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

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Israel_70

Q: What should I do with a migrated library?

I have an iPhoto library file taking up 107GB of space on my hard drive. The library has already been migrated to Photos, should I delete it?

MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X El Capitan (10.11.1)

Posted on Dec 1, 2015 12:38 PM

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Q: What should I do with a migrated library?

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  • by Pmintz25,Helpful

    Pmintz25 Pmintz25 Dec 1, 2015 12:41 PM in response to Israel_70
    Level 4 (1,634 points)
    Dec 1, 2015 12:41 PM in response to Israel_70

    Should be ok to delete since Photos stores the library in a different location (User > Pictures > Photos Library).

     

    But to be safe, you could move the library to an external drive and then test to make sure Photos continues to work with your images. That way you have the library saved until you know Photos will work without it.

  • by LarryHN,Helpful

    LarryHN LarryHN Dec 1, 2015 12:44 PM in response to Israel_70
    Level 10 (84,530 points)
    Photos for Mac
    Dec 1, 2015 12:44 PM in response to Israel_70

    Up to you - however unless you have been deleting lots of migrated items from Photos you will not save significant space - the space used by theoriginal photos and previews is being double counted in the photos and iPhoto libraries - Photos saves disk space by sharing images with your iPhoto or Aperture libraries - Apple Support

     

    Deleting it will not cause any issues with Photos but it is recommended that you not for a while since you may want or need the iPhoto library in the future and restoring it can be problematic

     

    LN