Methods/Workflow for archiving iPhoto Libraries

So, I've got decades (and many gigs) of iPhoto data. Unfortunately, Apple no longer support the old CD backups.
Migrating these backups is a pain, but doable. The question is: What's the best approach for doing so?
Here's are the different methods I've found. If anyone has other suggestions, please reply - let's see if we can come up with a good "best practice".
Keep it all in one massive iPhoto library possibly on a dedicated HD.
In the past this didn't work well because iPhoto didn't deal with large libraries, but now iPhoto and Aperture use the same file format so maybe it works better?
Pros:
Easy access to old photos.
External hard drives are cheap.
Cons:
You still need a backup mechanism. If the library goes corrupt, or you accidentally delete a photo, you're out of luck.
Hard drives also have a limited life time, generally only a few years, so backups have to be moved every few years.
Maintain project or year based iPhoto libaries
Pros: Natural extension of old burn-to-disc model
Cons:
Same limitations as any HD based mechanism. Still need secondary backup mechanism.
No way to move photos between libraries for special projects (such as scrapbooking).
Can't protect photos from deletion or corruption.
Export to folders on a NAS or external HD.
Pros: Relatively easy. Folders can be sorted.
Cons:
Strips out meta data (tags, descriptions, face recognition, etc..).
Same limitations as any HD based mechanism: drives wear out, become unreadable.
Export to HTML via built-in tools or a plug-in (Better HTML export, Export to Piwigo)
Pros: Easy to browse. Straight HTML export can be burned to read-only media.
Cons:
Can't search straight html via photo meta-data. Exporting to a web hosting tool such as piwigo leaves you dependent on piwigo software.
Also, export tools may not be full featured and may require custom coding.
Anyone have any other suggestions?

Seems obvious ot me
1 is the clear answer
Every other solution had more cons and less pros - and no other solution allows you to actually find your photos unless you can remember which archive they are in
Looks like the Franklin method has asnsered your question quickly
LN

Similar Messages

A workflow for archiving and de-archiving HD clips

A few months ago I put out a query on the best workflow to use for archiving HD footage whilst maintaining the flexibility of importing to iMovie and doing some editing at a later date. I don't have a super fast mac (yet) so editing the HD in iMovie can be a bit of a pain. Thanks to Appleman1958 for some top tips. I thought I'd share my workflow with you.
Once I have some clips on the camcorder I want to archive the original footage without having to go through iMovie everytime (which decompresses the clip files to HUGE sizes!). But I also want to be able to quickly de-archive some footage and make a simple DVD or make a movie on the (upgraded!) computer.
1) I connect the camera to the mac via USB. I have turned off the iMovie Auto-open function. The camera appears as a mounted drive on the desktop.
2) I open Toast 9. I set it up to make a "Mac Only" Data disc. I open the camcorder drive and locate the AVCHD folder. I drag the AVCHD folder into the Toast 9 window.
3) I then tell Toast 9 to make a Disc Image as opposed to a real disc. I name it appropriately and save it to a hard drive. This is step one of the archiving. I now have a digital copy of the original camcorder clips in their original format (not Mb hungry .mov)
4) After a while, when I have a bunch of disc image files, from different sessions, I tranfer them all onto a real DVD Data Disc. This now gives me a hard copy of the original camcorder files which I can store securely away from thunderstorms and what not.
If I decide to make a simple DVD from any old footage I do the following:
1) I connect the camcorder (with no clips on it) to the mac.
2) I insert a DVD Data Disc with archived disc images on it, or I navigate to a disc image file on a hard drive.
3) I mount the selected disc image on the desktop using Toast 9 (gives you the option in a right click context menu in Finder). This allows me to see the AVCHD folder in the disc image.
4) I move the AVCHD folder onto the camcorder, replacing the one that was already there. If I was to open iMovie at this point it would read the old clips off the camcorder.
5) I disconnect the camcorder that now has the old clips on it. When I turn it on it says it needs to rebuild the image database (guess it prefers to make clips rather than have them thrust upon it!). I say OK and it thinks for a few seconds. Next thing - presto! The old archived video clips play like I just shot them.
6) I then hook up the camcorder to my Sony VRD-MC5 DirectDVD. I can then make a one-touch DVD of some or all of the clips for use in my BlueRay player.
At any time I can mount a disc image on the desktop and open iMovie. I can then import all/some of the clips from the mounted disc image (whcih is just an AVCHD folder) and go about making my movie.
But I'm usually happy with just being able to make a simple DVD for viewing with family/friends. Note that for all of this to work as well as it does I needed to buy Toast, a Blueray player and the Sony DirectDVD. But it was worth it as I can now easily archive all my footage safe in the knowledge that it is all readily transferable into iMovie or onto a playable DVD at any time.
To anyone else out there struggling to get to grips with their new HD AVCHD camcorder I hope this has been of some use. Again, thanks to Appleman for helping me out. There is no doubt an even easier process that I am unaware of but so far this is working out well for me. My original post is at: http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=7118597#7118597

Thanks for posting your experience.
If you move the entire contents of your camera instead of just the AVCHD folder, you should be able to mount your disk image and import directly from there, without having to plug in your camera and transfer it back there. I haven't tried this in Toast, but it should work. It works well in disk utility.
Also, just FYI since you have all the tools, I have found that if I create a playable BluRay DVD using a standard DVD using Toast, I can insert the DVD in my Mac, and it is recognized as a camera. I can then import the edited movie back into imovie.

Hi. I setup an external hard drive on my AirPort Extreme to act as a central disk for multiple iPhoto libraries. I have a new iMac with iPhoto '11 and an MBPro with iPhoto '09. I'm getting an error message saying different versions. Ideas?

Long title. Sorry. It pretty much explains the situation. I'd like to have all of my photos from two (ultimately three) computers on this central file and be able to access them from any of the computers. The error message I get when I start up my MBPro is: "You can’t open your current photo library using this version of iPhoto" and, "You have made changes to your photo library using a newer version of iPhoto. Please quit and use the latest version of iPhoto." It then forces me to quit iPhoto. I have tried the suggestion of holding down the opt key on iPhoto startup, but it doesn't seem to help.
Two questions:
Can I store multiple iPhoto libraries on the same central disc?
If so, how should I address the error message?
Thank you!

Hey Kappy, thank you for your help! Yes, I can open both libraries on the iMac without problem. I am still confused why the computer that created one of the libraries cannot open said library after it was moved to the external disk. Why is the iPhoto format not readable by all versions across the board?? The reason I'm pushing the issue is because in my household, we have an older MB, my wife's MBP, my MBP and now a new "family" iMac. The MB (circa 2007) has an old version of iPhoto, the two MBP's have iPhoto '08 and the new iMac has '11. It is my goal to have all of the photos that we've accrued over the years, located centrally, and accessible from all of these computers. Is iPhoto the most appropriate program, or would Lightroom make more sense?

Workflow for archiving vendor invoice

Dear Gurus
my client asked me to develop workflow for massive archiving vendor invoice.
Is tbere a standard workflow?
Which are the steps to set the Archive link?
Best regards
Vanessa

Hi,
It might be that this has nothing to do with workflow? You are supposed to archive the vendor invoices with transaction SARA, or? And for this you need ArchiveLink?
If this is the case, please look help for example at the new Archiving forum:
Information Lifecycle Management
Regards,
Karri

What is the best strategy for sharing iPhoto libraries between two macs?

I have an iMac and a new Airbook. I want to keep my iMac as the"main" iPhoto location, but want to also keep copies of the photos on my Airbook.
I could copy the library from one to the other to get the photos into the Airbook initially, but then how would I get subsequent ones in there? Is there a way to sync these two computers so that the photos flow from one to the other? One-way syncing would be ok...
Thanks.
Oh - and I use MobileMe if that helps.

There is an application that can sync two iPhoto libraries. It's SyncPhotos
Here's how it works:
1 - it compares the databases and/or album.xml files of Libraries A and B.
2 - the files in A that are not in B are imported into B by copying the original files from A into B's Import folder.
3 - it then does the same for B.
4 - metadata is not copied nor are Faces or Places.
It can be used to just copy from A to B and not sync both ways if desired. It will work with 2 libraries that are different versions, i.e. between an iPhoto 08 and iPhoto 09 library.
If you want to copy selected Events or Album from one to the other and keep the metadata, faces and places intact, you can use the paid version of iPhoto Library Manager. You would have to manually select the event/album to copy from A to B and do the same for B to A.
OT

Archiving iPhoto Libraries

Is there any way to archive a large iPhoto library (15GB) onto DVD, so that it can be recreated, complete with albums and folders? I used the Burn function within iPhoto 5, selecting different folders and albums for each volume, to put it on 4 DVDs, and I can see the folders and albums when I open the partial libraries on each DVD disk in iPhoto. But when I try to transfer the archived library to a newly-created library on the hard drive using AddToLibrary, it loses all the folder and album info, requiring me to reorganize the whole thing.

If you've burned the disks using the Share -> Burn the trick is to pop the disks into your Mac. They will show up on the Source Pane. Select the disk there and then you can drag the rolls/albums over to the Library proper.
Regards
TD

Best practices for sharing iPhoto libraries across multiple Macs

I have a pair of iMacs running 10.6.x. and iPhoto 11 connected via Ethernet to an Airport Extreme. I am looking for a way to share my iPhoto library between the two Macs.
I found an Apple Support note on the topic (http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1198) which states that a disk image is a supported location for a shared iPhoto library (with limitations acceptable to me) and it strikes me that this would be a way of hosting a shared iPhoto library onto a NAS device.
Am I missing a simpler solution or, more importantly, am I missing any blindingly obvious caveats? I'd love to hear from anybody who has tried this (successfully or otherwise) or anybody who has a better idea. I haven't bought a NAS device yet, so I'm open to alternative suggestions.
Specific requirements:
Members of my family use either one of a pair of iMacs.
The only user who edits the iPhoto library is me and I only need read/write access from one machine.
iPhoto library access limited to one user at a time is acceptable and practical in my case.

Easiest:
If the other users only get to see the Library then just use iPhoto Sharing.
Enable sharing in the iPhoto Preferences on the Host machine, then go to the other macgine and in the same location enable 'Look for Shared Libraries'
Other forms of sharing will give the users read/write access to the Library.
A strong warning: If you're trying to edit the Library (that is, make albums, move photos around, keyword, make books or slideshows etc.) or edit individual photos in it via Wireless be very careful. Dropouts are a common fact of wireless networking, and should one occur while the app is writing to the database then your Library will be damaged. Simply, I would not do this with my Libraries.
Regards
TD

Workflow For Archiving Projects

I'd like to get some suggestions for a good archiving workflow. Backing-up audio, video, graphics, text, motion files etc.
In the past I backed up to DVD and would like to continue in this fashion.
Thanks for the ideas.
kj
G5 Mac OS X (10.4.5) 2.5GHz Quad-core PowerPC G5 4GB DDR533 NON ECC 4X1GB 2X500GB Serial ATA-7200rpm

For ALL of my projects, I retain the original camera tapes in case of the need for a re-edit. That's about the best backup available. I also retain a DVD master and a DVCam master.
For most of my normal jobs, I burn graphics, music, VOs and any other non-re-capturable files to a data DVD (not DVD-Video). For jobs that routinely need updating, I keep all material on a dedicated hard drive. When the client needs another update to their video, I plug the drive into a WiebeTec Drive Dock and go to work.
-DH

Efficient workflow for large iPhoto books

I have searched extensively but if this is covered somewhere else please forgive me and redirect, thanks.
===
When making an iPhoto book (love 'em!) I usually use smart albums to make a shortlist of pics to be included - but it isn't usually a short shortlist...(my current book's shortlist is 500+ and I would imagine my books usually end up with somewhere between 300 - 400 pics
So the maximum 100 pages is usually filled with quite a lot of unplaced pics left. I then whittle down the placed pics to make room for the best of the unplaced... it's a long way from efficient
It would help if there was a way, once having edited out a few placed photos, if the same number of unplaced photos then auto filled in the empty spaces.. I haven't found a way to do that.
If anybody knows a way for me to proceed OTHER THAN the alternative which I do know which is to be more selective in the first place so I start each book with a lower number - if thats what I have to do, so be it but if there was another way.....

FWIW I create a new, separate library for each book. I assemble the photos to be used in to an album in the main library and then copy it to the book library with the paid version of iPhoto Library Manager.
When I'm done with the book and it's ordered I cull out the photos I didn't use in the book and then archive the book library to another HD, a CD or DVD disk (if small enough to fit). This way the book is isolated from the day to day use of my main library and any accidental deletions of photos in the book. If I want to reorder a copy, edited or not, I know the book is intact.

Options for archiving iphoto

We have a macbook and it only has about 1gig left.
all our photos to date are on it and I want to see what options we have for backing up but still keeping the albums intact for future viewing.
any ideas anyone? what are the best options?

Move the Library to an external HD:
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.
And do it very, very soon. OS X needs about 10 gigs of hard drive space for normal OS operations - things like virtual memory, temporary files and so on. Without this space your Mac will slow down as the OS hunts for space on the disk, files will be fragmented, also slowing things down, apps will crash and the risk of data corruption - that is damage to your files, photos, music - increases exponentially. Your first priority is to make more space on that HD. Nothing else can be done until you do. Purchase an external HD and move your Photos and Music to it. Both iPhoto and iTunes can run perfectly well with the Library on an external disk.
Regards
TD

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

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?

Restore using Time Machine to new hard drive, but last "full" backup was 2012. how do I restore the rest of the Time Machine backups, particularily IPHOTO libraries for each user?

Restore using Time Machine to new hard drive, but last "full" backup was in 2012. How do I restore the rest of the Time Machine backups, particularily IPHOTO libraries for each user?
I entered Iphoto for my user and only photo up until 2012 were in the library. I thought the restore would do the incremental Time Machine backups too.....
Running 10.8.2

It usually means you are running Mavericks but have an earlier version of iPhoto. Open the App Store and upgrade your version of iPhoto to the Mavericks version.
The iWork apps are free with a new iOS device since 1 SEP 2013. They are free with a new Mac since 1 OCT 2013. They are also free with the upgrade to OS X Mavericks 10.9 if you had the previous version installed when you upgraded.The iWork apps are free with a new iOS device since 1 SEP 2013. They are free with a new Mac since 1 OCT 2013. They are also free with the upgrade to OS X Mavericks 10.9 if you had the previous version installed when you upgraded.
iWork and iLife for Mac come free with every new Mac purchase. Existing users running Mavericks can update their apps for free from the Mac App Store℠. iWork and iLife for iOS are available for free from the App Store℠ for any new device running iOS 7, and are also available as free updates for existing users. GarageBand for Mac and iOS are free for all OS X Mavericks and iOS 7 users. Additional GarageBand instruments and sounds are available for a one-time in-app purchase of $4.99 for each platform.

How can I search for duplicate photos in iPhoto libraries?

How can I search for duplicate photos in iPhoto 9.5.1 library. Installed on iMac 2.7 GHz Intel Core i5, Mavericks 10.9.5.

These applications will identify and help remove duplicate photos from an iPhoto Library:
iPhoto Library Manager - $29.95
Duplicate Annihilator - $7.95 - only app able to detect duplicate thumbnail files or faces files when an iPhoto 8 or earlier library has been imported into another.
PhotoSweeper - $9.95 - This app can search by comparing the image's bitmaps or histograms thus finding duplicates with different file names and dates.
DeCloner - $19.95 - can find duplicates in iPhoto Libraries or in folders on the HD.
DupliFinder - $7 - shows which events the photos are in.
iPhoto AppleScript to Remove Duplicates - Free
PhotoDedupo - $4.99 (App Store) - this app has a "similar" search feature which is like PhotoSweeper's bitmap comparison. It found all duplicates
Duplicate Cleaner for iPhoto - free - was able to recognize the duplicated HDR and normal files from an iPhone shooting in HDR
Some users have reported that PhotoSweeper did the best in finding all of the dups in their library: iphoto has duplicated many photos, how...: Apple Support Communities.
If you have an iPhone and have it set to keep the normal photo when shooting HDR photos the two image files that are created will be duplicates in a manner of speaking (same image) but there are only twp apps that detected the iPhone HDR and normal photos as being duplicates: PhotoSweeper and Duplicate Cleaner for iPhoto. None of the other apps detected those two files as being duplicates as they look for file name as well as other attributes and the two files from the iPhone have different file names.
iPLM, however, is the best all around iPhoto utility as it can do so much more than just find duplicates. IMO it's a must have tool if using iPhoto.

Workflow for moving photos/videos from iPhoto to LR

I used to use iPhoto, but have switched to LR. I'd like to move all the images/videos I have in iPhoto to LightRoom.
What is the workflow for making this move?
thanks
Greg

You can't run an iPhoto Library from a NAS. iPhoto needs to have the Library sitting on disk formatted Mac OS Extended (Journaled). Users with the Library sitting on disks otherwise formatted regularly report issues including, but not limited to, importing, saving edits and sharing the photos.
You can't convert a Managed Library to a Referenced Library (see below for definitions of managed and referenced) with iPhoto - and you probably shouldn't anyway, especially when the masters are on one volume and the library on another. See
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3062728?tstart=0
for more on why.
With Aperture, you can easily have the Masters on one volume and the Library on another, and you can convert the Library from Managed to Referenced easily.
However, if you di any editing your planned set up will not work. Both iPhoto and Aperture will never edit your original file. All processing in these apps is virtual. So, if you fix red-eye for instance, the image in iPhoto/Aperture will have the red-eye fixed. But the image on the NAS will be your original file, with the red-eye. So any device that accesses the images directly from the NAS will have he original image, not the processed one.
Is that what you want?
Regards
TD
Definitions:
A Managed Library, is the default setting, and iPhoto copies files into the iPhoto Library when Importing. The files are then stored in the Library package
A Referenced Library is when iPhoto is NOT copying the files into the iPhoto Library when importing because you made a change at iPhoto -> Preferences -> Advanced. (You unchecked the option to copy files into the Library on import) The files are then stored where ever you put them and not in the Library package. In this scenario you are responsible for the File Management.

Methods/Workflow for archiving iPhoto Libraries

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for