How to move iPhoto Library from external drive to new mac?

I have exported a copy of my iPhoto Library from my old mac to an external hard drive. How can I import entire library into iPhoto of new mac? When I click Import to Library, I'm unable to highlight iPhoto Library file listed on my external hard drive in Finder. Any suggestions? Thanks.

Is the iPhoto library on the new computer empty? If it is, quit iPhoto and just drag the iPhoto library on the New Computer to the trash and drag the iPhoto library from the EHD to the pictures folder on the new computer - there is no importing involved - you NEVER want to import an iPhoto library into another iPhoto Library
If you want to run the new computer with the iPhoto library on the external drive simply launch i{Photo while depressing the option (alt) key and use the select library to point to the EHD
LN

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Hello,
If someome can assist me with the procedure on how to move my iphoto library from my internal drive to external drive, so that I can keep and access all my iphoto library files primarily from the external drive. In addition I would also like to know once the process has been completed if it would be safe to delete the internal iphoto library? Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Jag

First and foremost, before you begin, make sure you're doing some sort of backup of those photos and your systems. Preferably with Time Machine to some sort of external drive (besides the one that will store the photos) or Time Capsule.
Then you can follow these steps:
1) Make sure the external drive is formatted for the Mac. You can use Disk Utility (applications-->utilities) and select the drive to find out if it's HFS Extended format.
2) Quit iPhoto, then drag the iPhoto library onto the eternal drive and let it copy.
3) Once it's done copying, hold down the Option key and click to launch iPhoto, it will ask you to select an iphoto library and you would choose the one on the external drive.
4) You're safe to delete the original iPhoto Library from there.. however I still recommend you've made extra sure to back your stuff up.

How to move iPhoto Library from MacBookPro (Leopard) to new iMac (Mavericks)

Hi,
I've just purchased a new iMac and want to move my iPhoto Library from my older (2008) MacbookPro. Have looked it up and tried to do so, by copying the iPhotoLibrary file from the old machine to the new, and starting iPhoto with option key down & pointing to the new library. When that didnt work, I tried booting with the option & command down, and attempted to Repair, and then to Rebuild the Library.
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What shall I do?
Thanks
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Ok I know it's been awhile but I finally was able to try your suggestion.
I downloaded iPhoto Library Manager on my macbook pro, connected my macbook pro to my new iMac and did a Rebuild Library from the existing library on the macbook pro, setting it up to save to my new iMac.
It began to do the rebuild (though there were many "unreadable files") and went through the operation, which looked like it was going to take several hours to complete.
But at a certain point (after an hour or so), the macbook pro complained that I dont have enough space on my startup disk!!
So I can only guess that the rebuild must have done something to the original iPhoto Library after all (even though the settings on my iPhoto are to NOT copy files to Library on import if that matters...). The Library is 32 Gb though I dont remember what it's size was before...
Sure enough, my starup Macintosh HD now has only 1GB space on it. Yikes!
I stopped the rebuild process.
Not sure if I need to now just trash the original library to make space on my HD (of course I can save it elsewhere in case its useful), but since the rebuild didnt even get halfway through its process, the rebult library on the new iMac isnt going to do me any good. Maybe I've just lost all the years of work I've done organizing my library. Maybe I just need to start over with new kind of software (or using iPhoto start again from scratch on the new iMac).
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How to get itunes library from external drive to new computer

i recently purchased a new computer w/the windows vista platform. there were posts regarding how to transfer the library w/playlists on this board, which i followed to the point of hitting shift while opening itunes, and choosing a library. however, when selecting such from my external drive, which has the itl and xml on it as well as the itunes music folder, it gives me an error noting it is locked or that i dont have write permission to use it. my external drive on my old computer was the G drive, now it is the F drive on new one. can anyone please advise what to do other than copy all music over and have to completely recreate all playlists?

polydorus, this was the response/post that i found and it was posted by sweepea on 9/4/2007. and all my music is now from the external drive to the itunes music folder on my laptop and it let me keep all my playlists. thank you again for your help!
I had that problem too. I tried to remove iTunes from my computer and then download it again, but that did not make any difference. Then I tried polydorus' answer ("starting iTunes with the shift key held down, when asked to choose a library, navigate to your iTunes folder and choose iTunes Library.itl"), but that did not work either and that same message about the library being locked appeared again.
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By the way, I did not lose any of my music downloads or podcasts when I deleted that file, so it's definitely worth a try.
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I had to reformat the PC that housed my iTunes collection. I backed up my iTunes library to an external drive according to the instructions posted here: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1751
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Press *and hold* the shift key while starting itunes. When prompted, choose to open an existing library.
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That's a problem that many are posting about. Haven't read of a solution yet. Be sure to report the problem to Apple at: http://www.apple.com/feedback/iphoto.html.
Do you Twango?
TIP: For insurance against the iPhoto database corruption that many users have experienced I recommend making a backup copy of the Library6.iPhoto database file and keep it current. If problems crop up where iPhoto suddenly can't see any photos or thinks there are no photos in the library, replacing the working Library6.iPhoto file with the backup will often get the library back. By keeping it current I mean backup after each import and/or any serious editing or work on books, slideshows, calendars, cards, etc. That insures that if a problem pops up and you do need to replace the database file, you'll retain all those efforts. It doesn't take long to make the backup and it's good insurance.
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Can anyone tell me:
In iPhoto 09 8.2.1 if I take the time to organize, edit, "faces" "events" etc...and I move iPhoto to an External Harddrive, a Western Digital "My Book"...Does moved library stay edited, organized face tagged, etc?
Thanks

See this document how to format a drive for photo libraries: (it explains it for aperture, but it is done the same way for iPhoto)
Format external drives to Mac OS Extended before using with Aperture
Also if I do format the drive how will that effect what is already on there (not just photos but documents, etc)?
I thought you were buying a new drive to use with iPhoto. If there are already documents on the drive, you need to copy them temporarily somewhere else. Reformatting will erase a drive completely.
Disk Utility (it is in the "Utilities" folder in "Applications") will show you, if your drive needs formatting.
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If you select the drive in the left panel, you see the formatting in the footer of the panel.
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Move iphoto library to external drive

Hi everyone. I'm a first-timer here. I'm trying to free up space off my local hard drive and want to move an iphoto librabry to an expernal drive. When I do I get this message after more than an hour: "The Finder can’t complete the operation because some data in “File Name” can’t be read or written. (Error code -36)". I wonder what I can do to move the library? If it's a corrupt photo(s) or video(s) how can identify which one(s) is/are corrupt as there are literally thousands of photos and videos. Any help is appreciated. Cheers.

What format is the extrenal drive? How are you moving the iPhoto library?
Moving the iPhoto library is safe and simple - quit iPhoto and drag the iPhoto library intact as a single entity to the external drive - depress the option key and launch iPhoto using the "select library" option to point to the new location on the external drive - fully test it and then trash the old library on the internal drive (test one more time prior to emptying the trash)
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I'm a Mac guy, but my wife has a PC running XP Home & iTunes 7.1.1.5. At this point, everything works fine. I thought I'd better ask this question BEFORE I did something stupid.
I've noticed that the C-drive has most (not all) of the apps on it and is only partitioned to give 14GB, whereas the D-drive has ten times that much. The system shows me that most of the C-drive space is used (only 15% free space remaining), so I thought it'd be a good idea to move iTunes to the D-drive before she goes crazy ripping her whole CD collection. Seems silly to not use the space!
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First of all I still don't know how to post a question. There is nothing in here that asks me to do so. Therefore I can only reply to one already asked. My problem is that I followed the instructions in iTunes which tell me how to move the files from the C Drive to another location (which happens to be my D Drive). After doing that it then tells me to drag the old files into the recycle bin, however, it won't comply and tells me that the procedure can't be performed because of copywrite protections. Where do I go from here? Or at the very least, how do I post a question in this forum the normal way?

How to move iphoto library from one account to another?

For one reason to another I'm making myself a new account on my mac. I'd like to move my iphoto library from the old account to the new one. I was wondering if the instructions about moving the library to a new location (http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=iPhoto/9.0/en/pht6d607c42.html) is just for moving the library within an account? Or does it also work for moving from old account to a new one on the same machine.
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If you have any problems with the library in the new account you might have to download and run BatChmod on the library to reset the ownership and permissions to the new account owner for all of the files in the library. User the settings shown in the screenshot below:
Click to view full size
For Owner use the owner name for that account. If the account uses a different Group then use it also. You can find the group name by seleting a file in your other account and typing Control+i to bring up the Info window. The ownership and group will be shown near the bottom.
OT

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How to move iPhoto Library from external drive to new mac?

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