Can iPhoto and iTunes be used "remotely" on an external hard drive?

For some years I've kept certain documents, photos and videos on an external hard drive as a security measure. The drive is attached via FireWire to my iMac.
When using that material, if I want to add some details to a family history there's no problem and access is made automatically to the necessary Mac writing program, while with photos Preview allows one to view them and make some adjustments. But what if I want to clean up a photo using "Retouch" in iPhoto? Can one move those tools to the hard disk so they are near at hand, rather than moving the photo back to iPhoto on the iMac? Is it a matter of moving certain iPhoto files to the hard disk?
Similarly with short movies that reside in iTunes under "Movies." Can they be moved to the hard disk for ease of access and perhaps a little editing with iMovie? Then what iTunes or iMovie files would be needed?
All help much appreciated . . . Fortes

Can I move another copy of the iPhoto program from the iMac to the external hard disk so I can use it there? In other words, can one have a second iPhoto -- and if so, how does one go about it?
No and there is no reason to
iPhoto is an application and it must remain in the applications folder as it was originally installed to operate and upgrade correctly
The iPhoto Application accesses its data in the iPhoto library - the iPhoto library can be anywhere - and you can import photos form anywhere into the iPhoto Library
I still am not clear on your question but I believe that you are trying to make a simple process complicated
It may help to take the iPhoto tutorials - http://www.apple.com/findouthow/photos/ - so you have a better understanding of how iPhoto works
LN

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HT1923 hi, my mac air is really low on disk space, can i remove iTunes (which is huge) to an external hard drive to free up space and then just run it from the hard drive. instead of taking space on the mac? even if the mac no longer has enough to accommo

Hi, my mac air is really low on disk space, can I remove itunes (which is huge) to an external hard drive to free up space?...and then run it from the hard drive instead of the mac,even if the mac no longer has space to accomodate the size of the library?

Yes.
Copy your music iTunes Library folder to the external drive and change the Advanced settings in iTunes to point to this new location.
Once you're happy with these changes you can delete the same Library from your User account to free up space on the internal drive.

How can I access iTunes; the songs are on an external hard drive?

I have had an iBookG4 for almost 4 years now, and I recently had to get it updated to Leopard because the operating system was so out of date. Now though, my computer has no spare memory because the hard-drive is full with Leopard. So I have to keep my iTunes files on an external hard -drive. The problem is that when I want to play songs though iTunes, the file copies itself to my hard-drive, which I have no space for. Either that, or iTunes tells me that the files can't be found. In store when I got the operating system updated, I was told to press 'alt' before opening iTunes, so that the songs would play through the hard-drive, but this doesn't seem to work. Is there any way of being able to play the music through iTunes and the external drive only? This is very annoying because I recently got an iPod, and I can't seem to put any music onto it.
Any help would be appreciated!

Thanks very much for that!
I have an extra question. While I was on the advanced settings, I changed the location of my iTunes folder from my computer harddisk to the external drive, so I could avoid having to go through my hard disk at all. Now when I have looked at my external hard drive, the folder with my music has disappeared, and I don't know where it is. Also, some song files aren't there any more because my computer only had room for the majority, but about 700 are still missing. However, all the songs seem to be playing through iTunes. What has happened?
Many thanks,
C

HT201250 I have two macbooks. Can I backup both machines using timemachine on one external hard drive?

I have two MacBooks, both operating on different OS - Leopard and Snow Leopard. Can they both be backed upusing time machine onto one external hard drive?

J D McIninch wrote:
Actually, it does both. However, if you use two machines with the same name, it can pose a problem. If you mount the Time Machine drive and open the backup db directory, you'll note that the subdirectories are arranged by system name. The information about the ethernet MAC ID is in hidden files.
Yes, as posted, to the user it's confusing (and accessing your backups via the Finder is not recommended).
Time Machine knows which is which, and will back up each Mac to the proper folder. When/if you want to use the "Star Wars" display to view or restore from either Mac's backups, it will show the backups for the Mac you're on.

New iMac. Flash drive is primary for OS and apps. I want to use my HD 2 (1 TB hard drive) for my bulky photo and music files. Can I direct iPhoto and iTunes to use the larger hard drive as the primary target when importing?

New iMac. Flash drive is primary for OS and apps. I want to use my HD 2 (1 TB hard drive) for my bulky photo and music files. Can I direct iPhoto and iTunes to use the larger hard drive as the primary target when importing?

Yes. Unfortunately, I don't know the specifics because I don't use iPhoto anymore and I completely copied over 15 years of MP3 files recently when I installed 10.7. Needless to say, I have not opened iTunes since and probably never will again - not because of iTunes but because of my stupidity. I did have some of the files backed up but I hadn't backed up in a while.......anyway....
When I imported my CD's, I had them go directly to my external firewire. I can't remember exactly how to set it, but in the preference section of iTunes you can specify an import destination to any drive that's available to your machine. I did this with iPhoto as well way back at one point when I was using Tiger, but I don't remember the specifics on that either. I can't imagine they would have discontinued support for that feature since then.
Sorry I couldn't help more.

Trying to use a new, larger external hard drive for my Time Machine backup. However, every time I start the backup, it gets started then fails. And, I can't delete the few files that did save on the external. Sort of a catch 22. Any ideas?

Trying to use a new, larger external hard drive for my Time Machine backup. However, every time I start the backup, it gets started then fails. And, I can't delete the few files that did save on the external. Sort of a catch 22. Any ideas?

Is it a USB hard drive? USB hard drives have the problem of not giving full speed if they are hooked up on the same bus as keyboards and mice. Double check your profiler to make sure that is not a problem. If it is Firewire, make sure there aren't other firewire devices in use at the same time. I recommend not only keeping a Time Machine backup, but also a clone, and if you do use Time Machine, to make sure the Time Machine drive or partition is at least twice the size of the original drive.

I am not much of a computer technician. I bought a time capsule thinking I could use this for an external hard drive and keep my MAC hard drive free. Was I mistaken? One I back everthing up on the TC, can I delete everything off of my MAC?

I am not much of a computer technician. I bought a time capsule thinking I could use this for an external hard drive and keep my MAC hard drive free. Was I mistaken? Once I back everything up on the TC, can I delete everything off of my MAC and then use my TC as my hard drive??

Once I back everything up on the TC, can I delete everything off of my MAC and then use my TC as my hard drive??
TC was designed to backup your Mac. The TC literature is pretty clear about this:
If your Mac's hard drive has a problem....it will sooner or later....you can use your backup on the TC to rebuild your Mac.
But.....if you move all of your data to the TC from your Mac....you only have one version of that data now, and it is on the TC.
Have you thought about what will happen when....not if....the TC has a problem? Since the only version of your important data was on the TC, and the TC has failed......you lose all of your data.....because you have no backup.
A much better plan would be to add a USB or FireWire hard drive and connect it directly to your Mac. Move the data on your Mac over to the hard drive.
Then, the TC will backup both your Mac and the hard drive. So, you have original data on on one drive and backups on another drive.
That would be a minimum backup plan. Most of us have more than one set of backups.

How can I get Time Machine to back up an external hard drive (iPhotos) that is attached to airport extreme base station. Note: Time machine is usb to macbook pro and external drive with iphotos is usb to airport extreme base station. Help please. Thanks!

How can I get Time Machine to back up an external hard drive (iPhotos) that is attached to airport extreme base station. Note: Time machine is usb to macbook pro and external drive with iphotos is usb to airport extreme base station. Help please. Thanks!

Once you have the drive connected to your Mac, click System Preferences (gear icon) on the dock
Click Time Machine
Click Options
Be default, the hard drive will be Excluded from backups. Click the drive to highlight it, then click the "-" (minus) button at the bottom of the list to remove the drive from Excluded items.
The drive will be backed up on the next Time Machine pass
Everything above assumes that the hard drive has been formatted in Mac OS Extended (Journaled) as Time Machine will only backup drives in that format.

I have an 2tb time capsule 802.11n Wi-Fi base station can I use this as an external hard drive and use a new airport extreme 802.11ac Wi-Fi for my wifi?

I have an 2tb time capsule 802.11n Wi-Fi base station can I use this as an external hard drive and use a new airport extreme 802.11ac Wi-Fi for my wifi?

You can use the 2 TB Time Capsule as a network drive. That means that it must connect to one of the Ethernet LAN <--> ports on the new AirPort Extreme, or connect to the network using wireless.

I opened my iPhoto library today which was stored on an external hard drive and several of my videos now will not play. The weird thing is that each file shows a duration of 1 second and when I open them it just shows one frame. What the

I opened my iPhoto library today which was stored on an external hard drive and several of my videos now will not play at all. The weird thing is that each file shows a duration of 1 second and when I open them it just shows one frame. What the !&%$#@ Where did my original video files go?

Sounds like a good plan, you can never be to safe and having a second External HD is safer than one.
The only thing that I would do different, is setup the 3T as my TimeMachine Backup and then erase and move my Photos, Videos and perhaps even iTunes Media to the 1T. That way you will have room to backup both the Internal Hard Drive and the 1T External Hard Drive to the 3T using TimeMachine.
Take your time, study and use the > Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions if you get stuck or aren't sure how to make the move.
Also see > iPhoto: How to move the Library folder to a new location
iMovie ’08: Storing or moving your video library to an external hard disk
and > iTunes for Mac: Moving your iTunes Media folder

I need to delete a lot of duplicates on iPhoto. I just bought my MacBook Pro and was so excited I downloaded my external hard drive without thinking through the process. I now realize I had my photos doubled up. So I actually have the same library twice.

Hello All!
I am so excited about my new computer and I didn't know that my external hard drive had so many pictures duplicated on it. So I downloaded the entire hard drive. I thought iPhoto was going to be my answer, and now after reading a lot of discussions, it seems I have royally screwed up. Please help me fix this problem. I am a computer novice. An even more Mac novice. I need very simple directions. I would just start over with iPhoto, but I downloaded my digital camera with brand new photos on iPhoto and also downloaded my digital camera software on my new MacBookPro. I am afraid if I "start over" with iPhoto I will lose my digital camera pictures. I bought the Mac to finally get my pictures straight, and look at the mess I have made. I had AVG PC cleanup and used that program last night to delete duplicates from my PC. I also used it to delete duplicates from my external hard drive. I omega. I know, I know, too late huh? But I am teachable. And I now have my external hard drive fixed. But now, my question to the community is how to fix my new Mac, and my iPhoto.
Thanks,

SweetThunder73 wrote:
When you say to remove the photos out of the iPhoto folder, then import the clean single copies, I am understanding that the "original" file that the decloner was run against is now the "clean" single copies?
Ok, you've got iPhoto Library that you have imported everything into, you can't delete the iPhoto Library and start over because you have only one copy of some pictures in there, combined with a lot of duplicates.
You want all the duplicates out, but it will take you ages to do it by hand.
What you do is.
1: Right click on the iPhoto Library and "Show Package Contents"
2: You will see a folder called Originals, these are all your original photo's, copy this folder to a external drive someplace, it's your backup.
3: Select the Originals folder again and from the Finder Menu > File > Duplicate.
4: Now you will have a OriginalsCopy folder, move that OriginalsCopy folder onto the desktop area out of the iPhoto Library folder. Close the iPhoto Library folder/window.
5: Download the Decloner software and install it, use it to find all the "real" duplicates, via it's content on the OriginalsCopy folder.
6: From the Finder menu > New Folder, now send the duplicate files to that folder, so all that is left in the OriginalsCopy folder is 1 copy of your pictures, minus all the duplicates which are now in New Folder.
7: Open iPhoto and remove all your pictures in there. The iPhoto Library will update to become empty.
8: Now import the pictures from the OriginalsCopy folder, these will now have only one copy of each picture.
9: Open your New Folder, from the Edit menu > Select All and
10 From the Finder > File Menu > Open With > Preview.
Now you have one copy in your iPhoto Library and the duplicates in a New Folder opened with Preview which you can compare to make sure.
Make as many backups of your pictures as you think you need during this prcess, but eventually you only want 1 picture of all you have in the iPhoto Library.
Some pictures may be the same thing but a little smaller etc., these obviously are not duplicates, and you can weed those out by hand in iPhoto.
Good Luck.

After iPhoto upgrade i can no longer access the photos stored on my external hard drive, after iPhoto upgrade i can no longer access the photos stored on my external hard drive

I was just about to order a photo book, using photos stored on an external hard drive. I organised the book and pressed 'buy'. IPhotos instructed me that I needed to upgrade and so I went on the ASpp store, bought the upgrade and installed as directed. I then used the iPhoto Library upgrader as directed.
After the iPhoto upgrade I can no longer access the photos stored on my external hard drive. I am able to access the photos stored on my internal hard drive - the remainder (including the photo album) seem to have vanished into thin air.
Any suggestions please?

What format is the external drive?

Just got Prosoft drive genius 3 software, and it's telling me that the external hard drive that i am using for my time machine back up drive needs to be defragmented. is it wise to do this or should i not??

just got Prosoft drive genius 3 software, and it's telling me that the external hard drive that i am using for my time machine back up drive needs to be defragmented. is it wise to do this or should i not??

Let's hope a couple things: that you have bootable clones of your drives also; that the backup drive for TimeMachine has over 3x capacity of the data you plan and are storing. I would also switch TM backup drives so you have a 2nd.
Fragmented free space affecting performance happens when the drive is too full which may mean there isn't enough free space for a full backup set.
1.5TB for backing up 500GB, while WD Green 3TB is $140 and WD Black 1.5TB is, about the same price.
I'd be worried about the integrity and directory, and whether you can afford to lose that drive. Defragging is also a very slow operation. the ideal: to just clone a drive, or start over with another drive and wait. cloning TM volumes has not been done or has it? SuperDuper hoped to but I don't think they or Bombich's CCC made it there.
Trouble with highly fragged is when free space gets to 20% normally, 1/3 or so though for TM volumes, and finding where and a chunk of space for the file being written. Does TM use large spare image files of like 2GB?
Best would be to ask in the TimeMachine section Snow Leopard
https://discussions.apple.com/community/mac_os/mac_os_x_v10.6_snow_leopard?view= discussions#/?tagSet=1009
where there are some good FAQ and tutorials, and people that know the ins-and-outs and shortcomings.

I need to back up my imac running Tiger (no time machine) so that we can upgrade OS. It is set up for multiple accounts. How do I capture all files in each account using newly purchased USB external hard drive?

I need to back up my imac running Tiger (no time machine) so that we can upgrade OS. It is set up for multiple accounts. How do I capture all files in each account using newly purchased USB external hard drive? Thanks!

Backup Software Recommendations
Carbon Copy Cloner
Data Backup
Deja Vu
SuperDuper!
Synk Pro
Tri-Backup
Others may be found at VersionTracker or MacUpdate.
Visit The XLab FAQs and read the FAQ on backup and restore. Also read How to Back Up and Restore Your Files.
Or you can simply use the Restore option of Disk Utility to clone the drive to the backup:
Clone using Restore Option of Disk Utility
Open Disk Utility from the Utilities folder.
Select the destination volume from the left side list.
Click on the Restore tab in the DU main window.
Check the box labeled Erase destination.
Select the destination volume from the left side list and drag it to the Destination entry field.
Select the source volume from the left side list and drag it to the Source entry field.
Double-check you got it right, then click on the Restore button.
Destination means the external backup drive. Source means the internal startup drive.

Can anyone help me figure out how to use my new LaCie external hard drive to import movies from my camcorder into imovie '09? I ran into so many problems last night!! Was up way past my bedtime!

Can anyone help me figure out how to use my new LaCie external hard drive to import movies from my camcorder into imovie '09? I ran into so many problems last night!! Was up way past my bedtime!

I'll stay in this chat ... I answered in the other one ... I have a Sony digital Handycam ... from years ago. I just got the LaCie and I think I formatted it for only to be used on my Mac ... how should I go about reformatting it to be HFS Extended like you said?

Can iPhoto and iTunes be used "remotely" on an external hard drive?

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