How to safely move your Mac's iPhoto library onto an external drive

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  • Reply 21 of 38
    nhtnht Posts: 4,522member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by BestKeptSecret View Post

     

    Is it Fat32 that has a limit on the maximum file size? You cannot copy files > 4 GB on it right? I can't seem to remember if that was a Fat32 limitation or an NTFS limitation.

     

    If it is a Fat32 limitation, can your iPhoto library grow to more than 4GB? Will it recognise it as a folder with multiple files, or treat it as a single file?

     

    My iPhoto library is currently 315 GB and I have it on a Journaled 4TB drive. I am just curious about Fat32 options.


     

    The iPhoto  library can grow larger than 4GB since it's really just a folder with a bunch of pictures in it.  I doubt the library metadata file will hit the fat32 file size limit.

     

    For large libraries the transfer times become very long because there are so many files.  Zipping the library and transferring the large zip file and then unzipping seems to take less time overall.  If you try that on a large external drive you can go over the fat32 limit.

     

    I use exFat which doesn't have the limits of fat32 and native OSX support.  Just be very careful to eject the device.  Sometimes Finder gets real upset and Disk Utility won't repair it.  Don't panic though as the windows file repair seems to work even when this happens.

     

    If you don't need to share with windows I'd reformat everything to journaled hfs+.  That's MUCH safer than exFat.  I wish Apple had gone with zfs but oh well.

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  • Reply 22 of 38
    The one big caveat for this is that your iPhoto library is not backed up automatically. You need to take precautions to include it and to make sure that the photo drive is used for just that, not for backups as well.
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  • Reply 23 of 38

    m

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  • Reply 24 of 38
    Marvinmarvin Posts: 15,585moderator
    spacegabs wrote: »
    How do I make a backup of my NEW iPhoto library in the external disc? Can Time Machine make backups of external discs?

    What if the external disk crashes? :-( I don't want to lose my photos.

    You can use a cloning app like Superduper or Carbon Copy Cloner (I recommend Carbon Copy Cloner) to keep the externals synced with each other. Just make sure to use backups where you have two ports free to use them at once e.g two USB backups. It would be even better if you had 3 copies so that if something happened during a backup you'd have a spare. If your backup isn't huge, consider SSDs over HDDs.

    http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-2-5-Inch-Internal-MZ-75E500B-AM/dp/B00OBRE5UE
    http://www.amazon.com/Optimized-Tool-Free-Inateck-External-Enclosure/dp/B00KYF1LLI

    but it's hard to beat HDDs for price:

    http://www.amazon.com/Passport-Ultra-Portable-External-Drive/dp/B00E83X9P8

    The portable ones mean no need for a separate power supply. SSDs are nice in that you can encrypt the whole drives fast so if someone ever broke into your house and stole your equipment, they wouldn't be able to look through all your private data.
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  • Reply 25 of 38
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Marvin View Post





    You can use a cloning app like Superduper or Carbon Copy Cloner (I recommend Carbon Copy Cloner) to keep the externals synced with each other. Just make sure to use backups where you have two ports free to use them at once e.g two USB backups. It would be even better if you had 3 copies so that if something happened during a backup you'd have a spare. If your backup isn't huge, consider SSDs over HDDs.



    http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-2-5-Inch-Internal-MZ-75E500B-AM/dp/B00OBRE5UE

    http://www.amazon.com/Optimized-Tool-Free-Inateck-External-Enclosure/dp/B00KYF1LLI



    but it's hard to beat HDDs for price:



    http://www.amazon.com/Passport-Ultra-Portable-External-Drive/dp/B00E83X9P8



    The portable ones mean no need for a separate power supply. SSDs are nice in that you can encrypt the whole drives fast so if someone ever broke into your house and stole your equipment, they wouldn't be able to look through all your private data.



    Thank you very much for your reply and your tips.

    I'll give it a try.

    This is a BiG issue I see more often with my clients every day.

    Big iPhoto libraries with less capacity Macbooks due to the price of SSD!

     

    I have never used "Carbon Copy Cloner", let's see how it sincronizes both discs! :-)

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  • Reply 26 of 38
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by digitalclips View Post



    ...I think my cat could manage that. image

    There are a lot of people for whom being outsmarted by a cat is a daily occurrence.

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  • Reply 27 of 38
    I have iPhoto '11 v. 9.2.3. Mac OS X 10.6.8

    I, too, am trying to free up space on my hard drive to extend the life of my iMac. Yesterday, I dragged my iPhoto Library to my Dropbox "photos" folder. I can see from Dropbox that the file transferred successfully (comically, along with the gazillion "face" images iPhoto has recognized).

    Now, when I open iPhoto (holding Option key while opening), I can see that the iPhoto library lives in my Dropbox folder.

    However, there appear to be some differences from what has been recommended in the article and in the comments:

    -- I don't have the Switch to Library option. It doesn't appear in my File menu.
    -- My iPhoto Library's ONLY location is in Dropbox. So, apparently my dragging it moved it as opposed to having copied it.

    My primary goal in doing this is to keep my photos on Dropbox to free up hard drive space. But it doesn't appear to have done so and I don't see an "old" iPhoto Library to delete.

    Can somebody help?

    Thank you.
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  • Reply 28 of 38
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by mstone View Post

     

    Most external drives and USB flash drives come formatted as Fat 32 which is a Windows format but OS X can read and write to it just fine. If you want better performance, you can use Disk Utility to format the drive as Mac OS X Extended (journaled). Just make sure there is nothing already on the disk that you want to keep. If there is, you should back it up somewhere because formatting erases all data.


    I tried moving my Photos Library as described. It took a while but it moved successfully. When trying to open it with Photos from a new location a pop-up window said that the external disk has a wrong format. Isn't "Windows NT Filesystem (compressed)" same as Fat32? Does it mean I need to go now and buy a new drive just for Photos app to be moved? All other files are moving and working without a problem (I mean movies, separates images, etc). And I can't even reformat the drive cause it already has half space taken by other stuff. 

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  • Reply 29 of 38
    My 97 GB backup to an external says it will take 5days?? Is it possible that it will speed up?
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  • Reply 30 of 38
    cnocbuicnocbui Posts: 3,613member
    The best thing to do with iPhoto is to never begin using it in the first place.  That solves all the iPhoto library issues.
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  • Reply 31 of 38
    The fact that this is so hard proves how f...ed up the Mac operating system is. To move on a PC: "Just drag and drop" It's that simple.
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  • Reply 32 of 38
    If the photo upload to ICloud gets hung up at 63.04 GB of 63.55 GB what should be done. I've been waiting about a whole day for this last portion to upload. 
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  • Reply 33 of 38
    sphericspheric Posts: 2,800member
    spacegabs said:

    How do I make a backup of my NEW iPhoto library in the external disc? Can Time Machine make backups of external discs?
    What if the external disk crashes? :-( I don't want to lose my photos.

    Thank you very much for your time and GREAT solution for my Macbook Air running out of space due to a LARGE iPhoto Library. :-)

    Time Machine backs up all external disks by default (though they obviously need to be connected while Time Machine is running its backup job).

    You're covered. 
    edited February 2017
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  • Reply 34 of 38
    I followed the exact process outlined in this article. Now when I plug my phone in to sync it through iTunes my photos don’t transfer. The program hangs for hours. Phone is recognized by iTunes and external drive is connected and turned on. 

    Any help appreciated. 
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  • Reply 35 of 38
    Mike Wuerthelemike wuerthele Posts: 7,185administrator
    LBEE said:
    I followed the exact process outlined in this article. Now when I plug my phone in to sync it through iTunes my photos don’t transfer. The program hangs for hours. Phone is recognized by iTunes and external drive is connected and turned on. 

    Any help appreciated. 
    Are you using iPhoto or Photos?

    edited February 2018
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  • Reply 36 of 38
    Sadhanasadhana Posts: 1unconfirmed, member
    I moved the photo library to my hard disk and deleted the library on my Macbook. I don't have it saved anywhere else so I tried to copy the library from my hard disk to google drive, but I'm unable to do it. How to I reverse this process? How do I copy the library from my hard disk to my Macbook?
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  • Reply 37 of 38
    sphericspheric Posts: 2,800member
    Just…drag it from the external drive to the "Pictures" folder in your home folder. 
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