bigkahunaintx

Q: Too many photos, full SSD

I can't seem to find the right solution here and I'm hoping that some of you here can help out.

 

My wife has a 512GB SSD and is full (2.5GB free). She has about 270GB of photos, most are in Photos (iPhoto library import). I need to move most of this to a separate external drive that she can get easy access to. She probably has mant duplicates, but I'll deal with that later.

 

What should I do?

iMac, OS X Yosemite (10.10.2), 27 inch; Base Model, 2.7GHz i5

Posted on Jul 29, 2016 7:27 PM

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Q: Too many photos, full SSD

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  • Helpful answers

  • by LarryHN,

    LarryHN LarryHN Jul 29, 2016 7:52 PM in response to bigkahunaintx
    Level 10 (84,210 points)
    Photos for Mac
    Jul 29, 2016 7:52 PM in response to bigkahunaintx

    Two possible solutions

     

    but you need to act now as your computer is at great risk with so little free space - you should never let free space fall below 10 GB - teh absolute minimum needed to operate

     

    1 - One path would be to use iCLoud Photo Library with optimized photos on your limited storage Mac

     

    2 - another would be to move the Photos library to an external drive - the drive must be formatted Mac OS extended (journaled), not be used as a TimeMachine backup volume, directly connected with a fast wired connection like FireWire, USB or ThunderBolt and always available prior to launching Photos -  you quit Photos and drag the library to the EHD then double click on it to open it and select it as the default library and in Photos preferences verify that it is set as the system library - once you have fully tested it you can delete the original library on the main drive

     

    LN

  • by bigkahunaintx,

    bigkahunaintx bigkahunaintx Jul 29, 2016 8:07 PM in response to LarryHN
    Level 1 (8 points)
    Photos for Mac
    Jul 29, 2016 8:07 PM in response to LarryHN

    Thanks, but I really need to separate the library into maybe two libraries. I guess that I could create a second Photos library on the external drive and copy some of the photos to that library.

  • by LarryHN,Helpful

    LarryHN LarryHN Jul 29, 2016 8:21 PM in response to bigkahunaintx
    Level 10 (84,210 points)
    Photos for Mac
    Jul 29, 2016 8:21 PM in response to bigkahunaintx

    You drag the library to the EHD (same as #2 above) and rather than set it as default verify that is it a good copy and then delete photos from the internal drive so that the EHD has   has everything as of now and the internal drive has a subset of photos on it - you can use PowerPhotos in the future to move libraries between the libraries

     

    LN

  • by bigkahunaintx,

    bigkahunaintx bigkahunaintx Jul 30, 2016 8:26 AM in response to LarryHN
    Level 1 (8 points)
    Photos for Mac
    Jul 30, 2016 8:26 AM in response to LarryHN

    LN,

     

    Okay now that I got the Pictures folder copied to an external, can I delete the iPhoto library out of the Pictures Folder? I have a Photos library folder and an iPhoto library that are both 200+ GB in size. Although the Pictures folder that I copied only has 320GB total and it has both of those folders in there. Must be some kind of magic going on in there.

     

    Thanks!

    Mark

  • by LarryHN,Apple recommended

    LarryHN LarryHN Jul 30, 2016 9:34 AM in response to bigkahunaintx
    Level 10 (84,210 points)
    Photos for Mac
    Jul 30, 2016 9:34 AM in response to bigkahunaintx

    again

    verify that is it a good copy and then delete photos from the internal drive so that the EHD has   has everything as of now and the internal drive has a subset of photos on it - you can use PowerPhotos in the future to move libraries between the libraries

    You can delete some or all photos form the internal drive

     

    as to magic - yes called hard links - Photos saves disk space by sharing images with your iPhoto or Aperture libraries - Apple Support - until you break the hard links by moving the libraries both libraries had link to the same originals and previews saving a lot of space - when you move teh libraries these hard links are broken and each library now has its own copy of each photo

     

    LN