HT204414: Designate a System Photo Library in Photos

Learn about Designate a System Photo Library in Photos
owenscenic

Q: What happens when the System Photos library is on an external drive and then the system creates a new Photos library? How do you merge them?

What happens when the System Photos library is on an external drive and then the system creates a new Photos library? How do you merge them?

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.4.10)

Posted on Jan 24, 2016 6:20 AM

Close

Q: What happens when the System Photos library is on an external drive and then the system creates a new Photos library? How do you m ... more

  • All replies
  • Helpful answers

  • by léonie,Solvedanswer

    léonie léonie Jan 24, 2016 1:11 PM in response to owenscenic
    Level 10 (105,771 points)
    iCloud
    Jan 24, 2016 1:11 PM in response to owenscenic

    Your system library can be on an external drive, if the drive is formatted MacOS Extended (Journaled)  and locally mounted.

    But you should be careful, that your external drive is always connected and available, before you launch Photos and import new photos.

    If Photos opens a different, new library, you can switch back to the library on your external drive by double clicking the external library. You can have several libraries, no problem.

     

    But Photos has no tools to merge libraries. You can only switch between libraries and open them alternately.  To merge two libraries export the photos from the smaller library and import the exported photos into the larger library.

     

    Or use the third party application "PowerPhotos" to move photos between libraries.  But merging is not supported in the free trial version. You would need to buy the full version. You can download it here:    Fat Cat Software

  • by owenscenic,

    owenscenic owenscenic Jan 24, 2016 1:13 PM in response to léonie
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 24, 2016 1:13 PM in response to léonie

    Thanks this solves my issue. Someone in my family opened Photos without the drive connected, and I didn't notice. So I have a few months of photos in a Library on my computer. I guess I will export them and then import them into the 'real' library.

     

    thank you for your help.