IPhoto onto External Hard drive

I am trying to be able to completely remove iPhoto from my internal hard drive and move it to my external hard drive. I have over 8000 and have no plan on stopping soon
I want to be able to open iPhoto from my external hard drive and see my sorted folders I have already created while it was in my internal hard drive.
I have backed up my iPhotos by copying my iPhoto library to the hard drive, but this does not allow me to actually use iPhoto once it is on the hard drive and/or see the photos as they are saved as a mass amount of unnamed .jpg files and I can never find what I need.
I have read that you copy pictures file to external hard drive then hold options key to select iPhoto to use, but I do not have the iPhoto logo anywhere but in my applicatons folder and not in my pictures file. Am I doing this wrong?
Please help, computer is really starting to run slow!

Moving the iPhoto library is safe and simple - quit iPhoto and drag it intact as a single entity to the external drive - depress the option key and launch iPhoto using the "select library" option to point to the new location on the external drive - _*fully test it and then trash the old library on the internal drive (test one more time prior to emptying the trash)*_
Deleting the iPhoto library from the internal drive, of course, deletes it and frees up the space. And note that you need a minimum of 10GB of free space on your boot drive for OS 10 to work properly.
And be sure that the External drive is formatted Mac OS extended (journaled) (iPhoto does not work with drives with other formats) and that it is always available prior to launching iPhoto
And backup soon and often - having your iPhoto library on an external drive is not a backup and if you are using Time Machine you need to check and be sure that TM is backing up your external drive
What if I only want to move my oldest images, and keep say, all 2010 photos on my computer? Is there a way to move only part of the library to the EHD?
Then you must use iPhoto Library Manager - http://www.fatcatsoftware.com/iplm/ - it is the only current way to move portions of a library intact.
Finally, once I have move photos over and deleted originals from my computer, is there a way to continue to "see" them, perhaps in the form of thumbnails, or will they only been available via my EHD now?
No - iPhoto can see one and only one library at one time - you select a library and iPhoto uses it until you select a different library
You can make suggestions to Apple - iPhoto menu ==> provide iPhoto feedback
LN

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How do I put pictures from iphoto onto external hard drive

I would like to transfer most of my pictures from iphoto to and external hard drive to free up space. I was sold a WD elements and said its a plug and play then drag onto drive. When I try to drap photos to the external drive it won't let me. Anyone have any suggestions?

This is a brand new drive? Make sure it is formatted so you can read and write from a Mac. (Plug and Play could mean P&P on Windows.)
With the drive connected, run Disk Utility. It's in Applcations / Utilities. Select the drive (on the left) reformat it. This will erasse everything on the drive - but I assume it is empty since you could not write to it.
See this thread for details.
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3673097?start=0&tstart=0

Managing photo storage on my iPhone/iPhoto/Pictures/External Hard-drive

Hello, I need some help with managing photo storage on my iPhone/iPhoto/Pictures/External Hard-drive.
Background:
I have 1,200 photos/videos on my iPhone 4S on the camera roll and need to delete them to save space. Most are photos/videos of my new baby which I would be devastated to lose, so I want to be 110% sure that I have them backed up properly and accessible.
I frequently hook my iPhone up to iPhoto to download all of the latest photos to iPhoto.
I have done Time Machine back ups and just did a latest one yesterday.
I would like to save my camera roll into a folder on my hard-drive so that all of these photos are in one place in case I need to access them (and not spread across different folders like in iPhoto).
My Mac (Macbook Pro - circa 2009) is now telling me that my 'Starter Disc is nearly full' and won't save all of the photos from my camera roll.
My questions;
Are photos stored both in iPhoto and Pictures folder, and if so are they duplicates?
I've heard that Time Machine only backs up full libraries and so cannot be used to access individual photos - is this true? If so, how do you access individual photos/files from my external hard-drive?
How and where should I delete older photos from to save space on my Mac - iPhoto or Pictures? (once I know how to access them from my external drive if needed).
How do I delete all of my photos from my iPhone camera roll in one go? - I can only see a way to delete the 1,200 of them individually.
Going forward where is the best place for me to synch/upload my photos for medium term storage/access on my Mac?
I would consider myself quite intelligent but when it comes to this topic, I'm happy to be spoken to in very simplistic terms!
Thank you.

Import the photos to iPhoto - then select the photos in iPhoto and export (file menu ==> export) to the desired location
LN

I moved all my photos and videos from iPhoto to external hard drive and now can't play any videos. Please help!!!

I moved all my photos and videos from iPhoto to external hard drive, then totaly formated my macbook and now trying to play videos of external hard drive, but they wont play and they in "quicktime containers" and really small in size (50 - 150 Kb). Please Help!!! My misuse will kill me if find out that we have no more videos from our honeymoon...

I moved all my photos and videos from iPhoto to external hard drive, then totaly formated my macbook and now trying to play videos of external hard drive, but they wont play and they in "quicktime containers" and really small in size (50 - 150 Kb). Please Help!!! My misuse will kill me if find out that we have no more videos from our honeymoon...
You may need to prepare yourself for a "World of Hurt" from your wife...
Since the average 0.9 megapixel JPEG photo file of normal graphic complexity stored at a high quality compression setting is 125-135 KBs in size, I would have to assume any QT video files you created of more than a fraction of a second in duration were most likely saved as "reference" files to only be 50-150 KBs. Basically, a reference file is q QT (MOV) file that tells a video player how to play data that is still stored in its original source file container(s). For instance, you could trim and merge a number of files together and save the result as a "reference" file that takes up very little room on your hard drive. Or, you could post fles to a server and create a "reference" file that is small enough to be sent as an email attachment that plays the uploaded data on someone else's computer as long as they are connected to the Internet. Unfortunately, for these reference files to work, all of the resources referenced within the file must continue to exist in their proper locations in order to be found and played by the reference. Since you did not indicate what "but they won't play" really means here or how you actually "moved" your iPhoto library files to the external drive, I can only make some "educated guesses" at this point. (BTW: for future reference, iPhoto has a built-in function that allows you to copy your library to one or more back-up locations and then connect to them by default when iPhoto opens or switch source libraries at will within the opened application.)
If you created reference files and saved them to an external drive, you should be getting an error message telling you the app needs to know where the source files are located so the reference file can re-connect to the resource data. If the original files were also saved, then simple navigate to the source files in oder to tell the app where they are now located. If the source files were deleted as part of the reformatting process, then you are up the proverbial creek whithout a paddle with little or no hope of doing anything about this issue. (I.e., reformatting and then re-installing a system drive usually means you would have little hope of recovering the specific "lost" data you want as there is always a good chance that some of the data segments were overwritten during the process.)

Moving iPhoto library onto external hard drive

I would like to transfer all of my photos over to my external hard drive as my MacBook is filling up fast.
I followed the directions on moving the iPhoto library onto my external hard drive. I can see the iPhoto icon on the external drive. I no longer see it under Me/Pictures.
If I select the iPhoto icon on my external hard drive to open iPhoto, it opens without any photos. If I press "option" while opening iPhoto from the icon at the bottom of the screen the only option I have is from the following: Users/Me/Movies/iMovie Projects.localized/iPhoto Library. This option does open iPhoto so that I can see my photos. There is an option there to "Create New" so I added my hard drive. But if I use that as my default, I get no pictures.
A couple of questions. How do I complete this process? Where are my pictures now? I'm assuming they are on my external hard drive. I didn't delete them from my MacBook so I'm also assuming they are there but not visible.
Thanks

As we're not sure what you have done exactly it's hard to be certain how to progress.
This is how you move an iPhoto Library
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.
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.
There is no way you've done that if you can no longer see the Library at Me/Pictures.

Hard time copying photos from iphoto to external hard drive

Sorry this is so long, and perhaps unclear, but I would like to copy my photos from my iphoto library onto an external hard drive. The problem is that every time I try and copy the whole library, it finds a picture that crashes the whole effort. I then tried exporting Event by Event to the hard drive, and that worked for a while, but then after about 10 of them it stopped working: about 50 photos into each Event it tells me that it cannot create the volume on the hard drive. Do you think it's a problem with the hard drive?
I have tens of thousands of photos, and this is taking forever, since every way I try to do it starts but never finishes, and I am never sure what actually has transfered.
I also have opened the iphoto library and copied the originals, the modified, AND the data files, but that takes forever too, and I'm never sure if I really have everything. I'd like to copy event by event if possible... and I do not want my iPhoto library to live only on the hard drive, since I use it as a back up and not permanently attached. any ideas?
Thanks so much!

mdg516
Welcome to the Apple Discussions.
The problem is that every time I try and copy the whole library, it finds a picture that crashes the whole effort.
Why does the pic do this? Is it a corrupt file? Or is it a missing file?
but then after about 10 of them it stopped working: about 50 photos into each Event it tells me that it cannot create the volume on the hard drive. Do you think it's a problem with the hard drive?
No, that message usually means that iPhoto cannot find the actual photo being copied.
Select one of the affected photos in the iPhoto Window and right click on it. From the resulting menu select 'Show File (or 'Show Original File' if that's available). A Finder Window should open with the file selected. Does it?
Regards
TD

Iphoto and external hard drive issues

I have backed up my Iphoto onto an external hard drive and then upgraded my iphoto and can't access any photographs. How do I restore my iphoto library from the external hard drive?

There are 9 different versions of iPhoto and they run on 9 different versions of the Operating System. The tricks and tips for dealing with issues vary depending on the version of iPhoto and the version of the OS. So to get help you need to give as much information as you can. Include things like:
- What version of iPhoto.
- What version of the Operating System.
- Details. As full a description of the problem as you can. For example, if you have a problem with exporting, then explain by describing how you are trying to export, and so on.
- History: Is this going on long? Has anything been installed or deleted? - Are there error messages?
- What steps have you tried already to solve the issue.
- Anything unusual about your set up? Or how you use iPhoto?
Anything else you can think of that might help someone understand the problem you have.

HT5182 How can I back up photos from iPhoto to external hard drive?

I have a large number of photos that I need to move onto an external hard drive to free up my MBP's internal hard drive. Most of my photos were imported in RAW format and editied in iPhoto. I understand from other posts that iPhoto converts these photos to jpegs. I'm quickly running out of room.

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.
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.
Regards
TD

Transfer/back-up photos from iPhoto to External Hard Drive

I have an External Hard Drive to which I wish to transfer/back-up my photos (from iPhoto). My External Hard Drive though has documents and photos that are in Microsoft Word. Please help me with the step by step process of transferring/backing-up photos to my ExHD. Can I still keep my MSWord files, or do I need to clear up the whole ExHD? My main concern, is really to free the memory of my MBPro because I have so many photos already. Thanks

Copy your entire iPhoto Library as a unit from the Pictures folder in your Home folder onto the external drive — just drag the iPhoto Library onto the external drive's icon or into its open main window. Do NOT try to copy your photos any other way than this.
After the copy is finished (it may take a while if your library is large), open iPhoto while holding down the Option key, and select the library on the external drive for iphoto to open. If it opens normally and everything seems to be in order, you can delete the iPhoto Library file from your internal drive. Don't forget to empty the trash afterward.
REMEMBER THIS: Now that your iphoto Library exists only on the external drive, it is not backed up! Back it up on a second external hard drive, or sooner or later you will lose it to a hard drive failure. The one sure thing about hard drives, like all other mechanical devices, is that eventually every hard drive will fail. Don't wait for it to happen and then think about the backups you should have been making all along!

IPhoto on External Hard Drive Attached to Time Capsule

Hi,
I can't seem to find the answer to this question on any of the forums.
I currently have a Mac Mini, MacBook Air and MacBook Pro. I have two iPhoto libraries, one on my MacBook Pro and one on my Mac Mini. I use the Pro as my primary library for editing the photo's and then using a USB stick transfer the photo's to my Mac Mini which is attached to my television as I use it as a media centre.
What I want to do is have just the one library which can be displayed on my Mac Mini and editied using my two laptops.
I am thinking of using an External Hard Drive attached to my Time Capsule and then use this to store one iPhoto library that I can access on the network on all three of my computers.
Is this possible to do?

I read your question a while ago and since nobody has jumped in .. let me have a go..
Yes, I should say it is possible to have your iphoto library on the TC.
It is older post but still should work.
http://gigaom.com/apple/using-time-capsule-as-a-media-drive/
Second point... don't do it.
Here is why..
1. Extremely slow. http://www.anandtech.com/show/4577/airport-extreme-5th-gen-and-time-capsule-4th- gen-review-faster-wifi-/7
Much worse than the internal drive.
2. More importantly .. there is zero backup. If you do want to backup, you have to drag the files off the USB disk, across the network and back onto a drive connected to your computer.. Net gain.. zero.. you still have to have a disk connected to a computer.
Use the Mac Mini, a drive connected by firewire is hugely faster. Even usb drive direct from the computer over the network is faster.
And you can set it to backup via Time Machine. Remember all files on single hard disk will one day be lost.. get ready for that day.

How to export photos from iPhoto to external hard drive keeping Events structure (files and titles)

Hello!
I’ve been looking for a Automator application that does this for quite a while now.
Basically I want to have an Automator application that saves a copy of my iPhoto pictures in a folder, inside Finder. Like a backup. Later on, I can save those “folders and files” on my external hard drive.
What I want it to do is this:
1) Export photos from a selected Album or Event on iPhoto. Using as title: “Event name” – “number” (I mean the number of the file: 1, 2, 3 …)
2) Save them in a folder in Finder that I want.
3) Organize the photos in different folders, the same way they are in iPhoto.
The idea I had, was that it would do this automatically every time I launch iPhoto, as if it was synchronizing the photos into that folder.
And then, every time I connect my hard drive, it copies these “real” folders into my hard drive.
Is that possible? If yes, could you help me creating it, or tell me how I can do so myself, or where to download something like it?
Thank you a lot! Kind regards,
xanacarfran2008

Is this waht you want to do?
It's built into the File Export function of iPhoto 9 (11). Select what every photos you want and use that option to put each photo in a folder with the Event title it came from as in this test of six randomly picked photos:
OT

How does one move iTunes (& iPhoto) to external hard drive?

How do I move iTunes and my entire iTunes database to an external hard drive? What folders and files do I need to move? Do I need to create a "music" folder on the external drive? I have an enormous music collection -- some 700 CDs -- and I would like to have them all in my iTunes database, but there is not enough room for them all on my MacMini hard drive.
Similarly, I would like to move my iPhoto database to the external drive. What folders do I need to move?
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Thanks - I had a look and they are both there on my external HD, the same name, size and date as on my computer, so that's ok, I must be backing them up as you say.
But, they don't have the same icons - the XML file is described as a "REALbasic XML project" instead of "Text document", while the iTunes Library file doesn't have the iTunes logo, and is described simply as "Document" and not "iTunes Database File". Does that matter? Will it matter if I ever need to restore from them?
iMac G5 17" 1.5Gb RAM Mac OS X (10.4.7)

Importing iphoto from external hard drive

I was wondering if importing 4 gigs of photos takes longer than 30 minutes to import from external hard drive. The iphoto status after importing still shows "working" as the bar graph "charges" continuously. Does this mean it is still importing? Should it show any other info such as the number and title of photos being imported? Should I stop it after awhile and try a new method of importing? Help.

maxus2:
What method are you using, the copy files or use aliases? I imported 14,000+ files from my second HD and it took between one and two hours, I don't remember exactly as I was doing it 10-12 folders at a time. I was using the alias method thus giving me an 8G library folder on my boot drive for about 25.5G (14,100) of image files. See my reply in this thread, http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=327144&tstart=0, more some more thoughts on the alias method.

Backing up events in iPhoto to external hard drive

We have photo's saved on PC's and on a MacBook Pro, in iPhoto (v11). We have all photo's from the PC's backed up on an external hard drive, in folders broken down by month/year.
On the Mac in iPhoto we also now have new photo's sorted by events, named by month/year. Now we'd like to copy these events to the backup hard drive to back them up.
We don't want to copy all the events, just some of the events. It appears we can only copy/backup the entire iPhoto library, not just certain events.
Is this correct? Is there a way to only copy groups of photos, labeled in the same event, to an external hard drive?

ok this worked.....thanks.....we weren't exporting it properly, figured it out....

IPhoto on external hard drive

I use iPhoto library manager to manage many iPhoto libraries which I keep on external hard drive. I have run into a problem, however. When loading photos into my library, I began to get a message that there was not enough disk space. I checked my external hard drive, but there was sufficient space. Then I realized that my INTERNAL hard drive was filling up as I uploaded photos. What I don't understand is WHY? My library is definitely on the external hard drive, but could iphoto be making a copy in the internal one? Help!! I am at a loss. Many thanks.

mcswiss
Sounds like there's a library lurking on your internal HD somewhere.
In the iPhoto Window select a pic and right click on it and go Show Original.
A Finder window will open with the file selected. In column view you will be able to track back to the location of the library.
If, for some reason that doesn't find it, in the Finder -> Go Menu select 'Go To Folder' and type
/Volumes
to the resulting window. See if you can find another library there.
Regards
TD

IPhoto onto External Hard drive

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