Huge iPhoto Library - 2 External Hard Drive + Time Machine

I have a massive iPhoto library on my macbook pro and am adding about 10GB in photos per year. I currently have an external hard drive used as a backup only for Time Machine.
Is it best to purchase an additional hard drive and run iPhoto directly from the external drive? Would this enable me to delete the iPhoto library from my macbook and then do a daily time machine backup for the macbook and for the external drive? Is this possible, or is their a better way to go about this?
Thanks,

I bought a new MacBook Pro in late august this year, and since then I`ve had some serious problems backing up my iPhoto library. I have searched severals forums in both english and norwegian, with no luck. But today, I found this... http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4116
Thank you so much, Pondini. You made my day
Kind regards, Erlend.

Similar Messages

Trying to copy iPhoto Library to external hard drive for backup. Error message: The Finder can't complete the operation because some data in "iPhoto Library" can't be read or written (Error code -36).

Trying to copy iPhoto Library to external hard drive for backup. Error message: The Finder can't complete the operation because some data in "iPhoto Library" can't be read or written (Error code -36).

That code is
-36
ioErr
I/O error (bummers)
Make sure the EHD is formatted OS X Extended (journaled) and run Disk Utilty on the EHD and repair the disk. If that fails to help I'd try the following:
Using iPhoto Library Manager to Rebuild Your iPhoto Library
Download iPhoto Library Manager and launch.
Click on the Add Library button,
navigate to your Home/Pictures folder and select your iPhoto Library folder.
Now that the library is listed in the left hand pane of iPLM, click on your library and go to the Library ➙ Rebuild Library menu option
In the next window name the new library and select the external HD as the location of the newly rebild library.
Click on the Create button.
Note 1: This creates a new library based on the LIbraryData.xml file in the library and will recover Events, Albums, keywords, titles and comments. However, books, calendars, cards and slideshows will be lost.
Note 2: Your current library will be left untouched for further attempts at a fix if so desired.
OT

Iphoto library on external hard drive now does not show all the photos when i access it from macbook

i backed up iphoto library to an external hard drive. Deleted photo library on the macbook. After transferring some new photos to macbook from a camera, when i access the iphoto library on external hard drive only the new photos show up. Originals are still in files, but don't appear when opening iphoto library on external hard drive.

Make a temporary, backup copy of your library if you don't already have one (Control-click on the library and select Duplicate from the contextual menu) and apply the two fixes below in order as needed:
Fix #1
Launch iPhoto with the Command+Option keys held down and rebuild the library.
Select the options identified in the screenshot.
Fix #2
Using iPhoto Library Manager to Rebuild Your iPhoto Library
Download iPhoto Library Manager and launch.
Click on the Add Library button, navigate to your Home/Pictures folder and select your iPhoto Library folder.
Now that the library is listed in the left hand pane of iPLM, click on your library and go to the File ➙ Rebuild Library menu option
In the next window name the new library and select the location you want it to be placed.
Click on the Create button.
Note: This creates a new library based on the LIbraryData.xml file in the library and will recover Events, Albums, keywords, titles and comments but not books, calendars or slideshows. The original library will be left untouched for further attempts at fixing the problem or in case the rebuilt library is not satisfactory.
OT

Restore iPhotoLibrary specifically from EXTERNAL Hard drive Time Machine back up?

My laptop Photo Library is corrupted somehow. I tried to restore from a prior in Time Machine on laptop and made the mistake of not saying to keep BOTH copies, but after trying for 3 hours of telling me it was doing it through various windows, a little one popped open saying something about permissions and it opened an old iPhotoLibrary from 2 years ago! ... I do have that one now and am copying it off my laptop as fast as I can to FLICKR
cuz APPLE has become a PHOTO sinkhole... (We are talking 20,000 pics folks with scanned in family pics from 100 yrs ago!)
I think I have a good copy on my External Hard Drive Time Machine back up from about 3 weeks ago. How do I use that to Restore from
or should I just wait for this PHOTOS thing to come out?
NEXT Question is there a convenient way to split it into MULTIPLE ones..eg KEEP old stable photos in one or more.
and use another for all the new ones not editted or sorted yet? I do see there is a new Option under iPHOTO/File menu to just switch
libraries but, of course, you cant even see that if your Library wont open!

For TM help post in the forum for your OS - and see https://www.apple.com/support/timemachine/ and http://pondini.org/TM/FAQ.html and http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html
Depends on undisclosed information
With the current OS and iPhoto you switch library using the switch library command - with any version you can switch libraries by holding the option key down while you launch iPhoto which brings up the select library window
And generally it is not a smart idea to have multiple iPhoto libraries - it generally has no advantages and makes things much more difficult and complicated and often leads to user errors that cause major problems
If you want to anyway the most convent way to split libraries is to use the paid version of iPhoto Library Manager - http://www.fatcatsoftware.com/iplm/ -
LN

I have stored everything on my Macbook pro in a external hard drive (Time Machine) Now that we have "wiped the machine" I am told I can start it over and load ontent--apps, docs, etc from the hard drive, just plug it in, find the time machine and what?

I have stored everything on my Macbook pro in a external hard drive (Time Machine) Now that we have "wiped the machine" I am told I can start it over and load ontent--apps, docs, etc from the hard drive, just plug it in, find the time machine and what? I need to know what to highligh, what to click on.

hirogliffix,
take a look at this Apple page — in particular, the “Restoring data from Time Machine backups” section and its “Restoring your entire system from a backup” subsection.

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?

Need to transfer iphoto library to external hard drive

need to transfer iphoto library to external passport drive. It will not let me drag and drop

Welcome to Apple Support Communities
The external drive is formatted in NTFS, a format that OS X can't write in. You have to erase the external disk.
First, open Finder, choose the external drive in the sidebar, under "Devices", and copy all the content of your external drive to another folder like Desktop.
Then, follow these steps to format the external drive in "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)" as Format > http://pondini.org/OSX/DU1.html Finally, drag the iPhoto library to the external drive

Backing up iPhoto Library on external hard drive through Time Machine

Hi - I was advised by the folks at the Genius Bar to move my iPhoto Library to an external hard drive (drive 1), and then buy a separate 1TB external hard drive (drive 2) for all of my Time Machine backups. They said I could back up the Library in drive 1 via Time Machine, to drive 2. That way, I'd have 2 spots where my photos were stored.
I can't figure out how to make sure the Time Machine is also backing up the Library in drive 1. Where do I set that up? At the Genius Bar, they insisted I could do it, but when I poke around Time Machine on my System Preferences, I can't figure out how to tell Time Machine where to find the iPhoto Library. And when I open up Time Machine, I just get the application view, not a set up view.
Please help! Thanks!

By default Time Machine will backup all locally connected disks. so if the iPhoto library is on a locally connected disk it will be backed up.
To double check that the disk with the iPhoto Library is not being excluded open System Preferences->Time Machine and click on the Options… button.
If the disk with the iPhoto library is in the excluded list remove it.

Backing up iPhoto Library from external hard drive through ChronoSync to Time Capsule

I have a 2008, 2GB Mac Mini. I moved my iTunes library, which is mostly movies, to a 4 TB My Book Studio, as it exceeded the space on my Mac. I back up my computer to a 2 TB Time Capsule. I exclude the My Book Studio from being backed up on the Time Capsule as it takes up all the space due to the iTunes library. I am wanting to move my iPhoto library as it is starting to take up to much memory on my Mac also.
My question is, if I move my iPhoto library to the My Book Studio, then get an application such as ChronoSync (or an App that will do incremental back ups & not do a completely new back up each time) to automatically back up my iPhoto library to my Time Capsule, can I set it to specifically bak up the library off the external hard drive, or will it only back up info that is stored on my Mac?
Thanks!

Thanks Terence!!! I received a reply back from Chronosync. I will be purchasing their app......it sounds pretty slick
Here is their reply to the same question I asked here:
ChronoSync Express will back up the contents of whatever volume or folder you target as your source target to the volume or folder you choose as the destination target. As long as you can access the volume or folder via Finder of your Mac, ChronoSync Express can access it as well. You can create a sync document that targets your iPhoto library and nothing else on the My Book Studio and backs it up to the Time Capsule then schedule it to run automatically.

Time Machine wont back up iPhoto Library on External Hard Drive

I have tried and tried, but I cannot get Time Machine to successfully back up my iPhoto Library on an external hard drive. I found out the hard way that TM was not backing up iPhoto. Sometime TM would work and other times it would not. I realize now that the times it worked was the times I had iPhoto open. The times it did not was when iPhoto was closed.
I have checked the troubleshooting steps, repaired disks ,etc - but still nothing. Anyone have any suggestions?

I bought a new MacBook Pro in late august this year, and since then I`ve had some serious problems backing up my iPhoto library. I have searched severals forums in both english and norwegian, with no luck. But today, I found this... http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4116
Thank you so much, Pondini. You made my day
Kind regards, Erlend.

Tried to reinstall iPhoto library from external hard drive, it shows that the photos and events are there but there are no thumbnails and if you click on an image or video nothing comes up.

My hard drive crashed recently and we took it to apple to get repaired. The apple employees said that they would have to replace the hard drive but they didn't have the equipment to get the data off my hard drive. So I took it to a computer store who had the right equipment after a month and a half of waiting they finally got all the data off my hard drive and put it on an external hard drive (Seagate Expansion Portable Drive). I then took it back to apple who replaced the hard drive. Now I'm in the process of reinstalling everything. I have never done a Time Machine back up or backed my laptop up to . Which I now will do very often once I've reinstalled everything. I have reinstalled all of my desktop images and folders as well as my iTunes library with no issues. However when i went to reinstall my iPhoto library it came up blank. I then Rebuilt the library several times and this was the result.
It shows that the photos and events are there but there are no thumbnails and if you click on an image or video nothing comes up.
Please help i have three years worth of images from holidays on here and would be devastated if i lost them.

iPhoto cannot find the thumbnails or the original pictures.
Go to your iPhoto Library in the Pictures Folder.
Right-click on it and from the resulting menu, choose 'Show Package Contents'.
This will bring you inside the iPhoto Library package. There you should see a Folder called Masters. Within that, there should be folder containing your actual photos.
Are they there?

IPhoto library on external hard drive will no longer open

I'm hoping that someone will be able to point me to a simple solution to my problem...
I'm running iPhoto 9.6 on a MacBook Pro (Retina, 13 inch, mid-2014). The OS is Yosemite 10.10.1. Because the flash storage is only 250GB I have my main iPhoto library (146GB) on a partition of an external 1TB Lacie Rugged drive. The external hard drive also has partitions for Time Machine Backup and SuperDuper Bootable Clone. I have a separate, much smaller iPhoto library on the MBP which contains recent photos.
Yesterday I failed to reconnect my MacBook Pro to the power source when I put it back on my desk. The result was that the battery went below 5% and the MBP turned itself off and also ejected the external hard drive (some time after I reconnected the power cable there were dialog boxes on my screen informing me that each of the three partitions had been ejected incorrectly). I waited until the MBP was fully charged before I tried to open my 'main' iPhoto library on the external hard drive. I received a message that the library would have to be upgraded to work with the computer (very odd, because it had already been upgraded last October when I upgraded from Mavericks to Yosemite and has been working without any real problem ever since then).
After some hours when the only message on the screen was 'Rebuiding Thumbnail Caches' I pressed Cmd+Option+Esc I saw that iPhoto was 'Paused' - that message subsequently changed to 'Not Responding'. I 'Force Quit' iPhoto but the iPhoto library will not open at all from the external drive.
As a test I quit iPhoto and re-started using the Option key and chose to open the iPhoto library which is on the internal drive and it opened without any problem.
I recall that it used to be possible to fix this sort of thing (perhaps not) by trashing the com.apple.iPhoto.plist file, however, I don't seem to be able to find it :-(
I'm really at a loss as to how I should approach this problem and I would be very grateful for any suggestions that can be offered.
Cheers
Tricia

Further update ....
I downloaded and installed iPhoto Library Manager and then chose Library - Rebuild Library. Unfortunately, when it had finished the result was 0 images in any file or folder. I checked the log (which is incredibly long) but here's the beginning of it which seems to indicate that the problem is that an essential file is missing -
2015-01-21 10:49:18.671 iPhoto Library Manager 4.1.11; iPhoto 9.6; OS X 10.10.1; unregistered
2015-01-21 10:49:19.033 Rebuilding library /Volumes/Pictures/iPhoto Library
2015-01-21 10:49:19.033 Rebuilt library located at /Users/Tricia 1/Pictures/iPhoto Library (rebuilt).photolibrary
2015-01-21 10:49:19.035 Building preview…
2015-01-21 10:49:19.042 Photo transfer settings: source libraries = /Volumes/Pictures/iPhoto Library, copy faces = true, copy places = true, combine album contents = false, photo attributes copied = (comment, date, flagged, hidden, latitude, longitude, name, rating)
2015-01-21 10:49:19.042 Loading data for library /Volumes/Pictures/iPhoto Library…
2015-01-21 10:49:19.056 Version number: 9.6
2015-01-21 10:49:19.057 An error occurred: Trying to load database for library “/Volumes/Pictures/iPhoto Library” failed. Some information such as faces, places, and edit history may not be transferred succesfully. (error = Error Domain=PLDatabaseErrorDomain Code=1 "The SQLite database file could not be found." UserInfo=0x10e9c1c10 {PLDatabaseErrorVendorErrorKey=14, PLDatabaseErrorVendorStringKey=unable to open database file, NSLocalizedDescription=The SQLite database file could not be found.}
After this each entry has a dialog that basically says the image file is missing from /Volumes/Pictures/iPhoto Library.
As mentioned in an earlier post I do have another iPhoto Library on my 2008 MacBook.
Can someone advise the best way to proceed? I'm thinking that I should erase the partition of my external hard drive that is called Pictures and then connect the external hard drive to my 2008 MacBook and simply drag and drop the iPhoto Library to the Pictures partition. IIRC, that's the way I moved the iPhoto Library last October when I bought my new MacBook Pro which didn't have enough storage for me to be able to store my iPhoto Library on the MBP. I could then reconnect the external hard drive to my MBP and the iPhoto Library should reappear, shouldn't it?
Looking forward to more input ...
Tricia

Copying saved iphoto library from external hard drive back to Macbook Pro

Please help, I have accidentally managed to permanently delete my iphoto library and by this I mean that I somehow dragged my library into trash and then emptied it. I don't know how this happend but I quite quickly found out I had done it and shut my computer down. I have since done a recovery with disk drill and have hopefully recovered most of my photos though I havent had time to look through all the 1000's of photos yet. I do have a copied version of my library on an external hard drive that I did in 2012 and I have tried to copy this library back to my pictures folder so i at least have my photos up to 2012 back but it is not working. I have read through some of the threads on here regarding iphoto library back ups and I think the issue might be that the external hard drive is formatted Fat32 and not os extended.
I am hoping someone can help me get this working. Here are the facts.
1. I am running iphoto 11, version 9.2.3 on a macbook pro running os x 10.6.8
2. The copied iphoto library is on an external hard drive that is fat32 formatted. I can open the package contents and see the originals folder with all the yearly folders inside and all the numbered folders inside that with the pictures in them, so I know the pictures are there.
3. If I try to copy the library folder over to the pictures folder on the macbook i just get a pop up window saying 'preparing to copy iphoto library' and the scrolling bar but the copy doesn't actually start.
4. If I try to open the library through iphoto by holidng down the option key, iphoto tells me that the library has to be upgraded but i am reluctant to upgrade the original copy of the library. I would prefer to copy it first in case anything goes wrong but then i have the problem above that the copy doesn't work
Thank you in advance for any help.

The copied iphoto library is on an external hard drive that is fat32 formatted.
Therein lies the problem. iPhoto libraries need to be stored, placed on a disk formatted OS X Extended (journaled). The FAT format doesn't support the complexity of an iPhoto library and can, and more often than not, corrupt a library.
Try the following:
Using iPhoto Library Manager to Rebuild Your iPhoto Library
1 - download the free version of iPhoto Library Manager and launch.>Click on the Add Library button,
2 - select the library you want to add from those in the selection window.
3 - make sure that in the rebuild window the checkbox "Scavange orphaned photos" is checked.
4 - now that the library is listed in the left hand pane of iPLM, click on your library and go to the Library ➙ Rebuild Library menu option
5 - in the next window name the new library and select the location you want it to be placed, i.e. in the Pictures folder of your MBP. Click on the Create button.
Note 1: This creates a new library based on the LIbraryData.xml file in the library and will recover Events, Albums, keywords, titles and comments. However, books, calendars, cards and slideshows will be lost.
Note 2: Your current library will be left untouched for further attempts at a fix if so desired.
OT

Using iphoto with iphoto library on external hard drive

My Imac is running snow leopard with ilife '11. I have imported way too many photos into Iphoto which is really slowing it down. I'd like to put all of my photos on an external hard drive and use that as my iphoto library--which should be possible, as I gather from reading various other related posts. Another reason to put it on an external drive is so that I can use my new macbook air to edit/organize while on the go.
1. How do I set up my Iphoto library on an external hard drive?
2. How do I make sure that all future photos go to the library on that external hard drive?
3. How do I run Iphoto with the library on an external hard drive?
THANK YOU for your help!

Hello. I just transferred my iPhoto library to a Western Digital My Book for Mac external hard drive. Do you know if I needed to format this drive even though it says it's for Mac. I did not format it and there were not any instructions with the drive that said I needed to do it. The transfer seems to have worked ok but my backups from Time Machine onto Time Capsule are inconsistent. I already posed a question regarding this problem but I noticed this message regarding formating the external disk and I wonder if that is causing the problem. Thanks.

Hitting a problem when transferring iPhoto library to External Hard Drive.

Hi
I am running a 3 year old MacBook with iPhoto 08, my hard drive is nearly full mainly with photos so I have just purchased a G-Drive Hitachi 500GB external hard drive, with a view to storing my iPhoto library thus enabling me to create some space on the computer hard drive.
I did some online research and transferred my iPhoto library as follows:-
I quit iPhoto and went into my pictures folder, located by iPhoto library file and dragged it to my external hard drive, after it had copied I went back into my pictures folder and re-named the original library 'iPhoto Library.Old', I then opened iPhoto by holding down the 'alt' key and was given the prompt to choose a library to open, I selected 'iPhoto Library.Old' from the pane and my pictures loaded up.
This is when I came across a problem, I was under the impression that once the library had been transferred the the EHD in this way that the pictures/events on the EHD would remain in place. I deleted a few of my events on my computer HD, but when I checked the EHD they had vanished from there too.
No photos are lost as I have them all backed up to CD, on line albums etc, but I am puzzled as to what I am doing wrong and how I get the photos on the EHD to stay put.
My Time Machine automatic updates are off, any suggestions would be greatly appreciated as I seem to have hit a brick wall with this one.
Thanks
Ruth

Hi Terence
I have just opened the internal iphoto library to delete some photos, without the EHD being attached, when I plug in the EHD and open the iphoto library from there the pictures that I have just deleted on the internal library have gone from the EHD. I am obviously doing something wrong but I cannot fathom out what. My internal library has a different name ie 'iPhoto Library.Old' but both internal and external libraries seem to be still acting as one.
I hope I'm making sense ?
Regards
Ruth

Huge iPhoto Library - 2 External Hard Drive + Time Machine

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