Moving an Aperture library

So my 17" MBP Uni is showing as "shipped" and should be with me next week Soooooo. How do I move my Aperture Library/database from my existing 15" MBP (running Leopard) to my new 17" MBP running SnowLeo?
I have all my masters referenced on a 500GB FW drive so hopefully that bit is straight-forward, but due to the problems some people seem to be having with SnowLeo and Aperture, I really want to have an overlap period with Aperture on both machines until I get sufficient confidence to cut loose from Leopard. I understand the licensing restrictions concerning multiple access on the same network but I only need the Leopard library until I'm sure the SnowLeo one behaves as it should.
I'm not going to do the Mac to Mac transfer thing because I know things don't always work perfectly with this, and anyway I'm going to keep the new machine quite clean for Aperture and web development, and leave most of the other stuff seperate on the older machine - hence my question.
So what's involved? Load Ap on the new machine, upgrade to 2.1.4 and then move some pref files? If so which ones guys?
Thanks in advance
Al

Logically that's what I thought, but you read so many scare stories here about people's libraries getting screwed up or files getting corrupted. I'm one of the (many) people who have never had problems with Aperture, and I just wanted to keep it that way
Thanks again
Al

Similar Messages

I've moved my Aperture library to another computer, and masters are referencing an old path name. How can I update these references? Reloctating masters does not work in this case :(

I've moved my Aperture library from one computer to another using Finder.
I merged the library with one which was already on the computer.
Now, the photos I imported have reference to the old path name on my old computer.
How can I update these references as "Relocate Masters" does not work in this case?

Just one suggestion to be able to reconnect all at once:
Create a smart album containing the images with missing masters:
File -> New -> Smart Album, and add a rule: File Status is "Missing" (or File Status is "offline")
Then select the images in this album and go to the File menu:
and select: File -> Locate referenced File
If you are lucky, Aperture will reconnect all at once, if you point the first image version to its counterpart.

I recently moved my Aperture Library file to an external hard drive. Can I now create a vault to be saved on my Time Capsule for the Aperture library on this external hard drive?

I recently moved my Aperture Library file to an external hard drive. Can I now create a vault to be saved on my Time Capsule for the Aperture library on this external hard drive?

One thing to bear in mind, if you are using Time Machine on your Time Capsule and have it set so the TM backup includes your external drive, you will effectively be backing up your Aperture library twice on the same drive, once with Time Machine and once with the vault. This isn't a problem unless you start to run out of space.
Another thing to note, vaults on network drives used to be flaky (i.e. not really supported) and required workarounds to be able to use them. I'm not sure if this has changed, but I just managed to create a vault on my TC ok.

Moving an Aperture Library to another disc.

I currently have my Aperture library on an external hard drive, as well as all the image files. Is it possible to move the Library to my laptop's hard drive, but to leave the image files on the external drive, and not lose any of the adjustments I have made?
How would I go about doing this?

Yes you can do this. Relocate the masters in your library on the external HD to a suitable folder structure on your external HD. This will be fast since no images will be copied.
Then copy the library (now smaller) to your internal HD. To ensure you know which library you are opening, double click the library icon when you want to open it. Once you are sure everything is fine, delete the old library on the external drive.
Read up on referenced masters here:
http://www.bagelturf.com/aparticles/ref/index.html

HELP! HD crashed, had it data restored, moved my aperture library back in

now all the photos are there, i can see thumbnails and the large versions
but I have the yellow sign with the !, and it says master files not found..the master files were never referenced elsewhere, my aperture library is a 40+ gig library, all the original photos are still in there...
i have no idea why it's telling me the masters can't be found, when it's the masters that i'm looking at on the screen...

Glad to hear you got your data back, have you backed it up?
A couple of thoughts;
1. you have probably got a new drive to replace the one that died? Check that it is Mac OS formatted.
2. With recovering the data and "rebuilding the library you may need to get Aperture to do a "Rebuild" and Consistency Check"
This link gives an overview on how to do it.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2945
Tony

Aperture - iphoto link broken after moving Aperture Library

Dear all,
I just moved my Aperture library as I ran out of space. I used the iphoto 11 to Aperture link ... imported some images from Aperture into iphoto. How can I tell iphoto the new location of the Aperture library for the images which are already referened in iphoto?
in iPhoto I get the message "The photo “....jpg” could not be opened, because the original item cannot be found. Then it opens a file browser to point to the file ... but that's of not much use if it resides in the Aperture library!
Thanks

ctheisinger,
Welcome to the user-supported Aperture discussion group.
I used the iphoto 11 to Aperture link ... imported some images from Aperture into iphoto.
There is no such thing as "the iPhoto to Aperture link". You are trying to use Aperture and iPhoto together, and that will not work. You should choose one and use only that one. Aperture knows about iPhoto enough to initialize your Aperture library when you first use it. iPhoto knows enough about Aperture to be dangerous. If you use the "Show Aperture Library" function, you should really only use it to temporarily put Aperture photos into an iPhoto library *for the purpose of some function missing from Aperture*, and there are really very few. The only one that I can think of is to use Apple's printing services for cards and calendars, which is not available in Aperture. I.e., don't use both iPhoto and Aperture for digital management.
How can I tell iphoto the new location of the Aperture library for the images which are already referened in iphoto?
That is really an iPhoto question. Someone here with recent ties to iPhoto may be able to help, but we are all Aperture users first, and some posters were iPhoto users.
nathan
Message was edited by: Mr Endo

Sharing Aperture library with another user on the same mac

Hi
I just upgraded to Aperture 3.3, on a MBP running Lion (10.7.4) - I am trying to share the library with my wife so that each of us can retain our separate accounts and preferences and be able to edit/print/add pictures to the library
I've seen some other posts, suggesting creating a separate directory outside of /Users which I've done: I've created /ApertureLib and moved the library there. I made sure I set permissions for owner, group and others to read/write/execute
When i try opening the library through my wife's account it tells me that "the library is being used by (null), you must first quit (null) to use this library"
I added sticky bits, tried to set ACLs, no dice...
any suggestions?
Thanks!
PS: all of the image files are actually stored on a NAS box and mounted via AFP. I tried moving the Aperture library to the NAS box but the performance was atrocious. so I kept the library on Macintosh HD and just reference the picture files from the NAS share.

PS: all of the image files are actually stored on a NAS box and mounted via AFP. I tried moving the Aperture library to the NAS box but the performance was atrocious. so I kept the library on Macintosh HD and just reference the picture files from the NAS share.
That is the safest solution. The Aperture library should reside on a local volume, MacOS X extended formatted. Your NAS probably is neither local nor formatted MacOS X extended, see
Aperture: Use locally mounted Mac OS X Extended volumes for your Aperture library
I am trying to share the library with my wife so that each of us can retain our separate accounts and preferences and be able to edit/print/add pictures to the library
Aperture is a single User program. Only one of you can use Aperture at a time. So you hvae to quit Aperture in your account, before your wife can launch it from her account. Also make sure that iPhoto is not using the library.
One big problem with sharing a Library are permissions and ownerships. When you make changes to an Aperture Library and add images, you are the owner of the added images. The safest way to share a library therefore would be to put it on an external volume or onto a separate partition of your hard drive. Then you can set the "Ignore ownership on this volume" flag and share the data with out permission problems. To set this flag on a volume, select it in the Finder and use "File > Get info" from the Finder's main menu bar (or press cmd-I).
Regards
Léonie

Not able to select Aperture library in iTunes to share on AppleTV

I moved the Aperture Library (107Gb) to an external disk that is mounted to the iMac. In order to view the photo's on the AppleTV I need to change in iTunes in Home sharing the setting for the new location of the library. In Photo Sharing Preferences it is possible to see the new location and the aperture library. However it is impossible to select the new location on the external drive because it is greyed out. And now it is no longer possible to view the photo's on AppleTV. Is it only possible to view photo's when they are on the iMac where iTunes is installed? What do I miss?

Might be a Safari extension causing this ..
From the Safari menu bar click Safari > Preferences then select the Extensions tab. Turn that OFF, quit and relaunch Safari to test.
If that helped, turn one extension on then quit and relaunch Safari to test until you find the incompatible extension then click uninstall.

Insufficient disk space on Aperture Library volume to import iphoto library

3 Importing iphoto library to Aperture questions:
(1) Finally switching to Aperture because too many photos to manage in iphoto. When importing iphoto library it gives me the message: Insufficient DIsk Space - "There is not enough free space on your Aperture Library volume to import the selected items. It is estimated that you need an additional 83GB of free space."
The photos are all on an external drive which has 150GB free space. I also tried moving the aperture library to another hard drive which has lots of free space. I want the Aperture library to reside on the external drive so I can share it between my laptop and desktop.
I tried this at the apple store and it was going to work. I came home and it now says it needs 125GB free space. Is this a function of which computer you use to import the library? What can I do because I can't spend hours at the apple store if it may take that long to import all the photos from the library.
(2) Is there an optimum way to import a large library, rather than all at once?
(3)Used iphoto manager to create a project library from an iphoto library. Now have 2 good libraries to import, one with about 35k photos, the other with about 8k. The 8k will have some duplicates from the larger one. When I import that one I don't want to import duplicates, but do want to retain the organization and labeling of those duplicates in terms of which albums and events they are in. Is that possible?
Thanks!

Or use Aperture's built-in and suggested way to deal with the problem of a Library outgrowing your system drive: make many of your Image's Originals referenced rather than managed.
Aperture lets you store any Image's Original on any locally-mounted drive. Moving your Image's Originals from inside your Library (in which case they are "managed") to outside the Library (in which case they are "referenced") is easy -- as it moving them back.
The two main complications that arise from using Referenced Originals are:
- you must back up your Referenced Originals in addition to backing up your Library. Backing up your Library _does not_ back up your Referenced Originals
- you must not make any changes to your Referenced Originals with any program other than Aperture. _Do not_ use Finder to move, rename, etc.

Aperture library on external drive that just died...

Not sure if this is the right place to post, but here goes.
I recently moved my Aperture library to an external firewire drive. I set my Time Machine to back it up from the external drive. Its the only thing I backup from that drive, all other backups come from my built-in interal drive on my iMac. Problem is, I don't remember the name of the drive and where I put the library file. So I am planning to get a new drive and I want to restore it from the backup. Any ideas?
If you know of a better area to post this, please advise.
Thanks

Alfredo,
Is your old drive no longer available?
You can browse your Time Machine backups like a disk in the Finder. Perhaps you can tell, what the name of your old drive and the name of the Aperture Library was. For example, my Backup drive "Lacie RaidBackup" looks like this in a Finder window:
It has a folder "Backups.backupdb" and with in folders for each Computer, then folders for each drives. Here you can see the backed up drives on your machine.
You can search the backup for Aperture libraries:
Select the the backup of your external drive and type ":aplibrary" into the search field, then set the search range to the name of your exterternal HD.
The Path bar at the bottom of the search window will show you the location of your Aperture library.
To restore your Aperture Library from Time Machine, open a Finder Window showing your "Computer" with all drives in "Column View" - set the Finder's Preferences to show all devices in the Sidebar, if you have not already done so:
With this window the frontmost Finder window dive into the Time Tunnel from the TM menulet:
Go back in time, until you are seeing your external drive appear in that window:
If you named your new drive exactly like your old drive, you should be able to restore your library using the "Restore" button .
For more general Information on TM see Pondini's excellent page: Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions
Reagrds
Léonie

Sharing Aperture library with iPad: a little annoyance...

When editing a photo with a 3rd party plugin (or Photoshop), Aperture creates a 2nd version in TIF or JPG. This image is stacked with the main image. 9 times out of 10, the image edited should become the primary image I want to see, with the RAW (or original master) becoming a backup in the stack.
I wish there was an option for iTunes/iPad to sync only the top image of the stacks within a giving event. If anyone knows of a way to do this currently please let me know.
Thanks!

PS: all of the image files are actually stored on a NAS box and mounted via AFP. I tried moving the Aperture library to the NAS box but the performance was atrocious. so I kept the library on Macintosh HD and just reference the picture files from the NAS share.
That is the safest solution. The Aperture library should reside on a local volume, MacOS X extended formatted. Your NAS probably is neither local nor formatted MacOS X extended, see
Aperture: Use locally mounted Mac OS X Extended volumes for your Aperture library
I am trying to share the library with my wife so that each of us can retain our separate accounts and preferences and be able to edit/print/add pictures to the library
Aperture is a single User program. Only one of you can use Aperture at a time. So you hvae to quit Aperture in your account, before your wife can launch it from her account. Also make sure that iPhoto is not using the library.
One big problem with sharing a Library are permissions and ownerships. When you make changes to an Aperture Library and add images, you are the owner of the added images. The safest way to share a library therefore would be to put it on an external volume or onto a separate partition of your hard drive. Then you can set the "Ignore ownership on this volume" flag and share the data with out permission problems. To set this flag on a volume, select it in the Finder and use "File > Get info" from the Finder's main menu bar (or press cmd-I).
Regards
Léonie

AppleTV: sharing aperture library on external disk

I moved my Aperture library from the iMac to an external hard disk in order to free memory capacity on the iMac. Adjusted the settings in iTunes in order to instruct AppleTV to use the Aperture library on the external HD. It fails completely. Checked the permissions of the library on the HD and they are R/W, so that cannot be the issue. Anyone familiar with what I have missed?

USB2 is a poor connectivity method for hard drives on Macs, adequate for backup where speed is unimportant but bad news for a Library. Aperture performance is largely about the Library, so you want it on a relatively unfilled internal drive, definitely not on an external USB drive.
Hard drives slow as they fill above 40% or so. Take enough data off the internal drive to maintain at least 100 GB free space and keep the Aperture Library on the internal drive with Referenced Masters on external drives.
In the future buy large hard drives (currently the 1 TB size is cost effective) that have multiple connectivity methods that include Firewire800 and eSATA. One good source is OWC: <http://www.owcomputing.com/>.
Good luck!
-Allen Wicks

Import an Aperture library to iPhoto9

I was wondering if there is a way to import a whole library from Aperture into iPhoto in one action, such as changing the library suffix? The idea being that I would want to keep the album, project, folder hierarchy in the import. Dragging a folder from Aperture to iPhoto just makes it into an album. Anyone had any success in this area?
I have two Aperture libraries, to distinguish between types of work and I am minded to make one of them iPhoto for reasons I will not go into here other than to say there are certain advantages in having both libraries open and visible at the same time and one of the libraries could as easily live in iPhoto as Aperture.
Drew

That's not moving your Aperture Library back to iPhoto, that's some version of exporting from Aperture to the Finder and importing from the Finder to iPhoto. The key difference is there is no way to preserve the relationship between Masters and Versions, no way to preserve the virtual nature of Versions and no way to move huge elements of the Aperture organisational structure.
Remember if you go the "Show Aperture Browser" route you're only accessing the Aperture Previews.
Regards
TD

Can I slim down the size of the Aperture Library by moving the Preview files elsewhere?

Hi all,
I have an Aperture library of almost 20,000 photos, dating back to around 2007. Almost all the master images are stored on an external drive (backed up of course), with only my recent and 'in progress' masters being stored in the library itself. Previously I have had my library split up into one library for each year, with the older years libraries being stored on the external drive where the masters are, in order to keep the size of my 'current' library down. So my current library, stored on my internal SSD, contained only photos from this year and last year, and only a few of the masters for these images. Confusing? Sorry!
Now, I recently decided to consolidate the libraries into one huge library, because it was annoying to have to switch between libraries to find older photos when I wanted them. I did this, leaving all but the recent masters on the external drives (referenced). I thought that the size of the main library would remain reasonably sized, since there were no extra masters being moved into it. However, the library has grown massively - up to over 70GB, which is huge when you consider it's on a 128GB SSD which is also my startup drive.
I'm pretty certain the reason for the huge size increase is that the Previews for all the older images are stored in the Library file, rather than anywhere else. This makes sense - they are previews, they're supposed to be able to be viewed with the external drives disconnected. So my question is this. Am I able to change the location of the preview files to be on my OTHER internal hard drive (non-SSD, much larger), so that they're still available without the external drives, but are not cluttering up my startup drive. And, if not, what should I do!?
Thanks a lot

Glad it worked, but permit, if you will, some observations:
-- Bloated Previews are a known Aperture bug, which came and went within a few updates in Aperture 3. Getting them back to the proper size is simply a elegant step to take.
-- A Preview set to your largest screen size and a quality of 6-8 should be all but indistinguishable from the Master at 72-100 dpi screen image. (Not print resolution.) I REALLY doubt you are going to loose any quality.
-- While using a symlink to stick the Previews on a HD is clever, it may also defeat the whole purpose of using your SSD. Previews are read a lot and are, I suspect, used for all adjustments at less than full resolution. (N.B. I could be VERY wrong on this.) Thus, depending on the amount of RAM on your Mac, you could end up reading and rereading your Previews over a slower link and doing this a lot. You own use will quickly determine if this is an issue or not.
I have blathered on, at length, about what I think matters for size and speed here: https://discussions.apple.com/message/17959625#17959625. Some of this may be of use.
I went through a lot of these issues when I tried to fit everything on a 128 GB SSD, so I know some of the issues you are facing. As I noted before, you really only need a Library (minus most Masters) of about 30 GB and that is with large, high quality Previews.
I actually took the SSD out and stuck it in an ancient MacBookPro (in preparation for a trip to Blighty this summer) and have not noticed a huge drop in Aperture speed. (I do miss the speed of applications launch, restart, however.) One thing that I did find that made a small, but nice difference, was keeping all of the Masters on a separate, dedicated drive. Once defragged, etc. that was very fast. Don't know if you could achieve the same results by partitioning a larger drive, but it might well be fun to find out.
DiploStrat

How do I create a new Aperture library from pictures I moved from IMAC?

I moved my Photos to External Hard drive from MAC . Can I create new aperture library in EHD?

As I wrote as long as both programs are latest versions they share the same library structure and can open each others libraries.
Open Aperture and then select File->Switch to Library. If the iPhoto library shows up in the list select it. If it does not select Other/New… If the iphoto library shows up in this list select it if not select Other Library and find, select and open the iPhoto library.
At this point there are a few things you can do depending on your situation. You can just leave the library as is if you do most of your work in iPhoto. Or you can turn the this library into an Aperture library.
To make it an Aperture library open Aperture and create a new empty library as you did before. Now go to File->Import->Library and select the iPhoto library. The iPhoto library will be imported and converted to an Aperture library.
While all of thsi is safe you the iPhoto library it is alwasy a good idea to have a bakup of the library before starting just in case.
regards

Moving an Aperture library

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