Merging 2 separate iphoto Libraries.

I have bought my father an Apple TV and want to be able to give him my iphoto library to boost his photos of holidays / grandchildren with pictures from my library. He has a 24" imac which has its own library of iphotos running Snow Leopard too. Is there a straightforward way of merging the 2 libraries ?
Thanks in advance!
& Merry Xmas!

obviously. You guys make the boards shine!
Interestingly I've never owned a PC, and your other assumptions are wrong too, collectively. I've been organizing my whole extended family's collection of children's photos from several different machines, with current duplicates and random filenames for the same photos here and there. So I must allow duplicates to be imported. Fortunately there are few edits to deal with, and I'm running iPhoto '08 so your facial recog problem isn't one I share (pity). The problem, you see, if you carefully read my post (which you obviously did), is that iPLM treats each event as a separate import. With 2000+ events across libraries, and given I obviously value my time as you so swiftly nailed on the head, I can't babysit the merge as it asks me 2000+ times if I want to import duplicates. Obviously.
Since I need to sort through the collection manually later anyway, DA (not TA) will be my first filter to catch checksum matches, etc. Great tool, and cheap for what it does. While iPLM serves you so well, at any price it's wasting my time and money.
But why waste YOUR time- I don't expect circumstances and personal conditions to matter so much to gurus like you, since you're so absolutely and obviously Gods to the Mac community (less the PC converts). You know the one and only way to solve everything. I have learned here that patience and tolerance is inversely proportional to postcount in your paradigm, while arrogance and group-think are directly so.
Have fun with yourselves, brightening all us peons' day.
Regards (obviously)
Oh, and Terence, no, I couldn't, amusingly

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Merge Two Macbook iPhoto libraries Onto 1 External HD

Hi. I have backed up my iPhoto library from what I'll call MacBook "a" onto a 1tb external hard drive. I did this buy dragging the iPhoto icon over. It worked.
I also have a very small iPhoto library on Macbook "b." I would like to merge this Macbook "b" library onto the same external hard drive. When I have tried exporting the files from macbook b, however, they photos are copying to the hard drive, but not to the iPhoto library.
Is there a way to merge two distinct iPhoto libraries, from two distinct computers onto 1 external hard drive?
Thanks.
John.

If you have Aperture 3.3 or later and iPhoto 9.3 or later you can merge libraries with Aperture.
Otherwise the only way to merge Libraries is with the paid ($30) version of iPhoto Library Manager

How to set up 2 separate iPhoto libraries for two users

My wife and I have a macbook air, she being one user and me the other. We both have iphones and recently upgraded to the 5s. She had not ever openned itunes or iphoto on the computer as she used the it mainly for word processing, email and surfing the web. I, on the other hand, would play around in iphoto and ensure photo streaming was working and have a large itunes music collection.
When I openned up her iphoto, all my photos from my account downloaded into hers. I forget what I did to make this happen but it might have done so automatically.
My question is: how can I set up her own iphoto account when she is logged into her user account on the computer? We don't wish to share iphoto libraries as now is the case.
And, this might not be the correct forum to bring this up, but when I take pictures on my iphone 5s, they stream to her iphoto library as well as mine. But, her pictures taken on her iphone don't stream/backup to either of our computer iphoto libraries even though she has an icloud account and photo streaming turned on on her phone.
I hope this makes sense as there are really 2 questions: setting up a separate iphoto library for each user on one computer, and, how to get photo streaming from her phone to her library
Thanks in advance for any help

First you both have to have your own user accounts on the MBA and separate iCloud accounts. From there it's relatively simple to create you own libraries and have your respective iPhones link to those library when both devices are logged into the same iCloud account.
OT

Should I merge my multiple iPhoto libraries into one?

I have used iPhoto to organize my photos since I started using a Mac in 2004. Back then, when iPhoto was at number "5" or perhaps even less, I found it more convenient to divide my library into several libraries, one for each calendar year, since, as I recall, iPhoto didn't yet have nearly as many ways of searching for photos as it does today, with iPhoto 11. Today iPhoto is much more sophisticated, and offers many options for organizing and finding photos, by date, faces, location, events, etc. I am wondering if it no longer makes sense to keep my libraries separate by year, and would it be easier to re-merge them all back into one library in iPhoto 11. It is kind of a pain to have to open and close different libraries each time I am looking for an old photo because I can no longer remember what year the event occurred in. Yet I am also afraid that merging my libraries (one for each year since 2002, when I went digital with my photography) might open the proverbial "can of worms" and create more problems than it solves. I'd love to hear from any who have had similar experience.

iPhoto does not have yet the option to merge libraries, unlike Aperture. You would have to use the paid utility "iPhoto Library Manager" to do this.
But iPhoto certainly can cope with larger libraries than before, and it is very useful to have the ability to search all photos at once or to use photos from many years in albums and books. For example, if you want to make a book for an anniversary with pictures from different years, it would be more involved, if you have the photos in different libraries.
Regards
Léonie

Combining two IPhoto Libraries

I have studied various articles on this subject but not uncovered a solution.
What I want to achieve is to combine / merge two separate IPhoto libraries into one.
I run OSX 10.6.2 and IPhoto 09.
If this is impossible which I think it may be, does anyone know if it's to be implemented in a future release of the ILife suite?.
Words of wisdom and insight on this would be most welcome.
My view is this feature should have been incorporated into the 09 edition.

The only way to do this is to use the Merge command in the paid version of iPhoto Library Manager.
does anyone know if it's to be implemented in a future release of the ILife suite?.
No one here knows what plans Apple has for the future. If they did the NDAs would prevent them from commenting.
My view is this feature should have been incorporated into the 09 edition.
Why the 09 edition? Not any of the others?
iPhoto menu -> Provide iPhoto Feedback for Feature Requests.
Regards
TD

HT201340 How do I merge multiple iphoto libraries

I have multiple iphoto libraries on an external HD. Not much memory left on my mac HD. So I'm trying to clear up some memory. I would like to merge/organize the iPhoto libraries on the external HD. But I can't figure out how to separate the photos. I just want to organize them into seperate years, i.e., photos 2009, 2010, 2011, etc.
And since I now have aperture, how can I get these photos organized into simple annual libraries onto the external HD?
Sorry if this has been posted a million times, but I can't figure it out and don't want to lose any photos.

Sorry if this has been posted a million times, but I can't figure it out and don't want to lose any photos.
Reorganizing your photolibraries can be error-prone, so before you start, I'd recommend to check your backups of the libraries, if they are current and working.
I just want to organize them into seperate years, i.e., photos 2009, 2010, 2011, etc.
And since I now have aperture, how can I get these photos organized into simple annual libraries onto the external HD?
iPhoto does not support to export partial libraries or to import and merge photo libraries, but Aperture does.
Your question does link to the document "Aperture 3.3: How to use Aperture to merge iPhoto libraries" that describes how you can merge libraries.
Do you have compatible Aperture and iPhoto versions? Aperture 3.4.5 and iPhoto 9.4.3? If yes, then you can unify your photo libraries by creating a new Aperture library on your external drive and using the command "File > Import > Library" to import your iPhoto libraies one by one into the the Aperture library.
Aperture works well with large libraries. You could keep all images in that one library and be done.
But if you really want separate, small libraries for each year, define smart albums in Aperture:
New > Smart album
and in the "Smart Settings" HUD for the album press "Add Rule" and add a "Date" rule. Set this rule to "Capture Year is ....".
This way you will have all images grouped by date in the library Inspector.
You could then proceed to export partial Aperture libraries for each year: Select the smart album and use the command "File > Export > Album as library". This will create a new Aperture library, just for that year. You can open this library in iPhoto, if you want.
I myself prefer to have all my photos in just one library; that makes it much easier to search all my photos at once and to combine them freely.
Regards
Léonie

Merging pictures from several iphoto libraries in aperture

I have 5 separate iPhoto libraries becaue of the large amount of picture. Now I want to consolidate all 5 star ***** rated pictures of all 5 iPhoto libraries into one "Aperture Project".
When I switch Libraries in Aperture I can's see the Library anymore where I want to consolidate some of the photos.
There should be a way that I can drag pictures for one iPhoto Library to a Project folder in Aperture, switch to a differen iPhoto Library, drag more photos to the Project folder in Aperture, switch to a third iPhoto Library, drag more photos ...... etc.
Is this possible in Aperture?
Thanks for any suggestions.

There should be a way that I can drag pictures for one iPhoto Library to a Project folder in Aperture, switch to a differen iPhoto Library, drag more photos to the Project folder in Aperture, switch to a third iPhoto Library, drag more photos
You open one library in iPhoto and one library in Aperture, and even drag images from iPhoto to Aperture, but unfortunately this way you can only drag the previews of the edited versions to Aperture, so you would lose image quality.
Why not open each iPhoto Library in turn in Aperture, export your five***** rated images a a new Aperture Library, and then merge this new library into your main Aperture library by importing it? This way you will import the original master image files as well as the adjustments and ratings and don't lose any image quality in the transit.
Regards
Léonie

Merging iphoto libraries (& itunes, imovie) backups

My relative had her 4 macs taken to an apple dealer and asked them to take all the 'stuff' (photos, movies were the reason) and merge them onto the largest sized mac (macpro). I believe they ended up the MacPro now has 4 internal hard drives (I don't think any are partitioned, I'll find out if need to). The main HD is 1TB and half this space is used. Then the other 3 internal hard drives have 250GB(?) and (what I think are) 'copies' of the other 3 mac computers "stuff". She got a 1TB external hard drive to backup with time machine the mac pro (not using yet). She did this because she has a ginourmous iphoto library and wanted them all merged, then backed up with ability to remove all/or some photos from library. She has burned several iphoto DVDs (not using export) as a hard copy of photo files (not completely done yet).
The "copies" of the 3 internal hard drives show these folders: Applications, Desktop, Documents, Downloads, ..., Library, Movies, Music, Pictures, etc. How can I merge the Pictures, Movies and Music "stuff" (or libraries/data) from the 3 onto the 1 (1TB) hard drive. After I learn how to do this, can I simply delete all these folders "copied" on the 3 hard drives??
The plan is to merge the 3 iphoto libraries (or data?) to the main internal 1TB macpro HD's iphoto library, then delete the backup iphoto libraries from each "backed up" internal hard drive. Then to finish backing up all photos to DVDs, then get Time Machine backing up to the external 1TB. Plus there is carbon clone application (?) that they added to her mac, will I need to make a clone of the final version when it's all done? I'm guessing this is what they used to make the "copies" of the computers.
I hope this makes sense, I knew it'd be hard to explain and I'm trying to go by memory... I know this is iphoto section, so if there is a link to the imovie/itunes issue please help with a link. I know they are each separate issues.
THANKS!

Thank you, I will look at that for merging them. I was just thinking the DVDs as an extra backup, besides also having a copy on an external hd, or one of the internal drives. Yes time consuming. But extra can't hurt. I also thought of printing index cards to have as reference, especially if we remove some of the photos from the library.
I found for imovie merging: https://discussions.apple.com/message/11710306#11710306 not sure if its the full answer.
For the itunes library merge I found: https://discussions.apple.com/message/11924952#11924952 (looks long but didn't find anything else)

Merge two iPhoto libraries into an Aperture library for my Macbook Air

Hey,
I've searched around a bit for this but can't seem to figure out how to to it.
I'm trying to manage my ~140GB photo library on my Macbook Air which has 128GB of HDD. On top of that, you can imagine that most of that 128GB is filled with system stuff.
My objective is to keep most of my library offline from the Macbook Air, but still keep it all together.
I kinda went "all-in" with iPhoto a few years back to organize my photos so gave up on Aperture. I'd always wanted to move to Aperture or Lighroom but the migration appeared to be a complete disaster. Now with "transparent" compatibility it seems like a no brainer to get the best of both worlds.
I thought that Aperture allowed you store files on external hard drives but still have "thumbnail" access to them even when the drive wasn't connected. Or did I misread that? (Is that Lightroom?)
Anyway with the new update I thought that I could merge my available iPhoto libraries into one Aperture library that I could always have access to, while offloading the actual photos somehow to an external HDD.
This would be a real winner for me. It seems tho that an iPhoto library stays an iPhoto library. So while merging might be helpful for someone with a big hard drive, it's completely useless for me as if anything, I need to split. Or create more. Or some other form of adding complexity.
Any ideas here?

Figured this out on my own.
Make a backup of everything - Aperture seems to require rebuilds and stuff and stories abound of "things going a bit wrong."
Did you make a backup? If you don't want to or can't, I wouldn't do this. After all, it's your photos!
Setup your Aperture library on a USB drive.
Update iphoto to the newest version. Open all your libraries in iPhoto to update them. This may take awhile depending on library size.
Import whatever iphoto libraries you have to Aperture. This make take awhile (hours!) - if your stuff is more than say 25 gigs I'd recommend setting it up for overnight.
Once everything is in Aperture - check its all working right. Then go ahead and maybe make another backup
Then migrate your photos out of the library. This takes all the originals and stores them elsewhere, called "offline". Once they're there, you can't move them around, so pick a good spot!! This also takes forever.
Once this is done your Aperture library should be smaller and just copy it to your MacbookAir
I'm still working on this as it looks like something went funky and I have to rebuild my thumbnails, another overnight processing thing. Like I said, keep a backup But I have a slimmed down Library on my Macbook Air now which is what I wanted.
This whole thing is kinda a mess and while it's feasible Apple hasn't made it easy. There's also some crazy stuff Aperture does with thumbnails and "previews" so that they take a bunch of space up (in my case almost as much as my photos), so you might have to work with that.
The guy at Apertureexpert.com is a genius.
Check out this post for more on slimming your Aperture Library:
http://www.apertureexpert.com/tips/2010/1/20/reducing-library-sizedramatically.h tml
Edit:As a side-note I put some HTML in my message and it looks like it isn't used in the forum - why does Apple bother having the formatting tools if they don't work? Kinda like the close-door button on an elevator?
Edit2: Haha it shows up in the answer but not in the normal thread. Strange, eh?

Moving and Merging iPhoto Libraries From 2008 Macs to 2013 MacBook Pro

I have a late 2008 MacBook and an early 2008 iMac. Both are running Lion and iPhoto '08. I will be getting a new MacBook Pro Retina very shortly to replace my MacBook. I would like to move the iMac's iPhoto library to the new MacBook Pro and merge it with the MacBook's iPhoto library once that library is also on the MacBook Pro. I obviously need to get all iPhoto libraries up to date prior to doing this. I think I have a plan to achieve this, as follows, but I would appreciate your help:
1) Upgrade iMac to Mavericks (App store said that I need to do this prior to upgrading to iPhoto 9.5)
2) Upgrade iMac's iPhoto to 9.5
3) Use set-up assistant to migrate old MacBook to new MacBook Pro. This should upgrade the old MacBook's iPhoto library to the current iPhoto version on the MacBook Pro???
4) Move the iMac's iPhoto library to the MacBook Pro (6,604 photos, approximately 27 gb)
5) Merge the two iPhoto libraries using iPhoto Library Manager or Aperture (I have not decided which one yet)
Is this a plan that will work?
MacBook just has Ethernet and USB. iMac has USB, Ethernet and FireWire. MacBook Pro has Thunderbolt and USB.
I already need to buy a Thunderbolt-to-Ethernet adapter to transfer between the MacBook and the MacBook Pro. I'd rather not have too buy another adapter just to transfer the iPhoto library from the iMac to the MacBook Pro.
Is there a way to do 4) on my wifi network using file sharing or some other method I may not be aware of just to transfer the 27 gb iPhoto library?
Thank you.

More simple.
Wait until you get the new machine. Copy the two libraries to the new machine. Open them, this will upgrade them to the same version. Then merge them.
Obviously, don't move them to the same folder, or rename one, so they don't overwrite each other.
To move an iPhoto Library to a new machine:
Link the two Macs together: there are several ways to do this: Wireless Network,Firewire Target Disk Mode, Ethernet, or even just copy the Library to an external HD and then on to the new machine...
But however you do choose to link the two machines...
Simply copy the iPhoto Library from the Pictures Folder on the old Machine to the Pictures Folder on the new Machine.
Then launch iPhoto. That's it.
This moves photos, events, albums, books, keywords, slideshows and everything else.
I would strongly caution you that Migration Assistant is not very reliable with iPhoto Libraries.

How do I merge iPhoto Libraries which use different versions of iPhoto?

I have three Mac computers and would like to merge the 3 iPhoto Libraries and put them in one library on an external hard drive, so that all 3 computers can access the library if possible, although it is a priority for my newest MacBook to access all the photos, including the older photos on my older Macs. Doing it in such way that I preserve metadata and edits would be deirable too--all my photos are jpegs. Right now my iMac is runnning OS 10.6.8 with iPhoto 7.1.5, my older MacBook is also running OS 10.6.8 with iPhoto 7.1.5 and my newest MacBook runs OS 10.7.5 with iPhoto 9.4.3. Is it possible to merge these 3 libraries without upgrading operating systems and iPhoto versions on the older computers? I have read that the best way to merge libraries is to use the paid version of iPhoto Library Manager which I'd like to use, but its latest version requires a newer version of iPhoto than the one on the older computers and I don't see a download for an older version of iPLM that might possibly do what I want. Any suggestions?

I am still curious if it would be a good second option to export the photos out of the older libraries into the newest one. I know this would convert them as you have said and also lose metadata and edits in the process, which is preferale to me over upgrading the older computers.
More simple.
Copy those libraries to the new machine.
Open them with the newer iPhoto - that will upgrade their libraries. (And leave the originals untouched on the other machines)
Merge them into the third library. Less work, less dataloss.
Regards
TD

Is Therea Way to merge all my iPhoto/Aperture Libraries"

After many years and thousands of photos, I have found myself with many photo libraries, Is there a way to merge them all? this would be very, very helpful if it was possible.

The only way to merge iPhoto Libraries is with the paid ($20) version of iPhoto Library Manager
You can't merge Aperture and iPhoto Libraries, you can import iPhoto Libraries to Aperture. There are ways to merge Aperture Libraries if you're running Aperture 3 or later.
Regards
TD

Should I merge or split photo libraries- seeking opinions

I am seeking input on how to organize my photo libraries. I primarily use iPHOTO, but I do own Aperture. I keep a current iPHOTO library on my Macbook SSD. Due to space constraints, I have created several libraries over the years and offloaded those onto external hard drives.
So, for example:
I have iPHOTO 2015 on my laptop,
but on external drives I have these 3 iPHOTO libraries: 2104, 2012-2013, 2009 - 2011 (all as "managed" iPHOTO libraries) and
an Aperture library 1940-2009 (a "referenced" library - which includes scans of all my dad's old slides, as well as all my pre-iPhoto pictures.)
Each of these libraries is in the range of 60 -120GB in size. Right now these are scattered over 2 drives, and I want clear plan before I start moving everything to a new 2TB ext drive.
I can't seem to decide if I should merge all my external libraries in Aperture, or if I should continue to keep separate iPHOTO libraries.
Or perhaps just keep the current year on my laptop and then at the end of each year add it to one gigunda external library.
No matter what - I will want at least the current years photos on the laptop drive.
So basically those of you with more experience - what are your thoughts??
I have a 2014 15" MacbookPro, Yosemite OS, with 500 GB SSD (<120GB remaining)

The best is to have a single iphoto libray
You want to have a smaller library on your MBP too so do that and use iPhoto Library Manager - http://www.fatcatsoftware.com/iplm/ - to move photos between the single complete library and the portable one on your MBP
LN

Moving photos between two iphoto libraries

Is there any way to easily move photos from one iphoto library to another? We have two macs at home and my wife and I keep separate iphoto libraries on each one. Both computers are using iphoto '08 (version 7.1.2). I back up both libraries on an external hard drive. Recently my wife was traveling with one computer and I needed to access some pictures that were on it. The only way I could figure was to:
1) hold down the option key when opening iphoto on my machine, choose the library on the external
drive that had the photos I needed.
2) Then from within iphoto export those photos.
3) Then close out iphoto and reopen it with the library on my machine.
4) Then finally import the photos into the library on my machine.
Is there any faster and easier way to extract photos in a situation like this?

Like Larry said, use iPLM to copy events or albums between libraries while keeping metadata, keywords, titles and descriptions, intact.
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.

HELP! 24,700 photos - can I/should I merge iPhoto libraries?

I've been using iPhoto Buddy for a couple of years now to manage 3 different iPhoto libraries. I have coming up on 25,000 photos going back to 96 with my first digital camera. This has become a real pain switching libraries. Also - it limits how I can distribute the content (i.e. AppleTV/iTunes will only look at one library) I seperated them a while back because iPhoto wasn't stable enough to handle too many pictures in a single library without being prone to crashes.
I know nobody really knows if iPhoto 8 will help in this area (as I do plan to soon get a new 24" iMac)... but in general, is there any way to merge all 3 libraries and preserve keywords, film rolls, etc?

Apple deleted (record time!) my post on the merge topic, see the text below. (I omitted a few lines that might have pushed Apple's hypervigilant complaint monitoring team over the line, the full text is on "Gordon's Tech".
I spent some time over lunch with iPhoto 7. It's a good improvement and well worth what I paid to buy a copy. There is NO SUPPORT for library merging, but the .Mac support is better. You may be able to publish albums to .Mac and then import at the album level. Obviously, this is not satisfactory.
In my post below I comment on iPhoto Library Manager, an app I greatly appreciate and admire but which does not meet my requirements completely. I think Apple's unofficial answer is "buy Aperture", but you should know Aperture does not allow you to edit date metadata (so you can't sort scans, for example).
You're traveling with your MacBook. Organizing photos, adding metadata, creating albums, slideshows, etc. You get home. You want to import your travel library to the main library, preserving ALL the versions and metadata.
You have just married the Mac Geek of your dreams. You need to merge Libraries into the shared folder (which can't be shared over a network, but let's just ignore that). How do you do that?
You created and used separate Libraries back with iPhoto bogged down at 2000 images. Now you want to combine them, preserving version relationships, album relationships, descriptions, titles, keywords, roll information, photo books, slideshows, etc, etc.
Yes, I know about iPhoto Library Manager. I license and use it. It does miracles with Apple's limited merge support, but some metadata is lost. I also had so many issues with earlier version merges that, even though I use it all the time, I'm gun-shy. Sorry, merging Libraries is very complex. It's hard to believe that anyone but Apple can do it safely.
iLife 2008 (iPhoto 7) is the fourth release in a row to disappoint those of us asking for Library management....
tags: jfaughnan, jgfaughnan, import, merge, combine, library

Merging 2 separate iphoto Libraries.

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