How can I store iPhoto files on an external hard drive rather than on the iMac drive

How can I store my iPhoto library on an external hard drive rather than the iMac drive to make my computer faster?

Make sure the drive is formatted Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
1. Quit iPhoto
2. Copy the iPhoto Library from your Pictures Folder to the External Disk.
3. Hold down the option (or alt) key while launching iPhoto. From the resulting menu select 'Choose Library' and navigate to the new location. From that point on this will be the default location of your library.
4. Test the library and when you're sure all is well, trash the one on your internal HD to free up space.
Regards
TD

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How can i copy iPhoto events to an external hard drive while keeping the pictures in the events together?

I have to transfer all of my events in iPhoto to an external hard drive. When I export an event from iPhoto to the hard drive, it copies each picture but does not keep them in a named event folder. I have over 14,000 pics in 600+ events to transfer and want to avoid doing it one event at a time. Any suggestions?
Thanks!

IPhoto can't do anything with any photo that hasn't been imported into its library. Its default behavior when you import a picture is to duplicate the picture in the iPhoto Library "package" file inside ~/Pictures. This leaves the original picture wherever it was, and it can be deleted, as it is now just taking up space. Everything you do with the picture within iPhoto from now on is recorded and saved inside the iPhoto Library "package".
When iPhoto is used in that default mode, you have what is called a "managed Library". The alternative is a "referenced Library". Photos in a referenced Library can be stored anywhere that is accessible to your computer: anywhere on your internal drive or on any number of external drives, flash drives, network drives, etc., etc. IPhoto will keep track of all those original files, and whatever organization, alterations or metadata you create for them in iPhoto will be recorded in iPhoto's Library without altering the originals in their various storage locations. BUT--and this is a BIG but--if you THEN move, rename, modify, delete or reorganize any of those originals in the Finder or using other photo editing tools, iPhoto will lose track of them, and whatever you've done with them from within iPhoto will be lost. Backing up a referenced library that is stored on more than one drive is a nightmare, and restoring one from a backup is even worse. So I strongly recommend sticking wit a managed library if you intend to use iPhoto at all.
A managed library can be stored anywhere. The default location for it is in ~/Pictures on your startup drive, but you can have one there and another on an external drive if you like, or you can just have one on the external drive and none on the startup disk -- as long as the external drive is always available when you open iPhoto. If you open the application and the external drive can't be found, iPhoto will create a new iPhoto Library in the default location and will assume that's the one you want to use, until you tell it differently.
To direct iPhoto to use a particular library, hold down the Option key while clicking iPhoto in the Dock to open it. You'll be prompted to locate and select whatever library you want iPhoto to open, wherever it may reside.
I have nine iPhoto Libraries on my internal hard drive containing over 100,000 pictures in all. Each library contains pictures that have nothing to do with the pictures in any of the other libraries. I never want to be able to see the pictures in more than one of the libraries at once -- if I did, I wouldn't have separated them. Any of the libraries could be moved to another drive if I needed more space on this one, but so far I've got enough space to store them all together. That makes backing up simpler.

Can you store iPhoto events on an external hard drive?

I am a professional photographer and work in iPhoto (yes, also use Photoshop, Aperture, etc.), but organize all my photos by the events in iPhoto for quick and easy viewing, e-mailing, sharing with other applications, etc.
All my photography events are eating up my hard drive memory quite fast and I also backup everything on a 1TB external WD Hard Drive.
I'm curious to know if there is a way I can delete my events from iPhoto on my computer's hard drive and have it read only from my external drive? I'd like to have my personal photos available on my computer's hard drive and event photos in iPhoto on my external drive (and not eat up a ton of memory). Essentially, every time I open up iPhoto with my external hard drive plugged in, I'd like to see all my photos by events.
Is there a way I can do this?
Thank you in advance!!!

Interesting - and thank you for the speedy reply John!
So if I wanted all my wedding photography on a different 'library' on my external hard drive I would simply hold down "option" when opening up iPhoto and create a new library on my external drive? This way, I can easily switch between my professional work and my personal work? Every time I wanted to switch I would simply hold down "option" when loading up iPhoto?
Would my Time Machine Back-up also back-up my library on my external hard drive? I presume that the answer here is no, however, thought I would ask anyway. Not sure how comfortable I feel about leaving all my photos only on an external drive not backed up in anyway.
If you are able, please do let me know your thoughts - thanks!

How can i unlock my files from an external hard drive set up previously on windows?

hi
i created some files on an external hardrive when i had a windows os on a laptop
i am trying to unlock them files to sort or delete them the external hardrive is now connected to my imac
i would know any passwords but there is no option to unlock they are read only files?
do i need to open through a windows program again?
or any other way?
using OSX 10.9 (13A603)
thanks in advance if anyone can help

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(91809)

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how can I make a backup to an external hard drive from iPhoto if it won't open? I just wan't to make a backup to my pictures not my entire computer so how does Time Machine work on that?

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I have macbook pro 13" I want to know how to copy files from my mac to the external Toshiba Hard Drive. I can't even delete files from my external hard drive. please help me my macbook HD is almost full and I have to copy my images to the Toshiba HD

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To delete files from your external HDD, attach it to your MBP and drag the unwanted files to trash and then empty trash.
Then you select the files that you want to transfer by 'drag and drop' to the external HDD and trash the files on your MBP.
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How do i copy my files from my external hard drive onto my imac

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You should be able to 'migrate them' without having to do so during a reinstall, from an external drive. In some cases, you may be able to use TimeMachine software even if the drive had not been used as a backup.
The usual way, though, is to drag & drop copy from one to another (volume or folder) you created in there and have open. Or drag an item on top of the icon of a hard disk drive when it is mounted on the desktop. I'm used to working with open folders and windows, because that works best; and then see if I want to change how things look inside their destination. This helps should I later want to burn them to a DVD and have it correct. And I want to know where they are.
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See a main general portal to TimeMachine support,
here: http://www.apple.com/support/timemachine/
Or basics that may not provide optional copy methods:
Mac Basics - Time Machine backs up your mac:
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1427
Perhaps a search of Apple Support database (or even ASC discussions?) would yield ideas, and perhaps find what may work for the kind of files you want to copy, and where they can be found & used later. Are the files for specific applications? Or images, music, etc?
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edited.

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DO you mean, how to put a Library on an external?
Make sure the drive is formatted Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
1. Quit iPhoto
2. Copy the iPhoto Library from your Pictures Folder to the External Disk.
3. Hold down the option (or alt) key while launching iPhoto. From the resulting menu select 'Choose Library' and navigate to the new location. From that point on this will be the default location of your library.
4. Test the library and when you're sure all is well, trash the one on your internal HD to free up space.
Regards
TD

How can I store iPhoto files on an external hard drive rather than on the iMac drive

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