Doug Lerner2

Q: After deleting iPhoto Library.migratedphotolibrary why didn't I recover all that disk space?

I migrated to Photos on my Mac (OS 10.11.2) months ago.

 

I talked to AppleCare just before and they told me I could remove the old iPhoto Library.migratedphotolibrary after confirming everything was in Photos and Photos Library.photoslibrary.

 

I did, and they are, so I removed the old library thinking I would free up 113 GB of disk space on my MBP. The old library was that size and the new library is 128 GB because it has continued to grow since migration to Photos, and everything seems to be there.

 

So I moved iPhoto Library.migratedphotolibrary to the trash and emptied the trash. it took quite a while for the trash to empty! But when done, instead of reclaiming 113 GB of space it seems I only got back around 10 GB of space.

 

Why is that? Were both libraries really sharing pointers to the same photos?

 

Thanks,

 

doug

MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Late 2013), i5, 512 GB SSD, 16 GB RAM

Posted on Dec 14, 2015 5:27 PM

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Q: After deleting iPhoto Library.migratedphotolibrary why didn't I recover all that disk space?

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  • Helpful answers

  • by FoxFifth,Solvedanswer

    FoxFifth FoxFifth Dec 14, 2015 6:31 PM in response to Doug Lerner2
    Level 7 (26,766 points)
    iPhone
    Dec 14, 2015 6:31 PM in response to Doug Lerner2
  • by Doug Lerner2,

    Doug Lerner2 Doug Lerner2 Dec 14, 2015 6:57 PM in response to FoxFifth
    Level 4 (1,074 points)
    Mac OS X
    Dec 14, 2015 6:57 PM in response to FoxFifth

    Yes, that helped. There it says:

     

    After you migrate your iPhoto or Aperture library to Photos, you might feel tempted to delete your original iPhoto or Aperture library. Because the migrated library takes little additional space, you don't need to delete the original library.


    I guess the AppleCare person was not correct. So why did Photos work just fine after I deleted the migrated old library? Is that why delete took so long, because while deleting the links were being adjusted to reflect the fact that the there was only going to be one library going forward?


    Anyway, it did save 10 GB doing that. But all the photos in Photos seem to be there.


    Thanks,


    doug


  • by FoxFifth,

    FoxFifth FoxFifth Dec 15, 2015 8:08 AM in response to Doug Lerner2
    Level 7 (26,766 points)
    iPhone
    Dec 15, 2015 8:08 AM in response to Doug Lerner2

    Doug Lerner2 wrote:

     

    ... So why did Photos work just fine after I deleted the migrated old library? Is that why delete took so long, because while deleting the links were being adjusted to reflect the fact that the there was only going to be one library going forward?

    ...


     

    That would be my guess. I kept my iPhoto Library for quite awhile but did eventually remove it once I was certain I wouldn't want to access it again.