos Library.
My TimeMachine backup drive wouldn't let me access it with migration assistant because it says it too needs a newer version of OS X.
You could try to launch Time Machine instead of the Migration Assistant..
Thank you! This worked pretty much. I couldn't get into the actual Time Machine app but I was able to click on the time machine backup and dive into the last Photo library saved (Oct 1) before I upgraded. Everything is in working order now.
Thanks everyone for the help! This was much less painful than I feared.
You're welcome. That's great, that you could restore your Time Machine backup. 🙂
Going from El Capitan back to Yosemite - Unsupported Library
