Backing up iPhoto library located on external hard drive

I recently moved my iPhoto 09 library to a 500gb WD portable hard drive in order to free up space on my MacBook Pro hard drive. What I would like to know is can I back up this external library to another external hard drive so that I have two copies of all my photos. Would it work if I had an external hard drive connected to my airport extreme?
Thanks

Most Simple Back Up
Drag the iPhoto Library from your Pictures Folder to another Disk. This will make a copy on that disk.
Slightly more complex:
Use an app that will do incremental back ups. This is a very good way to work. The first time you run the back up the app will make a complete copy of the Library. Thereafter it will update the back up with the changes you have made. That makes subsequent back ups much faster. Many of these apps also have scheduling capabilities: So set it up and it will do the back up automatically. Examples of such apps: Chronosync or DejaVu . But are many others. Search on MacUpdate

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HT1229 Moving my IPhoto library to my external hard drive Seagate 1.5TB

My computer is an IMac late 2006. She's been running really slow and erratic. My IPhoto has over 5K photos which may be the culprit.
I have a Seagate External hard drive with 1.5 TB capacity with very little data stored. I would like to move my IPhoto library to my external hard drive, to improve the performance of my computer. I am unable to locate my external hard drive even though it is connected to the IMac. Can some one help?
Shaiboy48

Suer as long as it is formatted Mac OS extended (journaled)
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
I am not sure what this mean
I am unable to locate my external hard drive even though it is connected to the IMac
LN

How do I backup my iPhoto Library to an external hard drive and keep my photos grouped by their events?

How can I backup my iPhoto Library to an external hard drive and keep my photos grouped by their events?

I have attempted to make sure my iPhoto library has been backed up on the external hard drive and that it is safe to delete some events from my internal hard drive
You need to think this through.
Time Machine is a back up application. It keeps a rolling back up of the data. It's called rolling because it means you can revert to the data you had on a specific date and time. But that's not eternal, and as time goes by, and your drive fills up, older backups are deleted. So if you delete Events on your Mac they will - eventually - also be deleted from the Time Machine back up.
If you wan tot archive data hendon't use Time Machine for that job. Here's how you might archive an iPhoto Library:
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.
Now you have two full versions of the Library.
3. On the Internal library, trash the Events you don't want there
Now you have a full copy of the Library on the External and a smaller subset on the Internal
Some Notes:
As a general rule: when deleting photos do them in batches of about 100 at a time. iPhoto can baulk at trashing large numbers at one go.
You can choose which Library to open: Hold down the option (or alt) key key and launch iPhoto. From the resulting menu select 'Choose Library'
You can keep the Library on the external updated with new imports using iPhoto Library Manager

How to transfer a copy or duplicate of my iPhoto library to an external hard drive.

I would like to save a copy of my iPhoto library on an external hard drive (InfoSafe) that has been reformatted to Mac OS Extended file system (journaled). I want the photos to be moved in the same Events they are in and with all of their metadata.
Then I want to delete some of those pictures or events from iPhoto on my computer. I am using OS X 10.8.5 and my iPhoto '11 9.4.3. Once I do this and make sure it works and everything is where it is supposed to be, can I just stick the hard drive in a safe place for years?
Thank you.
Wendy

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.
Now you have two full versions of the Library.
3. On the Internal library, trash the Events you don't want there
Now you have a full copy of the Library on the External and a smaller subset on the Internal
Some Notes:
As a general rule: when deleting photos do them in batches of about 100 at a time. iPhoto can baulk at trashing large numbers at one go.
You can choose which Library to open: Hold down the option (or alt) key key and launch iPhoto. From the resulting menu select 'Choose Library'
You can keep the Library on the external updated with new imports using iPhoto Library Manager
Once I do this and make sure it works and everything is where it is supposed to be, can I just stick the hard drive in a safe place for years?
No. Hard Drives are volatile and can be damaged. Over time the connection protocols change - USB 1 to USB 2 to USB 3. Firewire is almost dead and so on - and HDs fail. Multiple, redundant back ups are required. And when a back up is a copy of two drives at least, you won't have an actual back up for any of the material you then remove from the laptop.
For long term archiving I use Flickr. Then backing up the photos becomes their problem but it works in other ways as well - images available from any computer, as future-proof as just about anything is, and you can set the privacy protocols to keep the material private.

I cannot access my iphoto library on my external Hard drive

Hello,
I backed up my iphoto library to an external hard drive. Now when I try to access it, all I get are dotted outlines where the pictures should be and then when I click on a the dotted outline it gives me an exclamation mark in a triangle. Help! I hope I haven't lost all my photos!

i also had to copy the iphoto library to another 2nd external hard drive (because the first one stopped working)
Whatt does "stopped working" mean? If there is damage to a diks then there is a certain risk to material stored on it.
Has it ever worked on the second disk? If not then there are two places this can go wrong: the library damaged when the original disk went down or the process of copying may have not completed properly.

Is it possible to transfer my iPhoto library to an external Hard Drive?

I have noticed that my fairly new iMac computer's hard drive is almost completely full.
Is it possible to transfer my iPhoto library to an external hard drive (that I have plugged constantly into my iMac computer), and still have full functionality of all parts of iPhoto e.g. Faces, etc.?

Hey TD,
After much reading in these posts and others you seem to be the guru on this topic. I recently bought a 1tb buffalo link station pro NAS (Network Attached Storage) drive that I copied my iphoto library to as described in previous post. I was then able to tell iphoto where the new library was, however when iphoto opens where the pic thumbnails should be are little dotted line boxes and when I scroll the mouse the pics then show up (instead of the dotted boxes) but then they slowly disappear back to dotted boxes. However if I double click on a dotted box the pic comes up normal in screen view.........any thoughts on why the dotted boxes and can't view the pics as thumbnails

I upgraded MacbookPro 2009 from 10.6.8 to Yosemite. Beforehand I made a backup copy of my Iphoto library onto an external hard drive. Lets call it BU. I also deleted half of my photos from the default library on my laptop, lets call it DE. I then in

I upgraded MacbookPro 2009 from 10.6.8 to Yosemite 2 weeks ago. My iphoto is now a nightmare. i went to our local apple retailer but they could not help either. Perhaps someone can help. Beforehand the OS upgrade I made a backup copy of my Iphoto library onto an external hard drive. Lets call it BU with 50GB. I also deleted half of my photos from the default library on my laptop, lets call it DE, now with about 20GB, to gain space. I then upgraded to Yosemite.
I have also installed since a long time Iphoto Library Manager 3.8.6. (this may be the cause of the problem as it was not upgraded and perhaps thus not compatible with iphoto 9.6 which I have now after the upgrade to Yosemite) It all worked fine before the upgrade, switching in iphoto between the two libraries DE and BU.
It also worked fine after the upgrade for a few days. At one stage Iphoto asked me to upgrade the iphoto version as it otherwise could not read the photos when I tried to load the BU library into iphoto. I did click yes to upgrade iphoto. As a result I became a brand new but totally empty library, no photos.
BU was still on the external disc, however the "Master" file was empty. We fortunately discovered all photos were in another file called Old Master, also under BU. We made another copy of the Old Master file onto the external disc. Lucky we did, because shortly afterwards we could not open anymore the BU file thus had no access to anything in there. Now I have 17000 photos in a file called Old Master on my external disc and another smaller library DE on my laptop. When I tried to import the photos from Old Master into a new iphoto library it was very messy. All events dates were mixed up, many photos were imported twice. I have no idea whether all my 17000 photos have been imported.
Can anyone suggest what is the most time efficient way? How do I best import my 17000 into a new library ensuring I don't loose any in the process. I do not wish sorting through 17000 photos for a week or so. Shall i also get a new iphoto library version now? Thank you for anything that may work.

Yes, the Old Master file has a folder for each year where I find all photos from that specific year. I am attaching a screen shot of the file.
In the meantime i have managed to download all photos (it did not download any video files though in mpg, avi, 3gp, m4v,mp4 and mov format) to a new iphoto library. Unfortunately the photos are quite mixed and often doubled up. I ma considering to purchase iphoto library which checks all duplicates in iphoto. this will save me a lot of time. What do you think?

Issues with using my iPhoto library on my external hard drive. Very slow to open and pictures disappear in thumbnail view.

I have recently transferred my iPhoto Library to my external hard drive (WD MyBook Live) and have some questions. Since I have done this and used the "alt + option" to select it as my default library I have been having some issues. When using the library on the external drive as my default drive it takes a very long time to load compared to when it was on my macbook's hard drive. Is this normal? Also, once it does load the thumbnails are only viewable when scrolling quickly through the photos and they are very blurry. However, if I were to select one randomly (because of this problem I have no way of knowing which one I'm selecting) it brings it up in the edit view and it is a crystal clear picture.
Is there a way to fix these issues? I'd love to be able to use the iPhoto Library off the external drive to free up space on my macbook but if it isn't going to work as streamlined as it would on my macbook hard drive. I have not yet deleted the original iPhoto Library from my macbook because I did not want to do so until I knew the new iPhoto library on the external drive was working properly. Does this make a difference?
Please help!

The problem lies with occasional dropouts that can corrupt the library's database files if they are being written to as the time of dropout. It's the nature of wireless networks. If you have a very strong signal throughout and are willing to take a chance then go for it.
But as for the speed, it must be iPhoto 11 and it's complexity causing the slowness. I had tried using a library on an EHD connected to my iMac from my laptop wirelessly with iPhoto 7 or 8 and it was pretty fast. I think it was 7 before faces and places came into being.
Send a feature request to Apple via http://www.apple.com/feedback/iphoto.html to improve wireless performance, etc.
OT

I am trying to transfer my photos from old mac to new mac. I copied the iPhoto library to an external hard drive, then imported it to the new iPhoto. It turned my 2000 photos into 12,000!! What happened?

And how do I turn off FACES?

I copied the iPhoto library to an external hard drive, then imported it to the new iPhoto. It turned my 2000 photos into 12,000!!
According to you youo did not do what I instructed - you said you imported the old library into th enew library which can easily take a 2000 photo library and turn it into 12,000 including two ro three versions of each photo pus all the face thumbnails
The correct procedure has NO importing involved
drag the iPhoto library intact as a single entity from the old Mac to the pictures folder of the new Mac - launch iPhoto on the new mac
That is it
LN

How do I move my iphoto library from one external hard drive to another?

how do I move my iphoto library from one external hard drive to another?

Drag it there in the Finder and then launch iPhoto with the Option key held down. Point it to the new instance of the library.
(58012)

How can i move my Iphoto library to an external hard drive?

How do I move my Iphoto library to an external hard drive?

Here's a worflow for that:
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.
Now you have two full versions of the Library.
3. On the Internal library, trash the Events you don't want there
Now you have a full copy of the Library on the External and a smaller subset on the Internal
Some Notes:
As a general rule: when deleting photos do them in batches of about 100 at a time. iPhoto can baulk at trashing large numbers at one go.
You can choose which Library to open: Hold down the option (or alt) key key and launch iPhoto. From the resulting menu select 'Choose Library'
You can keep the Library on the external updated with new imports using iPhoto Library Manager

How do I move my old iPhoto library from my external hard drive to my new Mac?

Hi guys!
I recently bought a new MacBook Air as my MacBook Pro was on its last legs... I have my backup for my old MacBook Pro on an external hard drive and I'm trying to put a selection of albums from my old iPhoto onto my new MacBook Air iPhoto. I can't simply click and drag it over as I get an error message "The iPhoto library is a Time Machine backup, and so cannot be used as the main library...". I've tried to reopen iPhoto while holding option and selecting my old iPhoto library from my external hard drive to open... AND I get the same message.
If anyone could help me out that would be amazing!
FYI: The hard drive I am using is a G|Drive mobile with Thunderbolt 1 TB.
Thank you very much in advance!
Cheers,
Kendall

I may sound like a real rookie here, but on my new MacBook Air there isn't a "Pictures" folder under "Users/kendallwilson" like there used to be on my old MacBook Pro (Early 2011). I'm still working out the new software on my MB Air, so where exactly should I open this new window to start following the steps you just provided me.
Thanks again!

I have iPhoto 11 on my macbook. I want to export photos to another iPhoto library on an external hard drive. How can I do this.

I have run out of space on my internal hard drive on my macbook and I want to create another iPhoto library on an external hard drive using most of the photographs already on the hard drive.
I did this easily on an old G4 mac and an old version of iphoto. I simply imported the photographs from the library already on the hard drive to the new library I created on the external hard drive.
It does not seem to be possible to do the same thing using iPhoto 11.
I have no idea where to find the files on the mac to do it the more direct way by just importing the files.
Any ideas?

Here's one way to do what you want:
1. Quit iPhoto.
2. Copy the iPhoto Library from your Pictures Folder to the external drive.
Now you have two full copies of the Library. To choose between them: Hold down the option (or alt) key and launch iPhoto. From the resulting menu select 'Choose Library'
3. On the Internal Library, remove the pics you don't want with you all the time.
Now you have one full library on the external and another smaller sub-set on the Internal.
A couple of comments:
a. The external disk needs to be formatted Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
b: When you're removing the unwanted pics from the Internal Library you need to delete them in batches of about 100 or so. Trashing more at one time can cause problems with the database.
c: Managing Multiple Libraries - including moving pics/albums/rolls and metadata between them - is greatly facilitated by using iPhoto Library Manager

I copied my iPhoto library to an external hard drive and all the event windows are black. Once you click on a square the photos are still there. How do I fix that?

I copied my iPhoto library to an external hard drive and the event windows show up black.
The photos are still there once I click on an event but they don't show in the window.
My next step is to delete the iPhoto library from the internal memory to free some memmory space but I don't want to do this until I see that the library works fine on the external hard drive.
How do I fix that?

Hold down the "option" + "command" keys and launch iPhoto.
Select the "Rebuild Thumbnails" choice.

I'm trying to transfer my pictures from my iPhoto library to my external hard drive. I dragged the iPhoto Library folder into the drive and after waiting a while it says Error Code -36. I need to free up space asap, what should i do?

I'm trying to transfer my pictures from my iPhoto library to my external hard drive. I dragged the iPhoto Library folder into the drive and after waiting a while it says "Error Code -36 The finder cannot complete the operation because some data in 'iPhoto Library' could not be read or written". I need to free up space asap, what should i do??

Yes, the Old Master file has a folder for each year where I find all photos from that specific year. I am attaching a screen shot of the file.
In the meantime i have managed to download all photos (it did not download any video files though in mpg, avi, 3gp, m4v,mp4 and mov format) to a new iphoto library. Unfortunately the photos are quite mixed and often doubled up. I ma considering to purchase iphoto library which checks all duplicates in iphoto. this will save me a lot of time. What do you think?

Backing up iPhoto library located on external hard drive

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