Moving iphoto library to an external drive

i want to move my iphoto library to an external drive to free up space. i've copied my library to the new drive. i hold down the option key when launching iphoto and when i try to select the new librbary, iti isn't highlighted/clickable. any suggestions?

but when i hold option key, the only photo library that comes up is the one on my internal hard drive.
In that case try clicking on the Choose button, navigate to the USB drive and select the library there:
OT

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Moved my iphoto library to an external drive and now I can't import photos from my camera or iPhone - will only import previously impoted photos - why?

Anyone else had this problem? Anyone know how to fix it?
I haven't deleted my photos of my computer's hard drive yet so can go back to using that if it will fix my problem
Thanks

No that is not a problem and no one has reported it here
to change the library depress the option key and launch iPhoto and use the select library command - see if the behavior is the same on both frives
How did you move the iPhoto library to the external drive?
What format is the external drive?
LN

I just backed up my photos by copying my iPhoto Library onto an external drive. Now the Library on my MacBook won't open. I can only open the photos if the external is plugged in. How can I resolve this issue?

I just backed up my photos by copying my iPhoto Library onto an external drive. Now the Library on my MacBook won't open. I can only open the photos if the external is plugged in. How can I resolve this issue?

Exactly what did you do?
The correct steps are
Moving the iPhoto library is safe and simple - quit iPhoto and drag the iPhoto library 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)
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
My guess is that that you have not switched iphoto to use the external drive yet - opttion launch and select libary
LN

What is the best way to copy my iphoto library to an external drive?

I want to free up space on the internal drive by copying the iphoto library to an external drive and then either deleting the library entirely from the internal and using the external as my working library or continuing to use the internal as my working library, but deleting lots of old pictures. I have TC and use TM for backups and have a Seagate HD that I want to use for extra storage. Thanks,

To move the 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.
To have two libraries:
1. Quit iPhoto.
2. Copy the iPhoto Library from your Pictures Folder to the external drive.
Now you have two full copies of the Library. To choose between them: Hold down the <b>option (or alt)</b> key key and launch iPhoto. From the resulting menu select 'Choose Library'
3. On the +Internal+ Library, remove the pics you don't want with you all the time.
Now you have one full library on the external and another smaller sub-set on the Internal.
A couple of comments:
a. The external disk needs to be formatted Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
b: When you're removing the unwanted pics from the Internal Library you need to delete them in batches of about 100 or so. Trashing more at one time can cause problems with the database.
c:
Managing Multiple Libraries - including moving pics/albums/rolls and metadata between them - is greatly facilitated by using
iPhoto Library Manager
Regards
TD

Sorry folks, I did something bad, I was looking how to save my current iphoto library to my external drive and I hit a wrong button, lost my current iphoto and now have only the backed up version from 2007, Woops I never was the quick witted one... PLEASE

I switched my current iphoto library out for the saved one on my external drive by mistake. It said, Switch Libraries.... Do you want to switch the current iphoto library from AAA iphoto library (what I called the old one I guess - in my OWC) toOWC Mercury on-the-go and relaunch iphoto? cancel or relaunch
Sorry, I was looking for a way to save my current iphoto images to my hard drive. Yeah, I guess just drag something over right? Anyway, now I cannot retrieve my last 2 or 3 years of photos, Can You HELP me?
Mac os X version 10.6.8
2.66 GHz Intel core 2 Duo
etc

Depress the option key and launch iPhoto = use teh select library option and select the correct one
yes to move your library to an external drive
Moving the iPhoto library is safe and simple - quit iPhoto and drag the iPhoto library 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)
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
LN

How can I transfer my iPhoto library safely to external drive?

How do I transfer pictures from iPhoto library to external hard drive without losing information? What hard drive would work best for this? I have no more space available on iMac hard drive.

Moving the iPhoto library is safe and simple - quit iPhoto and drag the iPhoto library 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)
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
LN

How do i manage 1 iphoto library on 2 external drives?

I'm trying to find the most efficient way to manage 1 iphoto library across 2 external drives. In case one of my external drives dies, I'll have a backup.
I know how to copy my iphoto library onto another drive, but my question is how to manage the 2 drives when i add photos/videos to them from my iphone.
Currently, I import photos/vids from iphone onto 1 drive. Then unmount the external drive and hook up another drive. I direct iphoto to use the new drive as it's library and then import the photos/vids again onto the second drive. I make sure the event is named the same, so I have the same iphoto setup across both drives. Then i delete the photos/vids from my iphone.
Is there a more efficient way to do this? Or software that can do this in one step?
Thanks in advance for any help!

You want to have a backup of your working library on your MacBook Pro on each of two external HDs, correct?
If yes then use a backup application like Synk or Synk Pro that can incrementally backup the library, i.e. copy only those new of modified files. If you go to MacUpdate.com and do a search for "backup" you'll get a list of potential candidates.
Then all you need to do is connect EHD#1 and run the backup app to update the library then connect EHD#2 and do the same. It only takes several seconds to make the incremental backup. Synk Pro can be configured to automically start the backup when the external drives are connected. I'm not sure but believe some of the other backup apps could do the same.
OT

How do you get Photos to recognize the "old" iPhoto Library on an external drive without it copying it to the internal drive on the computer which is low in HD space?

How do you get Photos to recognize the “old” iPhoto Library on an external drive without it copying it to the internal drive on the computer which is low in HD space?

Launch Photos while holding down the alt/options key.
This will show the Library Chooser panel. Select the library on the external drive. Photos will create a Photos Library on the same drive.
Photos may not be able to open the library, however, if your external drive has an incompatible file system. It needs to be formatted MacOS Extended (Journaled) and locally mounted, not a remotely mounted volume, as described here: Format external drives to Mac OS Extended before using with Aperture

I want to copy my iPhoto library to an external drive but I cannot find the folder on my Mac Air. When I open Finder there is no Picture folder showing so I cannot find the iPhoto library.

I want to copy my iPhoto library to an external drive but I cannot find the folder on my Mac Air. When I open Finder there is no Picture folder showing so I cannot find the iPhoto library.

Choose Go to Folder from the Finder's Go menu and provide ~/Pictures/ as the path. If that doesn't work, control-click a photo in iPhoto, show it in the Finder, and Command-click the folder's name in the window's title bar to find the path.
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I have Mavericks and I want to transfer my iPhoto library to an external drive

I have Mavericks and I want to transfer my iPhoto library to an external drive to free up a ton of space on my hard drive. Can't transfer the whole thing. It says part of it is being modified. When it started it said it would take 56 days also. Is there an easy way to transfer it? In older versions of iphoto It had a lot of folders in the pictures folder under users. I could transfer bit by bit each day if I wanted. Seems that there is only one gigantic iphoto Library now and I can't transfer the whole thing. Can you please help?

Hi Terence,
My OS version is Version 10.9 My iPhoto version is 9.5 (9027)
I was trying to bring it to my external drive that I use for placing random files (not a TimeMachine backup). It's a USB connection and it has a 2T storage capacity with plenty of room.
So I dragged it into the icon of the external drive and it "prepared" to transfer for a long time. Then at the end of that, it said it couldn't tramfer because part of it was being modified. (I can try it again to get the exact wording of this error message if you need it). Then I clicked ok, then there was a small window that looked like a small part of the iphoto library was transfered with the timeline there and the beginning portion blue with the rest of the line empty. At the right it said 56 days remaining. =) But that little window was frozen and wasn't doing anything. I tried it three times and it did the same thing each time exactly as I've described.
Thanks for your help!

How to Time Machine backup iPhoto library stored on external drive

Hi Mac users.
Can you kindly teach me how to backup iphoto library stored on an external drive to my external time machine drive. My internal drive is full so I moved my iPhoto library to a separate drive and deleted the library to create space. Thank you.

Actually there's nothing to do. TM backs up all connected volumes automatically. One has to exclude a volume or folder(s) to keep them from being backed up in the TM preferences.
If you find that the EHD is not being backed up exclude it and the "unexclude" it and force a new backup.
OT

Moving Iphoto photos to an external drive

I have a huge image set of more than 23 Gb on Iphoto 6. I use two different mac both with Iphoto 6. Is there any way I can change the location of all the library to an external drive so In this way i could just plug the external drive to any of the two machines (work and home) and work without problems ?

hi Marcos,
Copy the ENTIRE iPhoto Library folder to a Mac formatted external drive.
Launch iPhoto while holding down the Option key.
At the prompt, choose to open another library.
Navigate to the library on the external and highlight it.
Hit the "open" button
iPhoto will open the library on the external and from now on will use this library to import images too. This will now be your working library. Make sure everything is working correctly and everything is fine in the library.
You can then delete the library on the internal if you wish.
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=93037
As far as using this library with two Macs, I am not sure of what will happen. I know that is is done .
This is an excerpt from the iPhoto Library Manager documentation page on the subject:
"There is one other way to get around the issue of permissions in sharing a library. In Mac OS X, you can tell the system to ignore all permissions on a particular drive or partition (this cannot be done with the volume that your computer is running OS X from). To do so, select the drive in the Finder and press command-I (Get Info). In the info window, click the disclosure triangle next to "Ownership & Permissions", and then check the box that says "Ignore ownership on this volume" (note: you may be prompted to enter an admin password when doing this). This will allow all users to read and write files on that drive regardless of how permissions are set. One drawback to this approach is that it requires either a) storing your library on an external drive, or b) formatting and partitioning your main hard drive, which requires backing up and reinstalling your data and applications. After setting up the drive you want to use, either create a new library on the drive by clicking "New Library" in iPhoto Library Manager, or copy one of your existing libraries to the drive and then add it to iPhoto Library Manager by clicking "Add Library"

Moving iTunes library to an external drive.

My startup disk is full so I would like to move my iTunes library to an external drive to fee up space. What is the best way to do this?

Our iTunes guru Terence Devlin advises the following:
1. Quit iTunes
2. Drag the iTunes folder from your internal hd - located in ~/Music folder - to your external hd. DO NOT delete the original one from your internal hd... yet!
3. When the transfer is complete, press and hold the Option(alt) key and fire up iTunes.
4. A "Choose iTunes Library" window will come up. Click on the "Choose Library" button.
5. Navigate to where the iTunes folder is located in the external hd.
6. Within the iTunes folder, select the iTunes Library file and click Choose...
That's it. iTunes will now display all your playlists, songs, movies, podcasts etc. At this point, should you wish, you can delete the iTunes folder from the internal hd to free up space.
More info:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1751
Or if you prefer a more complicated explanation:
http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/articles/comments/moving-your-itunes-library-to -a-new-hard-drive

Moving my library to an external drive.

It is time to retire my G5 and move everything to my MacBook Pro. I moved my iTunes library to an external drive and can use it on the G5 but I'm not sure I can use it on my MacBook Pro. I'm afraid to try. If I followed the support directions for moving my iTunes music folder should I be OK to try?

It should be Ok, just make sure your library is backed up.

Moving iTunes Library to an external drive. My itunes cant connect to the library

I have tried to move my iTunes Library to an external drive. When I open the iTunes app i can not get the app to read the library on the external drive. I have gone into iTunes preferences and redirected the app to read the external file and I still look as though I have a "New iTunes program" with no music, apps, videos etc.
Thanks all!

If you moved the entire /Music/iTunes/ folder, hold "Option" and launch iTunes.
Select "Choose library" then select the iTunes folder you moved.
You do not need to change the iTunes media folder location in iTunes prefs > Advanced.

Moving iphoto library to an external drive

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