Q: What is the relationship between the Photos library and the iPhoto library?
I'm posing this question here because I can't find any relevant information online.
I was dealing with a customer's imac recently who had a full start up disk. I noticed her old iPhoto library was using 126GB while she had already transitioned to Photos. Her Photos library stated it was using much more (200+ if I remember correctly). I copied the iPhoto library to an external drive and deleted it. I then opened package contents and imported the leftover photos into the photos program to ensure I wasn't actually deleting any of her precious memories. After the job was complete I was surprised to see that there were still only 6GB of free space on her computer. What gives? Is there a relationship between the old iPhoto library and the new photos library? If so, what is it? Is what I did safe? I understand at that point she will not be able to go back to iPhoto. But what is going on that I am missing?
Thank you in advance for your input.
iMac, OS X Yosemite (10.10.5), Photos v 1.0.1
Posted on Feb 29, 2016 6:35 PM
None - they are totally separate - the is no connection or relationship of any sort
either can be deleted with no effect on the other - but it will not save much space at all and is not recommended - which is exactly what you saw -- Photos saves disk space by sharing images with your iPhoto or Aperture libraries - Apple Support
LN
Posted on Feb 29, 2016 9:09 PM