moving the Photo library to an external drive

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Level 1

16 points

moving the Photo library to an external drive

Hi!

(sorry for my poor English, living in the Netherlands..)

My goal is to move the photo library (60000 photos..) of a friend of mine to an external drive because there is a lack of storage space. The steps I plan to take:

Check if the external drive is formatted macOS extended journaled / enough space to hold te library
Photo's > Preferences > Tab General > check Importing (copy items to photos library)
Menu-bar > Edit > Select all
Menu-bar > File > Consolidate
Stop optimizing the local photo library, by : Photos > preferences > iCloud > Select Download originals to this Mac. (She uses iCloud photo library, so all her photos are there in full resolution. On her Mac she has chosen a year ago for optimizing the local photo library.) How can I check if this proces is ready?
Close Photos and copy the Photos library to the external drive and wait a long time.
Make the Photo library on the external drive to be the 'System photo library'.
Test everything.
Delete the photo library on the local internal drive and test.
Empty the trash.

Big question: is this the right procedure?

Thanks in advance!!

MacBook Pro TouchBar and Touch ID, macOS High Sierra (10.13.3)

Posted on Feb 4, 2018 11:28 PM

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Answer 1

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léonie

Level 10

194,923 points

Feb 5, 2018 10:45 AM in response to Lengerke

Looks like a good plan. I would make the step 5 the first one, however. Disable "Optimize storage" before you consolidate any referenced images. After consolidating they might become optimized, if Optimize storage is still enabled.

On her Mac she has chosen a year ago for optimizing the local photo library.) How can I check if this proces is ready?

That is not easy, because Photos does not have an indication, how many photos are still optimized. The process has not finished, if you try to disable iCloud Photo Library and get a warning, that photos have bot been downloaded in full. If you are seeing this warning, cancel the sign-out of iCloud Photo Library.

You can speed up the download by creating an album with all photos and videos an then enable "Download Originals to this Mac" for this album. To enable this flag, select this album with all photos in the sidebar, then ctrl-click this album, and click "Download Originals to this Mac".

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