Photos library size - what's too big?

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Photos library size - what's too big?

Background:

I'm moving to a new iMac, and in the process realized that my "Photos Library" file (the one stored in the "Pictures" folder) is 427GB (yes, GB).

I've got ~66k items when I click the "All Photos" view in the app, with pictures and videos going back about 15 years.

I also realized there was also an "iPhoto Library" file in that "Pictures" folder which was ~375GB (yes, also GB). A quick search online (and faith in my multiple backups) and I deleted the "iPhoto Library" file, with no ill effect on the photos that appear in the Photos app. I gather that when I migrated from iPhoto to Photos, the old "iPhoto Library" file was just left there (the iPhoto app is still on the hard drive, so it sort of makes sense).

Still, I can't wrap my head around this single "Photos Library" file being over 400GB. That's nearly half of my iMac hard drive.

So I guess I have 2 questions:

1. Is there some guideline for how big that "Photos Library" file should be? I thought about attempting to export older pictures onto some other media if the current 400+GB size is (way?) too big.

2. Is there some way to optimize the library? I don't have a sense for what's normal, but when I launch the Photos app (2015 iMac, 3.2GHz chip, 8GB RAM) it takes about 15 seconds from double-click until I see all my photos. Strangely enough, before I deleted the "iPhoto Library" file, that same process took around 45 seconds...

Thanks in advance.

iMac, OS X El Capitan (10.11.3), Photos Version 1.3 (350.23.0)

Posted on Feb 15, 2016 2:46 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Old Toad

Level 10

210,497 points

Feb 15, 2016 3:06 PM in response to timrek1356

1 - A 400 GB library is not unusual at all. Some users have reported sizes up to 800 GB. Since a Photos library can handle up to 1,000,000 photos the size will depend on the size if of the image files imported. What is important is the amount of free space on the boot volume and volume housing the library. The boot volume should have a minimum of 10-15 GB of free space to assure optimal system and application performance.

2 - The iPhoto library has no affect on the PHotos library. It's a benign package that has nothing to do with Photos except that it shares the same files with the Photos library that were in the iPhoto library at the time of migration.

To have Photos open more quickly open an album with only a few images before closing. When the library is opened the next time it only has a few images to render. If you're in the Photos or All Photos window it will have to render all the thumbnails in the library which takes time.

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Answer 2

timrek1356 Author

Level 1

6 points

Feb 15, 2016 3:26 PM in response to Old Toad

Thanks, Old Toad. That's reassuring. I appreciate the explanations and assistance.

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Answer 3

Old Toad

Level 10

210,497 points

Feb 15, 2016 3:30 PM in response to timrek1356

Also it's imperative that you have a good backup system in place. Hard drive do crash. In fact there are only two types of hard drives: those that have crashed and those that will.

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