IPhoto Library Copy Issues

Hello all,
I'm having some issues copying (backing up) my iPhoto library to an external disk and I really hope somebody can help!
I usually make a monthly backup of my iPhoto library to an external drive and did so before going on vacation a few weeks ago. It's always copied with no problems whatsoever. I just came back from vacation and added about 25GB of new photos (long vacation!) and the only thing I did differently with my new imported photos was that I used HoudahGeo to add GPS data to my new photos. I'm not sure if that would cause a problem, but the library seems to be functioning fine when I use it.
I went to make a backup of my iPhoto library to my usual Mac OS Journaled external disk (A Western Digital 3TB 3.5" drive in a Firewire 800 cradle), but the transfer stalled (or at least severely slowed down) at around 1.4GB and the timer went from several hours up to several days. I thought that was strange, so I canceled the transfer. I tried a different disk (a Seagate 320GB drive), but same thing so I went back tried my original drive again. No luck. I tested my drive by copying another large file (iTunes library) and it copied with no problem. Strange, I thought.
I repaired disk permissions on Mac OSX and copied again, but it didn't seem to help. I then repaired disk permissions on iPhoto using the repair menu, but no difference there either. Then I repaired the iPhoto library using the last option on the repair menu, but it didn't seem to help either! It always stalls around 1.4GB and I cancel.
I thought that maybe it was a Finder issue, so in the end I used terminal (cp -R) to copy the library and that worked, but the size of the finished library file is much bigger than what my finder is currently reporting for the original. It's 551GB vs. the original 289GB.
My software is up to date with: Mac OSX Mavericks 10.9.5 and iPhoto 9.5.1.
If somebody can help me, I'd be so grateful! I'm moving back to America soon and want to sell my iMac here and get a new one back home. I need to be able to move this iPhoto library to an external drive since I destroyed my pre-vacation backup when I cancelled my fist copy attempt!
Thanks so much!

This is a finder issue, copying from disk to disk is a finder operation.
One way around it is to use a back up app like Chronosync to make the copy for you - that will deal with permissions kludges and so on.
Going forward, copying the whole library every time as a back up is - as I'm sure you've noticed - slow and tedious. Consider Using an app that will do incremental back ups. The first time you run the back up the app will make a complete copy of the Library. Thereafter it will update the back up with the changes you have made. That makes subsequent back ups much faster. Many of these apps also have scheduling capabilities: So set it up and it will do the back up automatically.
Example of such apps: Chronosync - but there are many others. Search on MacUpdate or the App Store

Similar Messages

How to open iPhoto Library copied from Macbook onto external HD, on my iMac ?

How to open iPhoto Library copied from Macbook onto external Hard Drive, on iMac? "Not enough storage??" is message that appears.

How much free storage do you have on your iMac's system drive and on the external hard drive?
And how have you been trying to open the library? Do not import the library into iPhoto.
You simply connect the hard drive with the library and double-click the iPhoto library on the external drive to open it in iPhoto. That will work, if you are using iPhoto 9.6, the only version of iPhoto, that is compatible with MacOS X 10.10.
Or hold down the alt/options key while double clicking the iPhoto icon. This will bring up a library chooser panel. Select your library on the external drive.
If the iPhoto Library has been created by an older version of iPhoto it will need to be upgraded to the new version, and that may require temorary additional free storage on your system drive and the drive with the library.
If the library has been created by iPhoto 7.1.2 or earlier, you need to install and run iPhoto Library Upgrader, see: iPhoto '11: About the Library Upgrader

How does an "iPhoto Library Copy" folder get created? It has an icon that looks like a stack of photos with a pink flower. It contains all my photo's (as far as I can tell) and the original "iPhoto Library" only contains "AlbumData.xml?

I upgraded to Lion last month AFTER wiping the hard drive for the second time on my 2011 macbook pro. I am now suspecting that transferring my photos (I have over 8,000 saved on sd cards) to my computer is bringing all this trouble.
I was able to rectify some problems by dragging import file from library to desktop etc... But I am worried that these Copied Libraries and recovered photo files and AlbumData.xml file are a sign of something darker loomng ahead...

Sorry but we have no idea what's going on, or gone on, on your machine. Neither can we see it. We only have your somewhat sketchy post. You mention that you can rectify "some problems", you mention "all this trouble" but neglect to mention what these problems and trouble actually are. So, I'm afraid it's hard to respond to your post in a meaningful way.
A couple of thoughts: 8,000 photos is not a problem. iPhoto is good for 250,000 in any one library. So, unless you have very limited HD disk space, this is not the source of whatever issues you are having.
If you're dragging parts of the iPhoto Library around the place, yes there could be trouble ahead. Don't change anything in the iPhoto Library Folder via the Finder or any other application. iPhoto depends on the structure as well as the contents of this folder. Moving things, renaming things, deleting them or otherwise making changes will prevent iPhoto from working and could even cause you to damage or lose your photos.
There are two ways to get a copied library: one is to duplicate the Library yourself (either accidentally or deliberately) or while restoring from back up.
Regards
TD

Iphoto library access issues

Please can someone help me with the following.
Overall objective remove all content on macbook pro (running crazy slow)
A) have itunes and iphoto libraries available for access by my mac desktop
B) have an independant set of original photos (not mac'ified)
Fyi approx 9500 photos
Actions taken so far...
Backed up macbook pro to time capsule
Bought wd my passport fpr mac -guy in shop formattex so can use on windows and mac machines
Exported photos in original file format to a wd my passport for mac - tested and can access from both a mac and non mac machine...successful
Copied itunes library to wd my passport for mac - tested can access on mac desktop..successful
Problem
Dont seem to be able to copy iphotos library to wd my passport for mac
Copied iphotos library to time capsule but when try and access using mac desktop nothing happens...in quit view iphoto states not responding
Not sure what the issues are with what im trying to do?
Do i need another wd my passport for mac formatted just for mac on which to run iphoto library?
Can i run iphoto library on wd my passport for mac which has been formatted for both windows and mac?
Why can i access itunes library off time capsule copy but not iphoto library?
All help gratefully receivef

as far as i am aware both machines are running the same version of osx and iphoto.
although since posting my query i am now beginning to get suspicious that I have a bug in my iphoto library

IPhoto library mapping issues on home network

Ladies and Gentlemen,
I have my iPhoto 8 library stored on PowerMac G4 that acts as media server for the house. Each Mac automatically mounts the media drive when the appropriate user logs in and each copy of iPhoto has been 'mapped' to the iPhoto library located on the media server.
The problem - occasionally, and I can not figure what causes it - but when my wife logs in and opens iPhoto, she gets the good old "Please select the library or create a new one" window. Bless her heart, I've tried to explain how to 'remap' the library - but it's just....well, lets just say I have failed in my communications and explanations.
So - why does this library mapping 'unmap' and how can I force it to stay 'mapped'??? I've tried several Automator actions and even tried the Record function - no dice.
Any ideas would be much appreciated because she's on the verge of firing the home network administrator which equates to a reduced IT budget in the future.
Thanks for your time!
jc

John:
Are all the Macs using the same library? Is this a wireless network or hard wired?
The library can get unmapped if iPhoto is launched with the server not mounted and accessible.
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 created 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 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.

Trouble making an iPhoto library copy

Hi.
I've just dragged my iPhotos library to a new EHD but can't seem to create a copy of it - the message says I don't have the permission rights. I want to be able to delete some of the albums on my internal drive but keep them on the external copy. Please advise how best to manage this.
Thanks in advance.
Jodi

What format is the external drive?
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

Can't load iphoto library copied from old computer

I copied the photo library from my old laptop onto my new imac. The pictures are all there (LOTS) and all album data, etc. I tried launching iphoto while holding the option key. I select the iphoto library but none of the new photos come up. Did I miss step?

I still can only view the previous pictures (one roll) that was downloaded onto iphoto even though all of my pictures (3K+) from my other computer are in the iphoto library.
Do you have two iPhoto Library Folders? Or is these pics visible in one library, but the others are not?
IF the latter, it sounds like a corrupted database. Do you have an up-to-date back up? If so, try copy the library6.iphoto file from the back up to the iPhoto Library Folder allowing it to overwrite the damaged file. If not, then you'll need to create and populate a new library.
To create and populate a new library:
Note this will give you a working library with the same film rolls and pictures as before, however, you will lose your albums, keywords, books, calendars etc.
Move the iPhoto Library Folder to the desktop
Launch iPhoto. It will ask if you wish to create a new Library. Say Yes.
Go into the iPhoto Library Folder on your desktop and find the Originals folder. From the Originals folder drag the individual rolls to the iPhoto Window and it will recreate them in the new library.
When you're sure all is well you can delete the iPhoto Library Folder on your desktop.
In the future, in addition to your usual back up routine, you might like to make a copy of the library6.iPhoto file whenever you have made changes to the library as protection against database corruption.
Regards
TD

IPhoto library import issue - answer can't be found anywhere else

Hi, just downloaded the trial of Aperture. I am attempting to import my iPhoto library and regardless of whether the location is maintained as references to the iPhoto library or set to the Aperture library when I click import nothing actually imports.
I have checked the iPhoto settings and all seems to be set correctly and also the online seminars and discussions but still no answer. Would it be because I am using the trial version?
Your thoughts please!
Thanks,
Ben

Do a little test to make sure you've got your iPhoto library correct. In Aperture go to File>Import>Images. With the {X} set pm Local Files, navigate to the iPhoto library you are using. Then you should see a list of all of your Albums, and if you click on Library, you will see your Events. You can import a few (I would suggest just setting "Store Files" to "In their current location" to avoid duplication) Folders or Events and then see if they appear in Aperture. This is in fact how I store my 40K image library. I keep it all in iPhoto and reference just the albums I need to work on from Aperture.
Good Luck!

IPhoto library update issues.

Hi all,
I recently bought a new iMac and used the time machine backups from my MBP to migrate my programs, files, etc. to the new machine during the setup process. For some reason, the brand new machine was running really slow and the Apple folks had me do a clean install. The only problem that has arisen is that my iPhoto library was updated to a newer version during the transfer over to Mountain Lion on the iMac (I run Snow Leopard on my MBP) and now I can't access my photos. The photos were deleted from the iMac during the reinstall and when I try to opne iPhoto on my MBP it says I need to update to a newer version of iPhoto. In order to do so, however, I would need to upgrade the laptop to Mountain Lion. Is there a way to recover the photo library without having to spend more money?
Thanks much.

Might be good to repost your question in the iPhoto discussion forum
https://discussions.apple.com/community/ilife/iphoto?view=discussions
The iPhoto experts are there.

IPhoto Library Manager issues

Last month I downloaded this software called Sponge to get rid of duplicated pictures. I had about 6000+ pictures then. Now when it found a duplicated pic, they went in the trash and I kept it in there till I got the job done. So then I opened my iPhoto and to my surprise almost all of my pics had the exclamation point. I got really scared. So I checked the Pictures>iPhoto Library folder and all my pics are still there. So thankfully I still had all the duplicated pics in the trash, so I pulled them out and imported them back to iPhoto thinking that will solve the problem. That only made things worse! Now I have over 11000 pics and still exclamation points!
So I have been reading all the forums here and they say to use the iPhoto Library Manager . So i have used that but i have some problems with it. It seems like it is rebuilding my library but it always stops because its running out of room. I know i need to delete some pics but if i do that what will happen?
I was also wondering : If I take everything out of iPhoto , will it also be gone in the iPhoto Library Folder?
I'm just so confused on which approach I should take to recover my beloved pics.
Thanks for all your help in advance

Welcome to the Apple Discussions.
Your problem begins here:
Last month I downloaded this software called Sponge to get rid of duplicated pictures.
Using this on your iPhoto Library Folder has broken the cardinal rule of using iPhoto: Don't change anything in the iPhoto Library Folder via the Finder or any other application. iPhoto depends on the structure as well as the contents of this folder. Moving things, renaming things or otherwise making changes will prevent iPhoto from working and could even cause you to damage or lose your photos.
This app does not understand iPhoto and so it has damaged your Library:
Unfortunately you compounded the problem:
I still had all the duplicated pics in the trash, so I pulled them out and imported them back to iPhoto thinking that will solve the problem. That only made things worse! Now I have over 11000 pics and still exclamation points!
The ! turns up when iPhoto loses the connection between the thumbnail in the iPhoto Window and the file it represents. Re-importing the files will mean new files, it will not reconnect the old one.
You have a back up, right? These are your beloved pics, so you've got them backed up? The easiest solution to this mess is to restore from your back up and overwrite the ruined Library.
Regards
TD

HT5037 iPhoto Library Upgrade Issues

I recently purchased a new iMac that came with iPhoto 9.3.1 installed. I migrated files from an older Mac to my iMac. When I try to open iPhoto I got a message the I needed to install an iPhoto Library Upgrade. I found the upgrade and installed it. I still received the same message. I discovered an iPhoto update to 9.3.2 in the Mac App Store and installed it hoping that it would fix the problem. No such luck. I still receive the iPhoto library upgrade notice. So I downloaded and installed the library upgrade again. Still no luck. In the end, I removed my iPhoto libraries from the Pictures directory and iPhoto started right up. All of my photos are still in tact, only the libraries I organized them into are lost. If you are not able to revert back to an older version of iPhoto, which I am not able to do, this appears to be the only way to fix this problem. Fortunately, I did not have many libraryies set up in iPhoto.
I hope this is helpful to some of you who are in the same boat.
Paul

Backup your iPhoto library, depress the option and command keys, launch iPhoto and rebuild the library
LN

IPhoto and iPhoto Library Manager Issue With Faces

I use iPhoto ’11. I just recently imported some photos from my iMac iPhoto to my Macbook using the product iPhoto Library Manager. I thought everything went well until closer inspection. A lot of the faces in the imported library are off meaning for example, the people may be in the centre of the photo but the face tags are off to the left or right.
I thought I would manually try to fix this. However when I try to “add a face”, it looks like it’s going to work until I leave the photo and come back to it. The face tag has disappeared. Also on some photos, I can’t even click “add a face”. A few of the pictures say there is an unnamed face but there isn’t.
Any suggestions? Would it help if I reinstalled iPhoto 11?
Tom

If you export out of iPhoto with Format=JPEG and the checkboxes selected to include keywords you can keep the keywords, titles and descriptions. If you check the box for Locations I believe you will get the faces also but am not sure on that.
iPhoto Library Manager keeps keywords, titles, description and Faces and Places when it copes between libraries. The fact that you had faces problems leads me believe that the library you were rebuilding with iPLM was damaged initially.
But you could check that out very easily. Create a new library, import about 10 photos and identify the faces in them. Then rebuild that library with iPLM. If it comes up the same then there's a problem with iPLM. It it comes up good then the original library was the culprit.

IPhoto won't open copied IPhoto Library

We just bought two new MacBook Pros and imported all our 11,000 plus pictures into the first MacBook. After investing quite a bit of time organizing the pictures into 166 Events we have IPhoto on the first machine very much the way we want it. The resultant IPhoto Library file is 18.15 gb.
Now it is time to bring that library into the second MacBook Pro. We connected the two MacBook's via ethernet and successfully copied the IPhoto Library file from the one machine to the other.
Now we get to the problem. The result of the copy was a file in the second McBook named IPhoto Library copy. Whenever we try and open that file, IPhoto opens the main IPhoto Library.
How can we open the copy?

IScarl
Welcome to the Apple user to user assistance forums
launch iPhoto while depressing the option (alt) key and use the select library option to change to a different library - repeat to change back
LN

IPhoto 11 duplicates iPhoto library when I open it in Finder

The other night was on my wife's iMac and needed to grab a photo from my iPhoto library and upload it to the internet. I tried to open the connection to my Airbook where the photo resides and was prompted to login to connect to the iPhoto library. I used my Apple ID and logged in so I could browse my Airbook for the photo. When I tried to open iPhoto it immediately tried to duplicate the entire iPhoto library to my wife's iMac, which isn't at all what I wanted.
I stopped the duplication and selected the "Disconnect" that shows up in the upper right corner of the screen when viewing my Airbook in her Finder window. All seemed fine.
But now, every time I try to open iPhoto on my Airbook it creates a copy. Just like it did when I was on my wife's computer.
So I think this is a sharing issue, the iPhoto can't handle one user logging in from multiple computers so it's trying to duplicate the library. My question is: How do I make it stop? Anytime I try to upload a photo to a website by browsing to my iPhoto library, it generates another copy. I've disconnected from browsing for my Airbook from her computer. What more do I need to do to make iPhoto know that only one computer is modifying the library?
Thanks for any advice you can give me.

Thanks for your reply, Terence. Please note that this isn't exactly two users, it's one user Apple ID from two separate Mac computers.
I know the library is duplicating because a small rectangular window opens up that says "Duplicating iPhoto Library" with an x next to it that I can click on to stop the duplication. Also, I've had up to 4 copies of the iPhoto library entitled iPhoto Libary copy, iPhoto Library Copy 2, etc.
It filled my hard drive and I couldn't open iPhoto because there was "not enough space to copy iPhoto Library."
I've tried to use File, Open to open the library, tried to use Command O to open it, and tried to click on it to open it. All attempts to open it through Finder or browse to it through an upload window result it it duplicating the entire library.
I never got a message that the Library was locked.

Is my iPhoto library in the correct folder?

iphoto 11-9.4.3
Hello
I was wondering if below was the correct location for my iPhoto library folder? if not , how do I correct it, if I can at all?
I have no idea how it got renamed (iPhoto library copy) either, can that be corrected? if so how?
the only noticeable issue I am having is it takes about 10-15 seconds for iPhoto to open and close.
I wanted to back up my iPhoto library on a ext HD that is how i noticed this.(I probable did this on my last attempt to back it up)
below is what is in my pictures folder.
Thanks

Old Toad, Terence Devlin, léonie,
Thanks so much for your help,
its backing up to time machine now (looks like it is doing a brand new back up, all 64 GB) and iPhoto opened up like it was untouched.
It is great having people here that put in the time and effort to help out. I will follow you guys for future information.
I forgot to ask, Should I bother changing the name of the "iPhoto library copy" back to iPhoto library?
I thought I read somewhere in one of these iPhoto discussions never to change that name??
CHEERS!

IPhoto Library Copy Issues

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for