How can I remove photo files

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Level 1

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How can I remove photo files

I have an external SSD via thunderbolt hooked up as my startup drive. The internal drive is used for some storage and another external drive is connected via USB. I have all my Photos libraries set up to save to the external HDD. However, I find that the Startup SSD still has a large amount of storage occupied by photos. The default user folder for the Photos library is empty. How to I find and remove these photos? They are probably already in the library saved to the external drive so I just want to delete them to free up space. Presently I have had trouble installing new apps because of this problem.

iMac, macOS High Sierra (10.13.6)

Posted on Oct 20, 2018 12:06 PM

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Answer 1

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léonie

Level 10

200,795 points

Oct 27, 2018 9:03 AM in response to léonie

One more thing - even with your Photos Library stored on the external drive, you may have plenty of photos on the system drive in various caches. For example, Photos is automatically creating JPEG files for each HEIF photo I imported to Photos.

I am seeing them in my user library in the folder:

~/Library/Containers/com.apple.MediaLibraryService/Data/Library/Caches/com.apple .iLifeMediaBrowser.ILPhotosTranscodeCache

So essentially, all photos and videos taken with my iPhone are now stored twice: Once in the Photos Library in the new, space saving HEIF format, and once, much larger, as JPEG previews in the transcode cache in the user library on my system drive.

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Answer 2

léonie

Level 10

200,795 points

Oct 27, 2018 8:26 AM in response to anaknipedro

The graphics showing the used storage is not very reliable. Did you recently update the Spotlight Index? If not, you may want to that for a better estimate, see: How to rebuild the Spotlight index on your Mac - Apple Support

Compare the amount of storage shown in the "File > Get Info" panel for your system drive to what you are seeing in the Storage overview. That is usually more reliable, also what you are seeing in the Finder.

If your Photos Library should be a migrated iPhoto Library or Aperture Library, you may want to check the Pictures folder, if the original iPhoto Library or Aperture Library are still there.

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How can I remove photo files

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