Relocating iPhoto Library to external driveincreases the size dramatically

I was doing some housekeeping on a friends 'angle poise' iMac running 10.2 and iPhoto 6. They'd run out of space on the internal drive so i decided to move their iPhoto library and iTunes library to an external 100Gb FW drive.
I read about how to do this and started with iPhoto... copied the library to the external drive... took a while. Then relocated the original to desktop...restarted iPhoto and pointed it to the new external drive location...works fine. So then deleted the original library from main drive....My problem is that the original library on the iMac HD was about 13Gb, and the copy now on the external HD that iPhoto references is 75Gb! How come the library has expanded so dramatically in copying and can it be shrunk? There's no room for his iTunes library (15Gb) on the external HD anymore, especially if it expands in a similar fashion on coppying.
Anyone had a similar experience and what did you do...
Many thanks

"My problem is that the original library on the iMac HD was about 13Gb, and the copy now on the external HD that iPhoto references is 75Gb!"
I have not had that experience and I truly don't understand how it could have happened. You did a normal "copy." That should have put an exact duplicate on the external drive.
Try this first...
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=107947
If I were in your shoes, the next thing that I would do would be to (carefully) open up the library and attempt to determine what's occurred but don't make any changes manually.
You also might want to do a search of the forum postings. I remember seeing something like "Duplicate Annhiliator" mentioned but I know nothing about it.
Message was edited by: PhillyPhan

Similar Messages

Trying to copy iPhoto Library to external hard drive for backup. Error message: The Finder can't complete the operation because some data in "iPhoto Library" can't be read or written (Error code -36).

Trying to copy iPhoto Library to external hard drive for backup. Error message: The Finder can't complete the operation because some data in "iPhoto Library" can't be read or written (Error code -36).

That code is
-36
ioErr
I/O error (bummers)
Make sure the EHD is formatted OS X Extended (journaled) and run Disk Utilty on the EHD and repair the disk. If that fails to help I'd try the following:
Using iPhoto Library Manager to Rebuild Your iPhoto Library
Download iPhoto Library Manager and launch.
Click on the Add Library button,
navigate to your Home/Pictures folder and select your iPhoto Library folder.
Now that the library is listed in the left hand pane of iPLM, click on your library and go to the Library ➙ Rebuild Library menu option
In the next window name the new library and select the external HD as the location of the newly rebild library.
Click on the Create button.
Note 1: This creates a new library based on the LIbraryData.xml file in the library and will recover Events, Albums, keywords, titles and comments. However, books, calendars, cards and slideshows will be lost.
Note 2: Your current library will be left untouched for further attempts at a fix if so desired.
OT

Iphoto library on external hard drive now does not show all the photos when i access it from macbook

i backed up iphoto library to an external hard drive. Deleted photo library on the macbook. After transferring some new photos to macbook from a camera, when i access the iphoto library on external hard drive only the new photos show up. Originals are still in files, but don't appear when opening iphoto library on external hard drive.

Make a temporary, backup copy of your library if you don't already have one (Control-click on the library and select Duplicate from the contextual menu) and apply the two fixes below in order as needed:
Fix #1
Launch iPhoto with the Command+Option keys held down and rebuild the library.
Select the options identified in the screenshot.
Fix #2
Using iPhoto Library Manager to Rebuild Your iPhoto Library
Download iPhoto Library Manager and launch.
Click on the Add Library button, navigate to your Home/Pictures folder and select your iPhoto Library folder.
Now that the library is listed in the left hand pane of iPLM, click on your library and go to the File ➙ Rebuild Library menu option
In the next window name the new library and select the location you want it to be placed.
Click on the Create button.
Note: This creates a new library based on the LIbraryData.xml file in the library and will recover Events, Albums, keywords, titles and comments but not books, calendars or slideshows. The original library will be left untouched for further attempts at fixing the problem or in case the rebuilt library is not satisfactory.
OT

Macbook Pro Crashes Whenever I tranfer iPhoto Library to External HDD

I have a 1 month old Macbook Pro running Mavericks 10.9.2 and I am trying to back up my iPhoto library (about 52 GB file size) to an external HDD (Western Digital) and it always crashes my system and I am forced to restart.
The drive is a 2TB drive with 2 partitions. 500GB for Time Machine and 1.5 TB for general storage.
I have tried restarting the macbook, unplugging and replugging the drive in. I've repaired the general storage partition and none of that works.
Any help and advice is greatly appreciated.

If you have more than one user account, you must be logged in as an administrator to carry out these instructions.
Launch the Console application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Console in the icon grid.
Select the most recent panic report (with a name that begins with "Kernel" and ends in ".panic") under the heading System Diagnostic Reports on the left. If you don't see that heading, select
View ▹ Show Log List
from the menu bar. Post the entire contents of the report — the text, please, not a screenshot. In the interest of privacy, I suggest you edit out the “Anonymous UUID,” a long string of letters, numbers, and dashes in the header and body of the report, if it’s present (it may not be.) Please don't post any other kind of diagnostic report, such as a hang report.

Can't move iPhoto library to external drive

My poor little iMac only has 200 MB of hard drive space on it, so I need to make some room! I'd already moved my iTunes library from it last year, but I figured now I need to move my iPhoto library to my external hard drive too.
I went to Apple help for instructions, which said drag the iPhoto library folder to the hard drive. I couldn't find an icon that looked like a folder in Pictures, but I found an icon that said "iPhoto Library" so I moved that icon to my external hard drive. On the hard drive, the icon turned into a blank document icon. I put my iMac's iPhoto library in the trash, reopened iPhoto, selected "choose library" and tried to choose the iPhoto library that was on the external hard drive, but it was grayed out, so I couldn't! I went through all these steps several times.
Also, just for curiosity's sake, I double clicked on the iPhoto library blank icon on the external hard drive. It said it needed an application to work with it, so I tried to choose iPhoto, but that wasn't working either.
I have iLife '08, by the way. The hard drive is a 250GB WD. Can anyone tell me how to do this?

What is the size of the resulting file on the external HD? Also how is the external HD formatted? If it's one of the FAT formats for PCs that may be the problem. Try copying that file back to your desktop and see if it will reconvert back to a library. If that's the case, reformat the HD to OS X Extended (journaled).
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.
I've created an Automator workflow application (requires Tiger), iPhoto dB File Backup, that will copy the selected Library6.iPhoto file from your iPhoto Library folder to the Pictures folder, replacing any previous version of it. It's compatible with iPhoto 08 libraries and Leopard. iPhoto does not have to be closed to run the application, just idle. You can download it at Toad's Cellar. Be sure to read the Read Me pdf file.

Transferring old iPhoto library from external HD to new MBP

I have my old iPhoto Library on an external drive and am trying to copy it to my new MBP. I drag the iPhoto Library icon to my PIctures folder and after 15 minutes or so of seeing "Preparing to copy to Pictures" an error message appears: The Finder can't complete the operation because some data in "iPhoto Library" can't be read or written. (Error code -36)
Help!

That error code means there's a damaged file somewhere in the library. Backup the library and launch iPhoto with the Command+Option keys depressed to rebuild the library. Select All options.
Click to view full size
Then try to copy. If that doesn't work use iPhoto Library Manager to rebuild the library. It creates a new library so you can set the new library's destination to be the Pictures folder on your Mac.
Rebuild the library using iPhoto Library Manager as follows:
Using iPhoto Library Manager to Rebuild Your iPhoto Library
1 -Download iPhoto Library Manager and launch.
2 -Click on the Add Library button, navigate to your User/Pictures folder and select your iPhoto Library folder.
3 - Now that the library is listed in the left hand pane of iPLM, click on your library and go to the File->Rebuild Library menu option
4 - In the next window name the new library and select the location you want it to be placed.
5 - Click on the Create button.
Note: This creates a new library based on the LIbraryData.xml file in the library and will recover Events, Albums, keywords, titles and comments but not books, calendars or slideshows. The original library will be untouched for further attempts at fixing or in case the rebuilt library is not satisfactory.
9

IPhoto library on external hard drive will no longer open

I'm hoping that someone will be able to point me to a simple solution to my problem...
I'm running iPhoto 9.6 on a MacBook Pro (Retina, 13 inch, mid-2014). The OS is Yosemite 10.10.1. Because the flash storage is only 250GB I have my main iPhoto library (146GB) on a partition of an external 1TB Lacie Rugged drive. The external hard drive also has partitions for Time Machine Backup and SuperDuper Bootable Clone. I have a separate, much smaller iPhoto library on the MBP which contains recent photos.
Yesterday I failed to reconnect my MacBook Pro to the power source when I put it back on my desk. The result was that the battery went below 5% and the MBP turned itself off and also ejected the external hard drive (some time after I reconnected the power cable there were dialog boxes on my screen informing me that each of the three partitions had been ejected incorrectly). I waited until the MBP was fully charged before I tried to open my 'main' iPhoto library on the external hard drive. I received a message that the library would have to be upgraded to work with the computer (very odd, because it had already been upgraded last October when I upgraded from Mavericks to Yosemite and has been working without any real problem ever since then).
After some hours when the only message on the screen was 'Rebuiding Thumbnail Caches' I pressed Cmd+Option+Esc I saw that iPhoto was 'Paused' - that message subsequently changed to 'Not Responding'. I 'Force Quit' iPhoto but the iPhoto library will not open at all from the external drive.
As a test I quit iPhoto and re-started using the Option key and chose to open the iPhoto library which is on the internal drive and it opened without any problem.
I recall that it used to be possible to fix this sort of thing (perhaps not) by trashing the com.apple.iPhoto.plist file, however, I don't seem to be able to find it :-(
I'm really at a loss as to how I should approach this problem and I would be very grateful for any suggestions that can be offered.
Cheers
Tricia

Further update ....
I downloaded and installed iPhoto Library Manager and then chose Library - Rebuild Library. Unfortunately, when it had finished the result was 0 images in any file or folder. I checked the log (which is incredibly long) but here's the beginning of it which seems to indicate that the problem is that an essential file is missing -
2015-01-21 10:49:18.671 iPhoto Library Manager 4.1.11; iPhoto 9.6; OS X 10.10.1; unregistered
2015-01-21 10:49:19.033 Rebuilding library /Volumes/Pictures/iPhoto Library
2015-01-21 10:49:19.033 Rebuilt library located at /Users/Tricia 1/Pictures/iPhoto Library (rebuilt).photolibrary
2015-01-21 10:49:19.035 Building preview…
2015-01-21 10:49:19.042 Photo transfer settings: source libraries = /Volumes/Pictures/iPhoto Library, copy faces = true, copy places = true, combine album contents = false, photo attributes copied = (comment, date, flagged, hidden, latitude, longitude, name, rating)
2015-01-21 10:49:19.042 Loading data for library /Volumes/Pictures/iPhoto Library…
2015-01-21 10:49:19.056 Version number: 9.6
2015-01-21 10:49:19.057 An error occurred: Trying to load database for library “/Volumes/Pictures/iPhoto Library” failed. Some information such as faces, places, and edit history may not be transferred succesfully. (error = Error Domain=PLDatabaseErrorDomain Code=1 "The SQLite database file could not be found." UserInfo=0x10e9c1c10 {PLDatabaseErrorVendorErrorKey=14, PLDatabaseErrorVendorStringKey=unable to open database file, NSLocalizedDescription=The SQLite database file could not be found.}
After this each entry has a dialog that basically says the image file is missing from /Volumes/Pictures/iPhoto Library.
As mentioned in an earlier post I do have another iPhoto Library on my 2008 MacBook.
Can someone advise the best way to proceed? I'm thinking that I should erase the partition of my external hard drive that is called Pictures and then connect the external hard drive to my 2008 MacBook and simply drag and drop the iPhoto Library to the Pictures partition. IIRC, that's the way I moved the iPhoto Library last October when I bought my new MacBook Pro which didn't have enough storage for me to be able to store my iPhoto Library on the MBP. I could then reconnect the external hard drive to my MBP and the iPhoto Library should reappear, shouldn't it?
Looking forward to more input ...
Tricia

Photobook / project disappeared - iphoto library on external drive

i use iphoto 11 on a macbook air os x 10.7.5 and have moved the iphoto library on an external hard drive. some older photobooks and projects (calendars) are clickable - i am asked if it is okay to renew them. others are just dead.
when i end iphoto and restart (my last click was on that project), then iphoto turns and turns and never starts. until i click on a openable project or event.
i went through all rebuilds offered by iphoto (library, access rights) except the thumbnail-renewal.
any solution?
do i have to kill the old books? and do them again.
i would like to do some re-prints of them...

If, as Larry asked, the EHD is formatted OS X Extended (journaled) apply the two fixes below in order as needed:
Fix #1
1 - launch iPhoto with the Command+Option keys held down and rebuild the library.
2 - run Option #4 to rebuild the database.
Fix #2
Using iPhoto Library Manager to Rebuild Your iPhoto Library
1 - download iPhoto Library Manager and launch.
2 - click on the Add Library button and select the library you want to add in the selection window..
3 - Now that the library is listed in the left hand pane of iPLM, click on your library and go to the Library ➙ Rebuild Library menu option.
4 - In the next window name the new library and select the location you want it to be placed.
5 - Click on the Create button.
Note: This creates a new library based on the LIbraryData.xml file in the library and will recover Events, Albums, keywords, titles and comments. However, books, calendars, cards and slideshows will be lost. The original library will be left untouched for further attempts at fixing the problem or in case the rebuilt library is not satisfactory.
OT

Can't read iPhoto library from external drive

I suddenly can't can't read iPhoto library from external drive. I have talked to WD and nohing is wrong with the network drive. I can open images and files from it. But, I can't read in iPhoto Library.

Network Drive? a NAS?
iPhoto needs to have the Library sitting on disk formatted Mac OS Extended (Journaled). Users with the Library sitting on disks otherwise formatted regularly report issues including, but not limited to, importing, exporting, saving edits and sharing the photos.
Basically, you need to move the library to a correctly formatted disk.

Can't back up iPhoto library to external hard drive

Just purchased a new ext. hard drive; when I try to back up my iPhoto library (v. 5.0.4) to it I get a message "can't copy one or more of your items". When I click to continue, it simply stops. I had no trouble backing up iTunes and other files. What am I doing wrong?

Hi Lori;
Thanks to you for your support as well. I have tried dragging the iPhoto Library both directly from the Pictures File in Finder, and from a copy of the iPhoto Library folder on my desktop. I get the same non-result in both cases: "One or more items can't be copied. Do you want to skip them and copy the remaining items?" It doesn't specify what items can't be copied, and when I click yes (to continue) nothing gets copied.
As I said earlier, I successfully backed up my entire iTunes folder with room to spare, so I know the external hard drive is operating properly. Any ideas? Thanks again.

Transfer iphoto library to external harddrive. Best practice?

Need to transfer iphoto library to external harddrive due to space issues. Best practice?

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)
And be sure that the External drive is formatted Mac OS extended (journaled) (iPhoto does not work with drives with other formats) and that it is always available prior to launching iPhoto
And backup soon and often - having your iPhoto library on an external drive is not a backup and if you are using Time Machine you need to check and be sure that TM is backing up your external drive
LN

Not able to access my iPhoto library from external harddrive

I get this message when I attempt to access my iphoto Library from my LeCie external hard drive. "Your photo library is either in use by another application or has become unreadable. Shut down and restart your computer, and then open iPhoto again. If the problem persists, try rebuilding your photo library. To do this, quit iPhoto, and then reopen it while keeping the Option and Command keys pressed. You can also try restoring your photo library from a backup.
I'm nervous to do as instructed for fear of deleting my photos from the external harddrive.

What format is the external drive? Has the iPhoto library been working on the external drive in the past? What recently changed? what ahppened when you tried
Shut down and restart your computer, and then open iPhoto again.
LN

Need to transfer iphoto library to external hard drive

need to transfer iphoto library to external passport drive. It will not let me drag and drop

Welcome to Apple Support Communities
The external drive is formatted in NTFS, a format that OS X can't write in. You have to erase the external disk.
First, open Finder, choose the external drive in the sidebar, under "Devices", and copy all the content of your external drive to another folder like Desktop.
Then, follow these steps to format the external drive in "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)" as Format > http://pondini.org/OSX/DU1.html Finally, drag the iPhoto library to the external drive

Why does the old iphoto library still remain after the upgrade? Takes up HUGE space on my laptop

Why does the old iphoto library still remain after the upgrade? Takes up HUGE space on my laptop

Why does the old iphoto library still remain after the upgrade? Takes up HUGE space on my laptop
Actually, it only looks like it takes up additional space. The file size shown is misleading. When you migrate an iPhoto library to Photos, both libraries will show the media files using hard links. The actual file content of the image files and videos is shared by hard links:
See this linked document: Photos saves disk space by sharing images with your iPhoto or Aperture libraries - Apple Support
You will gain no free storage at all by deleting either the iPhoto Library or the Photos library. So keep both libraries until you are very sure, that Photos is working well on your Mac and your iPhoto library has been migrated correctly. Also, check, if you like the workflow in Photos. It is very different from iPhoto and some iPhoto features are not supported.
There will be no easy way back to iPhoto, if you delete your iPhoto library or the iPhoto application. Apple does not sell it any more.

Move iphoto library to external drive...now what?

I copied my iphoto library over to my external drive and now I would like to delete my iphoto library. Before I do that, I want to know what to delete. The largest folder is called "originals" then i have a bunch of folders that are named years...etc. What should I delete? What should I not delete? Can I now copy my husband's iphoto folder to the same external folder so that we can share? We may just use one account on our imac for music and photos...too complicated to share.

Hi megan,
If you have launched iPhoto with the Option key and chose to open another library and chose the one on the external and everything is working fine, you can delete the entire iPhoto Library folder in your Pictures folder.
iPhoto is now using the library on the external.
You can copy your husbands to the external if you wish but it cannot have the same "iPhoto Library "name or it will replace yours when it is moved there.
If you want to merge the libraries though, you can use iPhoto Library manager (paid version)
the situation is a little more complicated and has different steps depending on what you want to do.
If you are wanting to use the same library I would purchase iPhoto library manager, use it to merge yours and your husbands library.
Copy the merged library to an external. To share this library, the external must be set to "ignore permissions"
Instructions are on the iPhoto Library Manger documentation link for sharing la library.
iPhoto Library Manager
iPhoto Library Manager documentation
this page will show you everything you can do with iPhoto Library Manager.

Relocating iPhoto Library to external driveincreases the size dramatically

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for