Can i store iphoto library on an external harddrive

How do I store my iphoto library on an external hard drive?

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

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IPhotos Movies won't load after iPhoto Library moved to external harddrive

I recently moved my iPhoto library to an external harddrive (as it was getting too large). Since then, whenever I try select iPhoto Movies in iMovie my iMac freezes up. Not sure whether this is because:
- iMovie cannot find the moved library, or...
- iMovie is trying to reload hundreds of movie clips and freezing in the process
Is there a way to fix this, please?

I recently moved my iPhoto library to an external harddrive (as it was getting too large). Since then, whenever I try select iPhoto Movies in iMovie my iMac freezes up. Not sure whether this is because:
- iMovie cannot find the moved library, or...
- iMovie is trying to reload hundreds of movie clips and freezing in the process
Is there a way to fix this, please?

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

How do I back up my iphoto library on one external harddrive to another?

I have successfully created one external hard drive back up from iphoto library. I am trying to back up this first hard drive with an additional hard drive, so my iphoto library is saved in two external hard drive locations. As of right now every time I go to back up the iphoto library on my first harddrive onto the second, it recopies the entire library (which takes a deeply laborious amount of time!) Is there a program that would recognize which photos have not been transferred and select accordingly? Apparently time machine does not operate between two external hard drives. Any feedback would be wonderful!

If you've set up Time Machine to back up your computer to it and haven't moved the library off the internal drive, it's already been done.
If you've set up Time Machine to back up your computer to it and have moved the library off the internal drive, ensure the drive holding it isn't excluded in the Time Machine pane of System Preferences.
If you haven't set up Time Machine, either turn it on or drag the iPhoto library from the Pictures item of your home folder to the Time Capsule manually.
(77724)

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!

Can i keep iphoto library on remote disc

Can I store iphoto library on a remote disc to help with hard disc. room.

Be sure the ownership on the external HD is set to be ignored:
OT

Can I move the default location of the iPhoto library to an external source, leaving a preview image on my main HDD? Do I need to move to something like Apature to do this?

Can I move the default location of the iPhoto library to an external source, leaving a preview image on my main HDD?
Do I need to move to something like Apature to do this?
I currenlty have a NAS which holds all my images.

Yes you can, but you really, really don't want to.
You can store your photos on the External and have iPhoto link to them in that location. It's called having a Referenced Library.
In this scenario iPhoto creates an alias to the files in the Library and that's why you don't want to do this. Aliases work fin when everything is on the same volume or disk. However, if the alias points to something on another disk or volume and something in the path to the file changes, then the alias is broken. That means you could find yourself fixing each alias for every single photo in your Library, one at a time if something goes wrong.
And heaven forbid you would ever want to move the files to another disk.
See why I say you really, really don't want to?
Also note, that your edited photos would still be on the internal HD as they are always stored in the Library.
Aperture, on the other hand, can deal with this scenario quite easily, and has tools to reconnect to the original should the link be broken
Regards
TD

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

I can't copy my old iPhoto library from a external HD to my new mac?

Hi. I just bought a new mac and want to have all my old iphoto pictures from my old mac into my new iPhoto library. I've tried to copy the old iPhoto library into a external HD(works fine), but the problem is that I can't copy it out from the external HD an in to my new mac again. It just say that it doesn't work because it doesnt have enough storage.
I don't get why it would say that, because the old iPhoto library is 89.55 GB and I haven't used any memory at all on my new macbook pro, and my old macbook pro has memory enough to have the iPhoto library on it (the mac is 5 years old and has almost a full memory), so why can't my new macs memory manage the iPhoto library when my old mac can? It doesn't make sense at all.
I've googled it, and it says everywhere that it should work by simply copy to external HD and move over the library from there and into the pictures folder, but this definitely doesn't work for me.
I hope that some please can help me with this, I don't know what do to.

Do you know how much space the cheapest macbook pro with reatina has?
http://www.apple.com/mac/compare/notebooks.html
A basic MBP may only have
128GB solid-state drive

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

Can't read iPhoto library from external drive via airport extreme base stat

I can't seem to open my iPhoto library from my external USB drive that is hooked and being shared through my airport extreme base station. If I plug the external drive directly to my mac via USB it works but not when going through the base station.
This only started happening when I upgraded from iLife'06 to iLife'08.
Anyone have any ideas on how to fix?

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.
I've written 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. You can download it at Toad's Cellar. Be sure to read the Read Me pdf file.

Can't transfer iPhoto Library FROM external hard drive to iMac

I just bought a new iMac. Before I said goodbye to my old computer (a MacBook), I dutifully backed up my iPhoto library onto an external hard drive. Upon setting up my iMac, I easily accessed the iPhoto library on my HD, but I didn't import it. I was able to see all photos, albums, etc.
But when I went to import the entire iPhoto library into my iMac's hard drive (into the Pictures folder), it wouldn't import. A mesage comes up that says "Preparing to copy" and the blue-and-white bar just spins and spins, without actually copying anything. So, it's weird -- there's clearly communication between iMac and external HD, but I can't take the iPhoto library off the hard drive to make it my new computer's iPhoto library.
Any hints? Thanks.

Have you tried restarting your machine?

Can't open iphoto library from external hard drive

I'm backing up my enormous iPhoto library to two external hard drives in order to free up space on my computer. Before deleting the photos permanently from the laptop, I wanted to double-check that the copies of the library I made on the two externals would actually work on another computer, should something happen to my laptop. When I plug my external hard drive into my laptop and use option+click on iPhoto to choose which library I want to use, it opens up the library from the external just fine, no problems. However, when I plug the same external into a different Mac computer and do the same process, I get the immensely frustrating message of "You can't open photo library blah blah blah changes have been made using newer version of iPhoto". However, both my laptop and the second computer are running the exact same version of iPhoto (the most recent), so that can't (or at least shouldn't) be the problem. I found suggestions to rebuild the library, which I did, but the same result occurs. I double-checked to be sure that neither computer needed updates (they didn't).
When I plug one of the externals into the second computer, though, I can open up the package contents of iPhoto library and all the photos are visible, so I know the information is all there. But I don't want to lose my albums, etc.
So do I just delete the copies of my library from the externals and try it all over again? I'd prefer not to, since I have 40,000+ photos, and that takes a while.

To reinforce what Larry pointed out both Macs must be running the same version of iPhoto. And the external HD must be formatted as shown in this screenshot:
and don't forget the ignore ownership.
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.

I just backed up my photos by copying my iPhoto Library onto an external drive. Now the Library on my MacBook won't open. I can only open the photos if the external is plugged in. How can I resolve this issue?

I just backed up my photos by copying my iPhoto Library onto an external drive. Now the Library on my MacBook won't open. I can only open the photos if the external is plugged in. How can I resolve this issue?

Exactly what did you do?
The correct steps are
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
My guess is that that you have not switched iphoto to use the external drive yet - opttion launch and select libary
LN

Can i store iphoto library on an external harddrive

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