Moving Iphoto library to external HD and updating

Ciao
I just bought the latest macbook pro and as I now only have 500gb i need to start storing my photos in an external HD. I think the best way to do that is to use Export. am I correct? The problem is that i have other photos to then import, I do I keep updating the iphoto library once it is in the HD? Do i connect the external HD when I have new photos and import photos as I did so far but it will now start importing them in the HD drive instead than the laptop? Finally, is there a better software then iphoto to use to store and acces photos from an external HD?
thanks heaps!!
Erminia

I find it hard to find them in Iphoto.
iPhoto - and this is true of all the alternatives both free (like Picasa) and paid for (like Aperture sand Lightroom) - is a database. Every database is exactly as good as the data that you put into it. With iPhoto you can search on any text associated with a photo - title, filename, date, camera model etc etc - plus you can add keywords, edit lots of metadata to make it more searchable for your purposes. This is the same in the other apps too. But if you don't put the work in by making your categories then there is no app that can help you find a single photo more easily, You're always going to be flicking through thumbnails of images.
So, frankly, if you're not going to build the Library there is no better app.
Here's a canned answer I use to suggest some of the organization features in iPhoto.
I use Events simply as big buckets of Photos: Spring 08, July - Nov 06 are typical Events in my Library. I use keywords and Smart Albums extensively. I title the pics broadly.
I keyword on a
Who
What
Where basis (The When is in the photos's Exif metadata). I also rate the pics on a 1 - 5 star basis.
Using this system I can find pretty much find any pic in my 50k library in a couple of seconds.
So, for example, I have a batch of pics titled 'Seattle 08' and a typical keywording might include: John, Anne, Landscape, mountain, trees, snow. With a rating included it's so very easy to find the best pics we took at Mount Rainier.
File -> New Smart Album
set it to 'All"
title contains Seattle
keyword is mountain
keyword is snow
rating is 5 stars
Or, want a chronological album of John from birth to today?
New Smart Album
Keyword is John
Set the View options to Sort By Date Ascending
Want only the best pics?
add Rating is greater than 4 stars
The best thing about this system is that it's dynamic. If I add 50 more pics of John to the Library tomorrow, as I keyword and rate them they are added to the Smart Album.
In the end, organisation is about finding the pics. The point is to make locating that pic or batch of pics findable fast. This system works for me.

Similar Messages

Moving iPhoto library to external hard disk

I am attempting to move my iPhoto library to my new external hard disk. Moving the pictures is not the problem, it is telling iPhoto where the new library is located. I dont have leopard yet so I dont have iPhoto '08. I looked up how to move my library in "iPhoto help" but it didnt help me too much. It says to click "choose library", but I can't that option anywhere. Any help would be hot. Thanks.

acmethunder
If you want to move the iPhoto Library, move the iPhoto Library Folder. I'm not sure what the story with PhotoBooth is, I never use it - but trial and error might be in order. However, that preferences in iTunes is NOT to move the library, but rather to change the location that files are ripped to... not the same thing. To move the iTunes library have a read of this:
Moving iTunes Music
Regards
TD

Iphone won't sync after moving iPhoto library to external hard drive

I moved my iPhoto library to an external hard drive, now my iTunes will not sync with my iphone. It has an error when syncing photos and quits
iPhoto works just fine, iTunes works just fine. This only occurs when syncing. Please help!

Put your iPhoto library on the external hard drive and hold your Option key down when opening iPhoto. Then just select the library on the external drive. You can have multiple libraries too.
Dave M.
MacOSG Founder/Ambassador  An Apple User Group  iTunes: MacOSG Podcast
Macsimum News Associate Editor  Creator of 'Mac611 - Mobile Mac Support'

Moving iphoto library to external hard drive.

My mac mini is fast running out of disk space and I am trying to move the iphoto library to an external hard drive.
I have copied the library across to the external disk, renamed the exisiting library and have now tried to restore/rebuild the iphoto library using the new library on the external disk. All of the albums/events/faces appear in the finder window but iphoto hangs for up to 8 hours before I force quit and try again. I only have 20gb of photos and would not think the library should take this long to rebuild??
I am running Lion along with the most current update of iphoto.
Any assistance greatly appreciated.

That article is missing a key piece of info:
Make sure the drive is formatted Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
1. Quit iPhoto
2. Copy the iPhoto Library from your Pictures Folder to the External Disk.
3. Hold down the option (or alt) key while launching iPhoto. From the resulting menu select 'Choose Library' and navigate to the new location. From that point on this will be the default location of your library.
4. Test the library and when you're sure all is well, trash the one on your internal HD to free up space.
Regards
TD

Moving iPhoto library onto external hard drive

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

As we're not sure what you have done exactly it's hard to be certain how to progress.
This is how you move an iPhoto Library
Make sure the drive is formatted Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
1. Quit iPhoto
2. Copy the iPhoto Library from your Pictures Folder to the External Disk.
3. Hold down the option (or alt) key while launching iPhoto. From the resulting menu select 'Choose Library' and navigate to the new location. From that point on this will be the default location of your library.
4. Test the library and when you're sure all is well, trash the one on your internal HD to free up space.
There is no way you've done that if you can no longer see the Library at Me/Pictures.

Moving iPhoto Library to External HD also used for Time Machine?

Hi,
I know the moving of iPhoto Libraries seems to be a pretty common topic, but I want to throw this out there because everyone situation seems to be a little different and have slightly different variables. Like many others, I want to get my iPhoto Library off of my local HD to save space.
In my case, I am wondering if there is any problem with moving an iPhoto 09' Library (28K+ images/149GB) to an External HD (2TB Western Digital) that is also currently set up to do Time Machine Backups or do I need to reformat that drive to be used as an external only and not for TM?
Lastly I want to confirm that when I transfer this Library, I simply need to drag the iPhoto Library from my PIctures folder over to this External HD and then hold the Option key when I launch iPhoto next and tell it to choose the iPhoto Library on my External so it will open that one from that point forward.
Thanks in advance for the information and confirmation on how to do this transfer. Take care and have a great evening.
Joe Sabella

In my case, I am wondering if there is any problem with moving an iPhoto 09' Library (28K+ images/149GB) to an External HD (2TB Western Digital) that is also currently set up to do Time Machine Backups or do I need to reformat that drive to be used as an external only and not for TM?
You need to partition the drive with one partition for TM and one for normal external drive use - you should not have your iPhoto library or other dynamic file on the same partition with TM - TM grows until it fills its partition and at some time this will push up against your iPhoto library and cause failure for iPhoto
Lastly I want to confirm that when I transfer this Library, I simply need to drag the iPhoto Library from my PIctures folder over to this External HD and then hold the Option key when I launch iPhoto next and tell it to choose the iPhoto Library on my External so it will open that one from that point forward.
That is correct - and be sure that the external drive is available anytime you launch iPhoto
LN

Moving iPhoto library to external drive

Is it possible to move an entire iPhoto library intact to an external drive. i.e. including all events and naturally all photo edits, descriptions, titles, and other META data?
If so, how is it best accomplished please?
(Using iPhoto 9.4.3)

Here's how:
first make sure the drive is formatted OS X Extended (journaled).
drag the iPhoto Library to the external HD.
launch iPhoto with the Option key held down and select the library on the EHD.
once you've confirmed that the EHD library is complete and working properly you can delete the library from your Pictures folder.
OT

IPhoto doesn't import after moving iPhoto library back to original (?) spot

Hello:
Because I needed space on my original drive, I moved iPhoto library to another drive and then moved it back. iPhoto works perfectly well - It automatically loads my photos. But - when I attempt to import from my Canon Digital Rebel, it won't do it, giving a message that these files (all 7 photos in the camera) may be corrupt.
However - the photos do import correctly on my wife's Mac.
I am thinking that I did not put the iPhoto library back in exactly the right spot.
Where should it go?
Oh - and Happy New Year!
Ian
933 MHz G4 Mac OS X (10.4.3)

Hi Iann,
There is really no right spoet as you can place the iPhoto Library folder almost anywhere in your Users folder. The Pictures folder is the default location for the folder.
What I need to know is, when you moved the library to another spot, did you open iPhoto when it was there? And when you moved back to the original spot, did iPhoto open?
When you move the iPhoto Library folder, you must then launch iPhoto with the Option key depressed. iPhoto will then tell you that it can't find the library , and do you want to open another one or create a new one. You must then choose to open another one and navigate to where you moved it, then highlight it in the window, then click "open"
Lori

Moved iPhoto 11 library to external drive and have a iPhoto Library file left on desktop

Hello,
I have a blue file on my desktop labeled iPhoto Library, that appeared during the course of me moving my iPhoto Library ( iPhoto 11) to an external hard drive to make room on the internal disk, my attempts to reopen iPhoto on the internal disk, move selected photos from the iPhoto Library on the external drive over to the newly emptied iPhoto Library on my laptop.
The blue iPhoto Library file contains these items:
AlbumData.xml
AlbumData2.xml
iPhoto.ipspot
Questions: does this blue file belong somewhere or can I trash it?
This is what I did:
1. I opened Pictures, dragged the iPhoto Library from there to the external drive.
2. When I opened iPhoto on my MBP it said it needed a library to open with and the choices already in the box were:
iPhoto Library(default)
iPhoto Library
3. I chose "iPhoto Library" because I thought "(default)" meant restoring the original library.
4. iPhoto opened to the "get started with iPhoto" like a new install.
5.I moved (drag and drop ) some photos from the external drive back into the "empty" iPhoto Library. I tried to move a group of photos but I didn't know how to do it so ...
6. I took the iPhoto Library from the trash and put it back into the "empty" iPhoto Library.
7. I tried to delete all the photos except the ones I wanted to keep in the internal iPhoto Library. I couldn't do it so....
8. I closed iPhoto, went back into Pictures and trashed the internal iPhoto Library again.
9. Reopened iPhoto and it needed a library to open with and I think I clicked
iPhoto Library (default)
10. When I opened iPhoto this time, it was the "get started with iPhoto" but the original photo albums and labels listed but all empty.
That's what I remember so far.
Hope you can help.
Medusa59

It appears you created a new library. Launch iPhoto with the Option key held down and select "Choose Library".
Navigate to the library on the external hard drive and select it. Once you're satisfied that it's the one you want you can delete that folder from your desktop.
OT

Trouble moving iPhoto Library (9.6) with Yosemite to External Hard Drive

I fresh installed iphoto, and updated it to current version (9.6) on Yosemite. There are no photos on it yet. I am trying to transfer it to my new hard drive that is formatted Mac Extended Journaled. Every time I get error code 36.
Previously, I tried moving iphoto library over to hard drive when I had photos on it, and I got the error code. So I uninstalled iphoto, reinstalled it, I am still getting the error code.
Any ideas? I am moving library from House icon > pictures> iPhoto Library and dragging that to Hard drive.

Thanks for the speedy reply.
I am not sure what you mean by "create the library on the drive".
I just tried importing 10 photos into iPhoto on my mac and then i quit iPhoto and went User>Pictures> iPhoto Library and dragged to my external, but got the same error 36. I just cannot get the iphoto Library to drag over to my external without being stopped by error code 36.
My goal is to import my photos into iPhoto that is stored on my hard drive, so I dont have any of those photos on my mac. Any ideas or clarification if I didnt follow your instructions Thanks

Moving iPhoto to external drive; have formatted external disk to Mac OS Extended (Journaled), moved the iPhoto library to external drive; when trying to change the library, the iPhoto file on new external is greyed out can't be selected.What went wrong?

Must have done something wrong..
1. formatted external disk to Mac OS Extended (Journaled) - required a partition, but that went fine. Entire new external disk was included in the partition formatted to Mac OS Extneded (journaled).
2. moved iPhoto library to new external disk
3. Holding Option key down, opened iPhoto
4. Choose library feature appeared, however when new library function option appeared and "choose library" selected, the iPhoto folder appearing in the new external drive was greyed out and not able to be selected. Therefore the default library remains the original iphoto library on the Mac.
I've moved the original iphoto library to the trash and then tried to start iPhoto. A message comes up that the iPhoto is in the trash and needs to be pulled out before iPhoto can start (clearly the new iphoto library on the external drive is not being seen.
Can anyone suggest where I went awry? Thanks!

Try trash the com.apple.iPhoto.plist file from the HD/Users/ Your Name / library / preferences folder.
(On 10.7 or later: Hold the option (or alt) key while clicking on the Go menu in Finder to access the User Library)
(Remember you'll need to reset your User options afterwards. These include minor settings like the window colour and so on. Note: If you've moved your library you'll need to point iPhoto at it again.)
What's the plist file?
For new users: Every application on your Mac has an accompanying plist file. It records certain User choices. For instance, in your favourite Word Processor it remembers your choice of Default Font, on your Web Browser is remembers things like your choice of Home Page. It even recalls what windows you had open last if your app allows you to pick up from where you left off last. The iPhoto plist file remembers things like the location of the Library, your choice of background colour, whether you are running a Referenced or Managed Library, what preferences you have for autosplitting events and so on. Trashing the plist file forces the app to generate a new one on the next launch, and this restores things to the Factory Defaults. Hence, if you've changed any of these things you'll need to reset them. If you haven't, then no bother. Trashing the plist file is Mac troubleshooting 101.
Then try select it again.

I accidentally moved my iphoto library to another foler, and i delete the original one, how can i get my images back

i was thinking of clear some space for my macbook, so i moved some images form picture to window disk, but i accidentally moved iphoto library too. And i didn't realised it would affect iphoto, until i opened iphoto finding all the images were gone. How can i get the images back?

This might help: Rebuilding the iPhoto library

Transfer iphoto library to external harddrive. Best practice?

Need to transfer iphoto library to external harddrive due to space issues. Best practice?

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

Trying to copy iPhoto Library to external hard drive for backup. Error message: The Finder can't complete the operation because some data in "iPhoto Library" can't be read or written (Error code -36).

Trying to copy iPhoto Library to external hard drive for backup. Error message: The Finder can't complete the operation because some data in "iPhoto Library" can't be read or written (Error code -36).

That code is
-36
ioErr
I/O error (bummers)
Make sure the EHD is formatted OS X Extended (journaled) and run Disk Utilty on the EHD and repair the disk. If that fails to help I'd try the following:
Using iPhoto Library Manager to Rebuild Your iPhoto Library
Download iPhoto Library Manager and launch.
Click on the Add Library button,
navigate to your Home/Pictures folder and select your iPhoto Library folder.
Now that the library is listed in the left hand pane of iPLM, click on your library and go to the Library ➙ Rebuild Library menu option
In the next window name the new library and select the external HD as the location of the newly rebild library.
Click on the Create button.
Note 1: This creates a new library based on the LIbraryData.xml file in the library and will recover Events, Albums, keywords, titles and comments. However, books, calendars, cards and slideshows will be lost.
Note 2: Your current library will be left untouched for further attempts at a fix if so desired.
OT

Can't read iPhoto library from external drive

I suddenly can't can't read iPhoto library from external drive. I have talked to WD and nohing is wrong with the network drive. I can open images and files from it. But, I can't read in iPhoto Library.

Network Drive? 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, exporting, saving edits and sharing the photos.
Basically, you need to move the library to a correctly formatted disk.

Moving Iphoto library to external HD and updating

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for