400GB of photos. Want to backup to external hard drive. Need help. Not very computer savvy. Thanks

I have 400 GB of photos in iPhoto and simply want to back them up. I have a 1TB external hard drive and am wondering what is the simplest way to do this. Can I save the photos to the External Drive and them delete them from iPhoto? I need to free up space on the internal drive. Thanks

You can use Time Machine to backup, that does not mean that you can delete photos from iPhoto to save space however.
Plug the drive into your Mac and turn Time Machine on, that is all you need to do as far as backup is concerned.
You will need a second drive for your iPhoto library if you wish to keep access to all photo's, all of the time.

Similar Messages

I want to backup an external hard drive connected with time capsule

What to do? I want a macbook air but realise that the storage is limited. I want to have en external HDD connected through time capsule or similar to access storage "wirelessly". I want everything backed up automatically through time capsule. I understand time capsule does not back up connected external HDDs unfortunately. If it did my problem would be solved. How should I do? Can a two time capsule solution be possible where one is used för storage and the other for time machine also backing up time capsule nr 1?
I do not want to loose all my photos! They won´t fit a macbook air... I have tried "crash plan" wich is one of many ckoud solutions to try and take care of all my hundreds of GBs but it doesn´t work well. Takes forever to backup and it keeps loosing contact with the external HDD i have connected through the time capsule.
This must be a very common need but I find no good solutions?!
Thanks!

You are right.. there is no decent solution from Apple..
You need a proper NAS.. not a backup target for TM.. which is what the TC is.
Look at Synology and QNAP.. they are not cheap but will work fine with Macs, TM even although it can be messy setting up. But the real NAS will auto backup to a USB drive.. plus the raid system offers protection against a dead drive.
Some people use a Mac Mini as a server.. (you don't need server version OS on it).. but the disk expansion is going to cost you as much as the true NAS.

PSE 9, external hard drives and moving to new computer

I had an old desktop running PSE 3, yep...3, and my husband bought me a new laptop. Laptop's operating system would not run PSE 3, so I purchased PSE 9, reconnected all my "misplaced" photo files, loaded PSE 9 on the old desktop and converted all files to 9. NOW, I am ready to move everything to the laptop and am unsure what would be best.
I have a large collection of photos and have always stored them on an external harddrive that I just plug in when needed. I purchased a second external hard drive that I am now using for backup ONLY, so I have 2 external HD's - (1) storage and (2) backup.
New laptop has PSE 9 installed and has a some newer photos in the organizer that are presently stored on the laptop harddrive. I have not done any tagging on the laptop because I didn't want to complicate matters. I now want to import my old catalog photos (stored on the external hard drive), including PSE tags. The part that causes me confusion is that I want to continue storing the photos on the external hard drive where they are. It seems counter productive to import, make new files on the laptop, then export back to where they were all along.
Gosh, I hope I'm making sense here. Anyone have any suggestions - simplest of terms, please, regarding how to get access to my photos and tags moved to the laptop if the fewest and easiest steps?

Ken, I am struggling with this. I have renamed the external harddrive with my photos, found the catalog and copied it to the external with the photos and have connected this external hard drive to the laptop (new computer).
I am now at step 5. of your first response. I have browsed and found the catalog, now my only two options are new or convert. I don't think I need to convert because I have already converted to from 3 to PSE 9 and don't really think it's a "new" catalog.
I need an "outline for dummies", please. If I didn't have so darn many photos, I'd be tempted to just start over. If it helps, I have written tag info to my files.
Thank you for all your patience and help.

Can I view photos and movies from my external hard drive? I used Time Machine and a WD Passport for backup. Since my drive on my MacBook Pro is filling up I was planning to delete some of the movies and photos.

Can I view photos and movies from my external hard drive? I used Time Machine and a WD Passport for backup. Since my drive on my MacBook Pro is filling up I was planning to delete some of the movies and photos. I wanted to see if I could view them from the hard drive. Thanks

Hello, eco1.
Thank you for visiting Apple Support Communities.
This sounds like you are wanting to move your iTunes media folder to an external drive and have iTunes this folder from this location. If this is the case then I would recommend taking a look at the article below.
iTunes for Mac: Moving your iTunes Media folder
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1449
Cheers,
Jason H.

Want to use an external hard drive for my photos, iMovie, music and documents for use on my MacBookPro and iMac, can I do it and how?

I want to use an external hard drive to store my photos, imovie, music and documents, how can i do....Thanks

There are very good external drives available...I bought one when I got this MBP in September from OWC, http://www.macsales.com they are Mac specialists. Bought their 2 TB Mercury Elite Pro since it was eSATA, Firewire 800/400, and USB interface...use the Firewire 800 now. Partitioned into a 1.5 TB partition for Time Machine backups and 500 GB for extra storage. Both show up on the desktop, you just set the destination for you application to be the external drive volume you want to use.
If you want to discuss further, just ask what you want to know.

I use an external hard drive as a Time Machine back up, but I want to use another external hard drive to save movies, photos on it, but it won't give me the option to save anything on the new external hard drive. Nothing is wrong with the external hard.

I use an external hard drive as a Time Machine back up, but I want to use another external hard drive to save movies, photos on it, but it won't give me the option to save anything on the new external hard drive. Nothing is wrong with the external hard.

Hi Clarkett99,
To use an external hard drive for your iTunes library, see the steps in this article -
iTunes: Back up your iTunes library by copying to an external hard drive
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1751
iPhoto can be used in a similar way, follow the steps in this previous discussion -
how do I save photos and their albums...: Apple Support Communities
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3744259
Thanks for using Apple Support Communities.
Best,
Brett L

I have a TC for my backups but now I want to add an external hard drive

I have a TC for my backups but now I want to add an external hard drive to my TC and share what is on it within my own network. I can see the hard drive from airport Configurator but I cant acces it. What should i do?

Hard drive getting full or near full?
Here are some of my tips for deleting or archiving data off of your internal hard drive.
Do a search for and downlaod and install OmniDisk Sweeper and OnyX.
Have you emptied your iMac's Trash icon in the Dock?
If you use iPhoto, iPhoto has its own trash that needs to be emptied, also.
If you use Apple Mail app, Apple Mail also has its own trash area that needs to be emptied, too!
Other things you can do to gain space.
Delete any old or no longer needed emails and/or archive older emails you want to save to disc, Flash drive/s or to ext. hard drive.
Look through your Documents folder and delete any type of old useless type files like "Read Me" type files.
Again, archive to disc, Flash drive or ext. hard drive and/or delete any old documents you no longer use or immediately need.
Uninstall apps that you no longer use. If the app has a dedicated uninstaller, use it to completely uninstall the app. If the app has no uninstaller, then just drag it to the OS X Trash icon and empty the Trash.
Also, if you save old downloaded .dmg application installer files, you can either archive and delete these or just delete the ones you think you'll never install, again.
Download an app called OnyX for your version of OS X.
When you install and launch it, let it do its thing initially, then go to the cleaning and maintenance tabs and run all of the processes in the tabs. Let OnyX clean out all web browser cache files, web browser histories, system cache files, delete old error log files.
Typically, iTunes and iPhoto libraries are the biggest users of HD space.
If you have any other large folders of personal data or projects, these should be thinned out, moved, also, to the external hard drive and then either archived to disc, Flash drive or ext. hard drive and/or deleted off your internal hard drive.
Good Luck!

When I'm travelling I import photos onto my laptop's external hard drive and work on the images using virtual copies to develop them. When I get home, I want to import all the photos together with the developed virtual copies fromt the laptop's external H

When I'm travelling I import photos onto my laptop's external hard drive and work on the images using virtual copies to develop them. When I get home, I want to import all the photos together with the developed virtual copies fromt the laptop's external HD into LR5 on my PC desktop. But if I use the import button in LR I only get the original photo, not the developed copies. What am I doing wrong?

Since your current editing workflow is based around Virtual Copies there are no actual files containing the edit data. Therefore, you'll need to use the 'Import from another catalog' option ( see File menu).

Uploading my photos into iPhoto from an external hard drive

I have all my old digital photos (approx 17GB) on an external hard drive. I would like to upload them in to iPhoto on my iMac (OS X 10.6.8)
Some questions:
How can I stop any duplicate photos being uploaded into iPhoto (I already have small number of the old photos in iPhoto)
How do I upload the photos into 'Events'? What is the difference between Events and Albums?
Do I need to rename the albums on the hard drive before I upload them with new album names?
How can I delete duplicate photos I already have in iPhoto?
and lastly the iMac is set up with 4 users accounts on it - how do I share (in iPhoto) all these newly uploaded photos with the other users
So many questions, but If I do it right now it will save me hrs of work sorting all the photos out and renaming them all when they are in iPhoto

and lastly the iMac is set up with 4 users accounts on it - how do I share (in iPhoto) all these newly uploaded photos with the other users
For iPhoto 09 (version 8.0.2) and later:
What you mean by 'share'.
If you want the other user to be able to see the pics, but not add to, change or alter your library, then enable Sharing in your iPhoto (Preferences -> Sharing), leave iPhoto running and use Fast User Switching to open the other account. In that account, enable 'Look For Shared Libraries'. Your Library will appear in the other source pane.
Any user can drag a pic from the Shared Library to their own in the iPhoto Window.
Remember iPhoto must be running in both accounts for this to work.
If you want the other user to have the same access to the library as you: to be able to add, edit, organise, keyword etc.
Quit iPhoto in both accounts. Move the Library to the Users / Shared Folder
(You can also use an external HD set to ignore permissions, a Disk Image or even partition your Hard Disk.)
In each account in turn: Double click on the Library to open it. (You may be asked to repair the Library Permissions.) From that point on, this will be the default library location. Both accounts will have full access to the library, in fact, both accounts will 'own' it.
However, there is a catch with this system and it is a significant one. iPhoto is not a multi-user app., it does not have the code to negotiate two users simultaneously writing to the database, and trying will cause db corruption. So only one user at a time, and back up, back up back up.

HT1175 Apple Time capsule to backup my external hard drive - on exclusion list???

I want to set apple capsule to backup my external hard drive, but it is currently in the exclusion list.
I can't remove it from the exclusion list, because I can't select it and the - option is greyed out.
It is a WD Passport, used for document files only.
With thanks.
D.

Time Machine can't back up drives in some formats, such as FAT32.
(75713)

Missing photo links - changing name of external Hard Drive location

I have searched for the answer to this high and low without success if someone can help...
I have a large collection of photos that I store on an external firewire hard drive (too many to store on my macbook pro). My iphoto library is on my Mac and when importing photos to iphoto I did not import the files so the originals remain on the external hard drive and are therefore linked to in iphoto.
I did it this way, rather than storing the library database on the external drive, so that I could access the information and thumbnails when travelling and not connected to my external drive.
I've upgraded my external hard drive and it will have a different name. I need to transfer all the photos across to the new hard drive.
Is there a quick way to reconnect all my original photos when transferred to the new hard drive or a better way to transfer them? Having tried to copy them across manually, obviously as expected I get a missing photo exclamation mark and am asked to browse to the file to relink. This is OK to reconnect one or two photos, but would take me forever with 17,000.
I remember Adobe Photo Album had a command reconnect missing files, and it would go off and search for the files you may have moved location (or changed the directory name in which they were held). Is such a function available in iphoto? I've tried the iphoto re-build functions, but this doesn't look in other attached volumes for the photos.
Alternatively, is there a way to edit the iphoto library database to do a search and replace of the Volume name to the new name and reconnect the link to then photos? e.g. Can you manually edit the albumdata.xml file (and would this be the file to edit) for example, and rebuild the database with Photo Library Manager?
Can you re-import all the photos from the new location, and rebuild the links that way, or does this create duplicate entries and not merge album, keyword event data etc for each photo?
My last resort is re-importing all the photos again, but of course I'd loose all my keywords, albums, events and other info I've spent a long time entering into iphoto.
Thanks
Phil

I just wanted to close this off to say that my solution worked fine and my iphoto libraries are up and running in perfect order again. And to summarise the solution so you don't have to read the entire post above.
This solution is for those wanting to have the iphoto library on your Mac and store the original photos linked elsewhere on an external / network drive (i.e. not imported into the iphoto library). Then you want to change the location where the originals are stored (say for example you get a new bigger external Hard Drive - like I did), and that new location will have a different name. Most people recommend importing the photos into the iphoto library, keeping everything together, and this can then be moved anywhere and accessed.
So to summarise, if you are moving original photos linked into iphoto:
1. Back up everything you can first...
2. First try moving the files (not copying and deleting) - the aliases may reconnect, especially if they are on your main HD. You may need to manually reconnect one file in each sub-directory.
3. Move your photos to your external HD / network drive. Note if the new place has the same name as your old external HD then the aliases probably won't need to be fixed.
4. Download and install File Buddy or similar Alias 'fixer'
5. Go to your iphoto Library, right click, "Show Package Contents"
6. Copy the "Originals" directory to another location so that file buddy can read it.
7. Run File buddy, fixing the aliases in your copy of the Originals folder, pointing to where you've moved your photos too (restrict the directories as much as possible where you point file buddy to search for the missing files to speed it up). You will only have issues if you have multiple copies of the same file - i.e. that have the same file name and creation date, and file buddy will give you a list of these. This in itself is a good check to see you don't have the same file in two places - I only had issues with folders of photos that I'd been given from family in which there were multiple copies of the same photo. I've now cleaned these up, saved space and ran file buddy again to finish the job off.
8. Finally, move this now fixed "Originals" folder back into your iphoto library (package contents) - writing over / replacing the original "Originals" directory.
All being well, should be fixed!
Just to share with you the benefits I find of having my photos stored on an external HD and the iphoto library on my Macbook:
-- Saves space on my limited internal HD
-- others can access the photos, set up and manage their own iphoto libraries pointing at the same originals, and we don't need two copies of the original files
-- I can access the iphoto library and manage albums, add keywords, titles, etc when not connected to the External HD, though you're limited to viewing the (not too small) thumbnail pictures iphoto stores in its library
I'm loving iphoto even more now, it makes managing and viewing my 1000's of photos a pleasure.
Cheers
Phil

How to backup an external hard drive plugged into a time capsule using time machine

How to backup an external hard drive plugged into a time capsule using time machine.
I want to move my itunes library from the mac HD to an external plugged into the time capsule, but I want to be sure this drive will still be backed up by time machine. I currentlly see no way to do this.

There is no way. You can connect the drive to your Mac and remove it from the Time Machine exclusion list. Then it will be backed up, but that will stop when you reconnect it to the TC. While it's connected to the TC, you can copy it manually to another AirPort Disk by following the instructions here (with a slight modification):
Using AirPort Utility to make a copy of the Time Capsule disk

Would like some opinions re: best backup software/external hard drives for windows xp and windows 7

Recently tried to restore a corrupted hard drive with a Toshiba canvio hard drive with NTI Backup Now EZ I purchased in 2010. Was only able to restore a few files, had a very hard time working with the software, even contacted NTI, still not much luck. Am unhappy with the NTI software, and want to know what external hard drives and what software the community has used and would recommend for Windows XP and Windows 7? Thank you so much in advance for your time and opinions.
Solved!
Go to Solution.

It doesn't matter which external drive you use.
Let's talk about backing up the entire drive. Be sure to burn the disc that enables you to restore.
Windows XP does not have a decent image backup built-in. I understand this free one works well.
EaseUS Todo Backup Free
Windows 7 has a decent one.
Learn more about system image backup
Windows 8 contains the same backup. Open "Windows 7 File Recovery" (sdclt.exe).
-Jerry

If I wanted to connect an external hard drive to my iPad, what can I use? Do I have to use the Mac mini??

If i wanted to connect an external hard drive to my iPad, what can I use? Or would I have to purchase a Mac mini?

Sorry, I DO NOT RECOMMEND the camera connection kit for what you are asking!
I was trying to say that as I have the connection kit (bought for camera use so no loss for me)
I often WISH it could do more.
So sorry for the confusion.
The camera connection kit only allows you to send photos and video (that are correctly formatted I might add) to the photos app.
Other people have had success with it connecting to keyboards, but that us not so useful.

Unsual question about backup to external hard drive

Hi,
I have a large iTunes library on my laptop (+140GB). My hard drive is running out of space. I am planning on backing up my music and everything in iTunes to a backup 2TB external hard drive. I know how to do this but I like to tweek it a little: I want to be able to back up all my files to the external drive AND then delete some of the less-used songs on my internal drive. BUT i want to keep them in the external hard drive! Is this possible?
I know I am probably not clear, so please let me know.
Thanks,

I'd normally suggest this method for backing up.
You should always keep at least two copies of any file you don't want to lose.
tt2

400GB of photos. Want to backup to external hard drive. Need help. Not very computer savvy. Thanks

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