Dividing iPhoto Library

I have about 9000 photos in my iPhoto Library. There are approximately 3000 photos in each of the folders for 2006, 2007, 2008. I am trying to burn DVDs for each year as back up. The 3000 photos are too many for one DVD. I can't seem to figure out how to divide the folders into smaller groups of photos.
I know I can create albums but I believe I must burn right from the Library to retain all the thumbnails,keywords and comments. I'm running iPhoto 5.
Thanks in advance,
Lenny.

Lenny 118
I know I can create albums but I believe I must burn right from the Library to retain all the thumbnails,keywords and comments.
No, you can burn albums using the Share -> Burn command and it'll get everything too.
Regards
TD

Similar Messages

Best practice for dividing IPhoto library

My wife and I have been using IPhoto since 2004, and are faced with the prospect of dividing the 40,000 photo library into smaller libraries. A Genius Bar session was only partially helpful. Last year we moved IPhoto off the IMac hard drive to an external harddrive. The Genius Bar employee created four new library folders on the external drive. We are thinking we need to get the IPhoto original library back on the IMac, so that it is accessible to ICloud. We are looking for a source of print guidance that can help us navigate these kinds of questions. We are also looking locally (in Tucson) for a coach who can help us get the logistics of library development started.

Why do you thing you need to divide the library into smaller ones? The latest version of iPhoto can handle libraries with up to 1 M photos. There's no need to move the library back to the boot drive to have it accessable to iCloud. iCloud works with the library that's active.
What do you mean by library development? You have a working library on an EHD so that's all you need. This Apple document gives the system requirements for iCloud: iCloud: System requirements
OT

Slow performance in iPhoto - library is huge

Hello,
I have a huge number of pix in iPhoto (approx 11k) that I have accumulated of my kids over the last three years. The library is about 9.4 GB.
When I open iPhoto, it imports all the pictures every time. I really cannot have any other application open or everything crawls. Even if I just have iPhoto open, the performance is extraordinarily slow. I have about 12 GB of open memory on my hard drive. I moved the iPhoto library to an external drive, but that didnt seem to help the performance issue.
My questions are these:
1) Can I change a setting to have iPhoto only display / bring into memory the last 100 (or 1000) pictures instead of loading all pix every time?
2) Are there any other settings that would reduce the amount of memory it is using to load the pictures every time?
3) Is there something else that I can do to improve speed or performance?
I do run maintenance applications like Onyx occasionally, but it doesnt seem to have much of an impact on iPhoto performance.
Thanks for any help.
- Bob Mallon

We'll probably have other suggestions after you've answered Terence's questions, but for the moment:
1) No, not in iPhoto 4.x or earlier.
2) No. But you can make it operate faster by reducing the size of your thumbnails in Organize view, if they are now large or largish. At a certain size, which depends on your monitor resolution as well as on how you've set iPhoto's zoom slider, iPhoto switches from using the small thumbnail files that it generates internally to loading the whole original image in order to display a bigger thumbnail of it. That slows things way down. Make your thumbnail images as small as you can stand. On most monitors, at least four thumbnails across the window, and more on many monitors, is necessary to assure that only thumbnail files are loaded at startup. Experiment.
3) Dividing a huge library into several smaller libraries is far and away the best speedup option in iPhoto 4.x and earlier. Unfortunately iPhoto doesn't provide a way to do so while retaining all the original metadata for each picture. You have to export all the images you want to place in a new library, then import them into a newly-created library. You can then designate the library you wish to open each time you launch iPhoto, by holding down the Option key while you launch it.

How do I share certain albums in my iphoto library with other users....

without using the fast user switching/sharing preference in iphoto?
I have about 12,000 photos in my library of which about 6000 are for work. I would like to share all of my non work photos with the other users on my imac. I would rather not use the fast user switching and keep the iphoto application open for all the users. I would like to either import only selected albums to the user account or add them to the shared folder for their access. How can I export/import only the albums I wish to share without having to do it manually for each? Should I make a copy of the library, add it to the other users accounts and then delete the photos? Or can I put the library in the shared folder and limit access to certain albums? I don't think it would make too much sense to have a duplicate library since I only have about 10GB left on my HD.

With iPhoto 6 you can place the source files, i.e. exported the full sized files for those albums you want to share, in appropriately names folders in the Shared folder. Then have each user create an new library with iPhoto's alias mode, i.e. create alias files of the source files instead of copying the a full sized version into the library. This way each of the other users can have a working library and you only have to have one copy of each file on the HD. Saves a lot of space. Any edits that one user performs will not be seen by the other users. If a user delete a photo from their library only the alias files is deleted. The source files are untouched.
The downside to this method is if you add a file(s) to the Shared folder each of the other users will have to import that file into their own library. An easy way around that is to always put new photos in new folders and let the others know there are new ones to import. You could also divide your library up into to two, keeping your work library a conventional one and removing the "shared" source photos and have a similar alias based library for the personal photos that are in the Shared folder. Then use iPhoto Library Manager or iPhoto Buddy to quickly switch between the two. I have 7 libraries that I use iPLM to switch between. It's very convenient and fast. If you want to convert over entirely to an alias system, both work and personal, here's a way to retain the keywords you've assigned to them. See tutorial #2 here.
G4 DP-1G, 1.5G RAM, 22 Display, 200G HD, 160G HD, 250G FWHD, QT 7.0.4P Mac OS X (10.4.5) Canon S400, i850 & LIDE 50, Epson R200, 2G Nano

Is it just me or is File Naming in iPhoto Library Wack-a-Doo?

After eight years of using iPhoto on a MacBook, I finally upgraded to an iMac in 2013 and the latest version of iPhoto. In the previous version, I would name my albums (I have a nomenclature that includes the year, month, day, general geographic location [i.e. EU, US, SA, AFR, etc.], specific location or event [Vienna, Paris, Dubai, Grandpa’s Funeral, Denise’s Birthday, Fetes de Geneve, etc.]) and, when I had finished editing them and uploading them either to my blog, FB, or my photo sales site, I would then archive/back-up the folder on my external hard drive. After that, I’d delete the folder from my MacBook HD and from iPhoto.
In previous versions of iPhoto, I would use the following path to get to my photos and transfer them from my Mac HD to my external HDD. To wit: Finder > Macintosh HD > Users > jayemkay > Pictures > iPhoto Library. Then, I’d right click on the folder and choose “Show Package Contents”. This would then take to me to set of folders that included two important folders: Originals and Modified. When I would open these folders, I would find my photos in folders using the nomenclature described in the first paragraph (e.g. 2013-0514_EU-FR-Ferney_My Birthday). Transferring the files from the Mac HD to the external was easy-peasy. I use this nomenclature, because it allows me to easily find and identify sets of photos or events quickly and without a lot of fuss. (And yes, I tag photos, but more often than not, I’m looking for something by date and event and this is the quickest way for me to do that. It’s also the best way to organize, for me.)
In the current version of iPhoto (9.5.1) and Aperture, when I follow the same path — Finder > Macintosh HD > Users > jayemkay > Pictures > iPhoto Library, right-click and “Show Package Contents”, I now get a series of folders that make no sense. I’ve identified that Masters and Previews seem to be the current version of Originals and Modified. Fine, no problem there. I’m even encouraged that the folders then divide into years. In this case, I have a folder for 2013 and 2014. But now, instead of finding a series of folders that reflect my nomenclature when I’m in iPhoto, I have a series of folders that make absolutely no sense. Instead of 2013 > 2013-0514_EU-FR-Ferney_My Birthday, I now have 2013 > 07 > 26 > 20130726-205233 > and then the images (IMG) or digital files (DSC / NEF). Some folders contain the full album. Others have one or two photos. Still other folders seem to then have a nomenclature that looks like someone took an alphanumeric series and threw it in my folder for the helluva it (e.g. 2013 > 07 > 26 > 20130726-205233 > 2vdHumRtRcqZt53dunOSAA) and there will be one photo in the folder, but multiple alphanumeric folders within 20130726-205233.
This is patently unhelpful and will require that I go through every single file and rename each file such as I have out in iPhoto. This is a waste of my time. Is there a way to change this so the files in Masters and Preview in the iPhoto Library reflect the effort I have put into using my chosen nomenclature?

It is just you
You are not using iPhoto correctly
Direct access to your photos is not (and never has been) supported - yoou access using the supplies methods and tools as described in the user tip on access your iPhoto files
No - there is no way to change it - iPhoto is a SQLite database and its database structre in not controled by you and can not be changes by you - and you can not make any changes to its content or structure without loseing data
iPhoto is not required - if you do not like the way it works then simply switch to a different program
LN

How to restore accidently removed iPhoto library from Trash?

I have iPhoto Library Manager (version 3.5.5) and am employing it successfully with my iMac (OS X 10.5.8) to manage my iPhoto Library [iPhoto '09 version 8.1 (415)] which I have divided into 47 libraries at about 4 GB each.
This morning I accidently removed iPhoto Library #36 from my iPhoto Library list of 47 libraries! Ouch! Naturally I wish to restore it ASAP.
I opened up Trash and found iPhoto Library #36 in the SEARCH FOR/ Today folder. When I open it up it appears to be intact with all 756 photos present. However, I am not certain how to restore this library. When I perform a right click on the iPhoto Library #36 line item a menu pops up, but nowhere in the menu is a Restore option.
Can anybody advise me how to proceed to restore this library? I want to be sure that I do this correctly so as not to lose any of these images in the process.
Bob

Drag it from the trash to its proper location
LN

Cleaning up my iPhoto Library

   I am having difficulty cleaning up my iPhoto Library before I switch to Aperture. In particular:
    1. How do I process the multitude of monthly photostream events (i.e. "October 2013 Photostream") so that I can maintain the original photos in events that better describe them, e.g moving family photos to an event called "Family" (which I will later divide into appropriate "albums"?
     2. It appears that I have many duplicates in my library. Am I safe in using a program such as "Duplicate Annihilator" to remove the duplicates to "Trash"?
TIA

You may have a damaged database file. To rebuild the library launch iPhoto with the Command+Option keys depressed and follow the instructions. Select the first three options. It will be recreated when you next launch iPhoto and you'll have to reset the preferences as you had them before.
TIP: For insurance against the iPhoto database corruption that many users have experienced I recommend making a backup copy of the Library6.iPhoto (iPhoto.Library for iPhoto 5 and earlier) 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 or later), 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 6 and 7 libraries and Tiger 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.≤br>
Note: There now an Automator backup application for iPhoto 5 that will work with Tiger or Leopard.

Import full events into a new iPhoto library

I want to divide my iPhoto library into two: one personal, one work. In creating the new iPhoto library, I exported the events I wanted and imported them into the new library. Much to my surprise, they were all imported into one event. I did split the events by the dates but would prefer not to go through and have to reorganize and rename each event. I have 4,000+ photos here so I want to make this easy.
Is it possible to import multiple, separate events, with their current names into my new iPhoto library?

Use iPhoto Library Manager

How do I clean up my IPhoto Library?

I have over 100,000 photos in my IPhoto Library and with Faces it is totally un manageble. I have perhaps 20% duplicates that I would like to clean up. I have about 325 different faces recognized.
Now my IPhoto seems to be in a permanent loop. Not sure exactly how to start to clean up this mess. I have been using a Mac for about a year and am still not very conversant with Apple vocabulary.
Love the tools available on the mac, but need to learn to use it appropriately. Have installed Aperature, but it is so slow that I almost never use it. Now IPhoto is getting to be the same.
Somehow I need to start over and either divide up my photos into different libraries by time or something to make them manageable.
Please help me!

Welcome to the Apple Discussions.
You can search iPhoto for duplicates using Duplicate Annihilator
You can use iPhoto Library Manager to split a large library into smaller ones. Note at this time there is no way to move faces and places data. However the next version of iPhoto Library Manager (currently in beta) will have this ability. It might be worth waiting a few days.
Noting your comment on the speed of Aperture as well: the largest impact on speed comes from too little RAM and too little HD space. How much of each do you have? Particularly how much Free Space on the HD.
Regards
TD

How to manage or divide large library?

Hello all,
My internal hard disk is getting full. I need to free up some space on it. I have purchased an external HD (1T) with Firewire 400 on my iMac Intel Core Duo. 3 1/2 years old.
We have multiple family users on this machine. My user has 50g and my son's user has 30 gigs. Besides just jpegs it has become increasingly filled with the DV movie clips from our digital camera. My 10 year old has taken a passion to this movie clip thing and I see this growing at the biggest rate.
I would like to get some of this off the the external. Here are my thoughts and I was wondering my pros and cons of each.
1) Put the entire library on the exteranl.
PRO: Saves space in the internal
CONS: Is there a transfer rate issue? My sone desires seemless intergration with iMovie through the Media Browser I think. Will this be as stable as on the internal drive
OPTION #2
DIvide the library in half or so. Put most of it (years 2000 to 2008) on the external as a SEPARATE library and keep the recent stuff on the internal.
PRO: allows for seemless intergration with iMovie for current stuff. Save a good deal of space
CONS: Is splitting a libray a good idea? How is it done? Now my Time Capsule is only backing up my internal recent stuff and I have to remember to make a safety back up of the stuff sitting on the external?
Can the library be split? Is that good and how best to do this?
I would really appreciate the help!
Wayne

how will iPhoto and iMovie still be linked together?
Exactly the same way as they are now. There is no differences. iMovie will recognise the default library just as it does now. To move the Library....
1. Quit iPhoto
2. Copy the iPhoto Library Folder 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.
Again, I cannot stress enough that having the Library on an external will make no difference whatever to the operation of the app or how it integrates with other apps. None.
Can you speak a little about the practicality of splitting the library? Is library manager very stable at this? Would it be separated forever? Is having a library for every couple of years a good idea?
Splitting a Library is a one time operation, there's no "stability" issue. They will be separated until you merge them again - which you can only do with iPhoto Library Manager.
But remember, if you split a Library the other apps will +only know about the default library - the one currently open or most recently open.
I see no appreciable advantage to splitting a Library.
Regards
TD

Carbonite backing my iphoto library again after upgrading to ilife 11

I have Carbonite online backup and have my system backed up. Since upgrading to iLife 11, Carbonite wants to back up my system again thinking everything it backup already is new files/data. This want Carbonite support saids,"we have reviewed the log files and found that duplicate files are being backed up. As the iLife program has changed the My photo and video directories. These are being backed up again. We would suggest you make changes to the settings of iLife program, so that Carbonite does not recognize it as a new data. " My question, want setting am I changing so carbonite doesn't duplicate my back up? it wants to upload 137 gig of data (again) it will take for ever! Thank you for any help.

I also have Carbonite. Before upgrading to iPhoto '11, I divided my library into multiple smaller libraries just so my computer didn't seem so taxed. I have Carbonite in case my computer crashes or is stolen. After doing all this maneuvering of libraries and then the upgrade to '11, my Carbonite was going bonkers.... it even sent me an email saying I hadn't backed up in over a week. I don't know why I got that email. But, I think that Carbonite finally caught up somewhat to my moving around of files and then upgrading to iPhoto '11.
I think I prefer the concept of taking an external HD or two (making one or two additional copies of my libraries).... and, maybe telling Carbonite to not back-up those libraries (the ones that I don't actively use right now) until my Carbonite has caught up on my actively used libraries. Then, once it says that you are caught up, you can one by one add those unused libraries back to your "back-up" to catch any additional changes you may make on those libraries in the future. This way, your current changes are for sure being captured on your Carbonite back-up.
I don't know if this makes sense. And, perhaps your usage is different than mine. But, I had over 14,000 photos in my single library. Now, I have 9 libraries with up to 4,500 in a single library. I only actively use one library right now. And, will be making sure that one is on my back-up with Carbonite. Then, once that is done, I will add the other 8 libraries one by one until they are all updated all the while making sure my primary is being captured as well. But, if something does happen between now and then, I have my external HD with copies of my iPhoto library at least until Carbonite is all the way caught up.

Does changing iPhoto library "mess up" iWeb pages?

Can someone give me a short explanation of how iWeb stores its images on my computer, and how that relates, if at all, to iPhoto? Many of my iWeb pages are created from iPhoto albums. Now I would like to make some significant changes to my iPhoto library (divide it into two libraries, delete some images, etc). Willl that have any effect upon my iWeb pages on my computer that use those iPhoto images? Or, once imported to iWeb from iPhoto, are the images then part of iWeb independent of iPhoto? Thank you!

Bobio,
iWeb stores all of it's data in a file named Domain. This file, by default, is placed on your hard drive in this location. Once the iPhoto media is imported into iWeb, it is copied there and the iPhoto files are not affected by what iWeb does with the media. iWeb will actually store a copy of the original file from iPhoto--something to bear in mind if you are using large pic files. Your Domain file can become somewhat bloated if you are using a lot of large media.
So the short answer to your question is, yes, the iPhoto media becomes part of the iWeb file and you may do what you will with your iPhoto configuration without affecting it, and vice versa--changes to previously imported iPhoto media within iPhoto will not affect your pages.
Mark

How can I restore an iPhoto library from Time Machine (ML) - when I TM doesn't see the backup??

Hi,
I recently did a Time Machine backup of my MacBook Pro (Mountain Lion) onto an external HDD. Around the time of the last backup, my system was behaving funny so I decided to rebuild the OS X.
Because the last TM backup was of a system that as mentioned, was somewhat 'unstable', and I only had a few backups available (didn't have TM running too long beforehand) - I decided not to use TM to 'restore' my system. I just did a clean install of ML and planned on pulling files over manually. I'd done this before and it worked a treat.
This time ran into a snag. The backup disk TM used was an external HDD which I wanted to upgrade (suffice to say it works fine). So, I needed to move the backup.backupdb directory to my other HDD. The copy seemed to work fine ... so far so good.
I installed the new ML OS on my MacBook Pro and that was fine too. I was able to pull most of my files over by going into the TM backup and copying what I needed.
BUT, for some reason, this didn't work for the iPhoto library?
Alas, I found that you need to do a 'restore' iPhoto library file from whithin TM. So I fired up TM and noticed that it didn't recognise the old backup file located on the HDD. I.e. when I turned on TM, pointed it to the external HDD (where I copied the previous backup to), it started a fresh backup.
So ... my question is - "How do I restore the iPhoto library if I can't get to it from TM?"
Thanks in advance to anyone that can help! The last 15 years of photos are stored in this library!

Hi ...
I've found a solution to my problem.
Time Machine locates extenal HDD backups differently depending if they were done via a network or via a USB/FireWire/Thunderbolt connection.
My initial backup was done via a direct Thunderbolt connection. I ran into the above issue b/c the second time when I tried looking for the backup file the HDD was conencted to my iMac and I was accessing it via a network conenction.
I simply connected the drive directly to my MacBook pro and ... voila. I was able to see the backup, select the iPhoto library and begin the restore.
Hope this helps.
BTW - I found this out by reading the 'blue box' selection on this page: http://pondini.org/TM/E2.html
(Thanks goes to Pondini!)

How can I delete repeats in my iPhoto library without going one at a time?

I have been trying to clean up my iphoto library, and find that many of my imports have been repeated in different places. Is there a way to clean out repeat photos so there aren't so many of the same ones without having to do so one at a time?

You can use any one of these applications to identify and remove duplicate photos from an iPhoto Library:
iPhoto Library Manager - $29.95
Duplicate Cleaner for iPhoto - free - was able to recognize the duplicated HDR and normal files from an iPhone shooting in HDR.
Duplicate Annihilator - $7.95 - only app able to detect duplicate thumbnail files or faces files when an iPhoto 8 or earlier library has been imported into another.
PhotoSweeper - $9.95 - This app can search by comparing the image's bitmaps or histograms thus finding duplicates with different file names and dates.
PhotoDedupo - $4.99 (App Store) - this app has a "similar" search feature which is like PhotoSweeper's bitmap comparison. It found all duplicates.
DeCloner - $19.95 - can find dupicates in iPhoto Libraries or in folders on the HD.
Some users have reported that PhotoSweeper did the best in finding all of the dups in their library: i photo has duplicated many photos, how...: Apple Support Communities.
If you have an iPhone and have it set to keep the normal photo when shooting HDR photos the two image files that are created will be duplicates in a manner of speaking (same image) but the only diplicate finder app that detected the iPhone HDR and normal photos as being duplicates was PhotoSweeper. None of the other apps detected those two files as being duplicates as they look for file name as well as other attributes and the two files from the iPhone have diffferent file names.
iPLM, however, is the best all around iPhoto utility as it can do so much more than just find duplicates. IMO it's a must have tool if using iPhoto.
OT

How Can I Display the Name of iPhoto Library?

I manage a huge number of images so I keeep them in their own iPhoto libraries. In order to change libraries, I have to rename the one I have just left and then restart iPhoto. I have looked for years but cannot find a way for iPhoto to display the name of the library it has open. I could remember the names of all my libraries if I was not forced to change them in order to leave them and go to another. Does iPhoto tell you the name of the library you have open?
Thanks
20"iMAc G5 Mac OS X (10.4.5)

Hi John,
iPhoto 6 now shows the name of the library in the title bar of the iPhoto window. At least it did the other day for me.
You can have a unique name for each of your libraries and use the Option key to launch iPhoto and choose to open another library, then navigate to the library, highlight it and click open.
You can also use one of the iPhoto Library managers to switch between libraries.
iPhoto Library Manager
iPhoto Library Manager documentation
this page will show you everything you can do with iPhoto Library Manager.
You can also try iPhoto Buddy

Dividing iPhoto Library

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