Import iPhoto library to Photos

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Level 1

15 points

Import iPhoto library to Photos

I've been watching the improvements coming to the Photos app for several months and I am ready to take the plunge to switch my iPhoto library of 30k plus pictures to Photos. I do not use any cloud based storage; I have my iPhoto library on my local drive, backed up to an external connected hard drive through time machine, as well as a complete copy to another external hard drive. I have spent much time tagging faces; which is the most important to me and I want to make sure they transfer. What is the best way to bring all the metadata from my current iPhoto library to the new Photos library?

I know I'm asking a rather basic question, but I'm being overly cautious with this. Thanks for any help you can provide.

Imac, Mac OS X (10.5.6)

Posted on Dec 23, 2015 9:34 AM

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Answer 1

Old Toad

Level 10

216,662 points

Dec 25, 2015 3:01 PM in response to ChrisKet

To migrate your iPhoto library to a Photos library for the first time all you need to do is drag the iPhoto Library onto the Photos icon in the Dock. That will migrate your iPhoto library to a Photos library and place it in the same folder as your iPhoto library. You will not be using up twice the space on your hard drive because Photos uses hard links to access the photos used to create the iPhoto library. These two documents describe how the hard links work:

Photos saves disk space by sharing images with your iPhoto or Aperture libraries - Apple Support

The (hard) link between Photos and iPhoto

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Answer 2

ChrisKet Author

Level 1

15 points

Dec 25, 2015 6:28 PM in response to Old Toad

Thank you so much! This worked beautifully. All of my iPhoto events came across and I have been able to move them into Folders and Albums. More importantly, all of my Faces came through and I know how to add new ones. The new interface is a change that I'll need to adapt to, but I'm sure I can now that I know I haven't lost any functionality.

Also, thanks for the info on the hard links. Before the process, I had 115.31GB free on my local drive, I now have 108.41GB...not too bad given my library is 194GB.

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Answer 3

LarryHN

Level 10

106,142 points

Dec 26, 2015 3:39 PM in response to ChrisKet

And FYI when you are in the edit window click adjustments and then Add to add additional editing features - some on them need to click the v to the right of the names to fully expand the options

LN

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