Images on External Drive

Hello there.
My photos are in a external drive and when I add them to my library, iPhoto gathers all the images from the external drive and puts them on the hard drive. It takes too much room.
Is it possible to have the iPhoto library link to a photo file folder on a external drive?
Thank you so much

wellsamwell:
Welcome to the Apple Discussions. There are two way you can do that.
1 - move the iPhoto Library folder to the external drive and run it from there. Launch iPhoto with the Option key depressed and, when asked, navigate to the external HD and select the library folder there.
2 - convert your library to an alias based one that uses alias files pointing to the real (source) files that you keep on the external HD. Tutorial #2 describes how to convert your library to an alias based one.
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.

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