Moving photos and movies to free up space on hard drive

My MacBook hard drive is almost full. The majority of the space is taken up by photos and movies. I would like to move my current collection of photos and movies to an external hardrive, and then delete the files off my harddrive so that I have the space available to add more photos. However, I still want to easily access the old photos on the external harddrive and the new photos thta will be put on the hard drive. Any suggestions and the best way to accomplish this?

Easiest way to do this would be to copy your iTunes folder (located inside your home folder/Music) to your external hard drive. Next, open iTunes while holding down the option key on your keyboard. When iTunes asks you to select a music library to use, select the one on the external hard drive. Test to make sure everything is working just as it did with your old library. Assuming it does, you can now delete the iTunes folder on your internal hard drive.
The same process can be used with iPhoto.
Best of luck.

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Free up space on Hard drive

Hi- I'm using 10.4.8 on my new MacBook and was wondering if anyone could tell me if they know what I can free up on the Hard drive to create more disk space? It seems to me that there are quite a few printer files and languages and probably a few other that I'm not sure if I need-
Can anyone help?
Thanks in advance,
macbook Mac OS X (10.4.8)

When I received my BlackBook, the first thing I did was doa clean install of the OS so I could leave all the stuff off that I knew I would ever use. I assume that you do not want to do that now, so you can use a program called Monolingual to remove the languages. You can simple delete the printer drivers that you will not need also.
Go through the "Applications" folder and you will surely find things that you do not need. I took of the Office Test Drive, Quicken, the games, and quite a few others. Garage Band and the sample loops were a huge disk hog, so out they went.

Trying to free up space on hard drive, with an external hard drive, but don't want to lose the files!

So I am really stressed out right now.
I have a macbook pro, with a 750 gb hard drive in it. My internal hard drive filled up a while back so I bought a 3TB external hard drive. I backed up my files onto my external a while ago, but I don't really remember how... There is a folder on my hard drive that is called " wd smartware.swstor" , and inside that folder is about 1.7 TB of files (when I click 'get info')... So I'm guessing that is where all my stuff is being backed up. But I also moved files from my computer onto that hard drive, like pictures and videos, that I wanted to delete off my internal... So I may have duplicates?
But my 3TB hard drive is almost full, it has 400GB free on it. And my 750gb internal hard drive on my macbook pro, has filled up again so it only has 10gb free space. So basically I have almost 3TB of files on my external hard drive, and 740gb on my internal.. This can't be right. There is no way I have this many files. I am guessing I have some of the same files on my internal that I do on my external.. Most of my files are high quality HD video files that I imported through final cut pro x....
So I bought another 3TB external hard drive that I haven't used yet. Basically, I just want to move all my files that are on my internal hard drive (roughly 750gb) onto my NEW external 3TB hard drive- and then delete the files off my internal so I have more free space. I just don't know if these files are already being backed up on my OLD external 3TB hard drive.
Can someone please help? Thank you!

craigbuckley wrote:
If I get rid of my TIme Machine, will I lose all my files from the past?
Yes it will unless you back it up first out of TM.
TimeMachine is a self rotating image of your boot drive with saved states, it manages itself based upon the available space on the drive. As new states are created, old ones are deleted along with older versions of your files.
Also if you incur a drastic large change to your boot drive, TimeMachine will DELETE older versions of your files.
TimeMachine is not a archival solution!
To rescue yourself from TimeMachine, you will first need to save the recent copy of file(s) to the new 3TB, then restore the older version of the file from TimeMachine to the boot drive and then rename it/date it and save that older copy to the new 3TB drive.
This way you have both the new copy and the old copy of the file pernamently archived on the new 3TB drive.
Once you have exhausted all of TimeMachines older files, you can free yourself from it, erase the drive.
For your needs, I suggest this.
Internal drive and bootable clone
1: Your internal 750GB boot drive contains active working files.
2: You have another external drive that's either 750GB or 1TB, you use Carbon Copy Cloner to make a bootable clone of your boot drive, update it when you know you have a stable OS X system on your boot drive and before updates or changes, this way if the update goes bad and the machine will not boot. You can connect the clone, hold the option key down and boot the comptuer from the clone. You then can get online to get help, or simply reverse clone your software problems away.
CCC has the ability like TimeMachine to save states between clones, it's on be default but you can turn this off as to maintain a pure clone, this is what I advise you do as to avoid confusion. You clone is a perfect copy since the last update of the clone, which you can setup to do nightly if you wish or every few days or every few weeks, whatever.
Your bootable clone is your lifesaver if your boot hard drive dies or refuses to boot up, you can boot from the clone in seconds and only be slightly off since the last update of the clone. TM won't run the computer like a clone will.
I highly adise keeping your clone in a very safe place, away from theft, fire, electrical, etc.
http://www.bombich.com/
External Storage Drives
3: Your first external 3TB drive (sans TimeMachine) will be your storage drive, this will contain any files that you don't wish to have on the internal drive and as a result also not on the clone.
You maintain folders that are dated, with older copies of files in those folders if you wish. This way you can control the space on the drive and not make multiple duplicates of all the large files like TM does.
For instance if you work on a 100GB project for three days, instead of having three copies taking up 300GB like what TM does, you can rather choose to have just one older copy at 100GB. You can decide you don't need a particular older version of a file and remove it, thus managing your drive space yourself.
4: Your other external 3TB is a Carbon Copy Cloner backup of the first 3TB, maintain a perfect clone of that as well and update it periodically as your needs change. Since CCC can be schedualed and works in the background, you can have it update your clones overnight or another time your not using the machine. This free's up performance as TM isn't running in the background while your trying to work.
Also with no TM local cache file, that also will free up space on the boot drive.
The general rule is you need both hardware AND software protection for your data, thus with too much data to fit on the boot drive, you need a external storage drive and then a backup of that as to maintain TWO hardware copies of your data at all times.
This method is also scaleable, if you need more room than 3TB externally, you then get another 2 3TB drives, one for the new data and one for backup.
The bootable clone of your bootdrive is kept in a very safe place, it's designed to protect your OS X investment in software etc. and espectially, to get your Mac booting in as short as a time as possible while you plan on a replacement boot hard drive/repair.
Read more about the advanced options bootable clones give here.
Most commonly used backup methods
With your large storage needs, you basically have outgrown TimeMachine by hitting the hardware limit of drives.
If there were 10-20TB drives, you likely could keep on going with TimeMachine, but you can't.
Your clearly in the more "professional" catagory with your storage management needs, not in the TM "newbie to computers" where it's managed for you.
If your finding your needs are going to exceed 6TB, you might want to consider a external hardware RAID 5 box with 5+ drives, they will self redundancy so if a drive dies you just switch it with a new one and the missing data is copied from the other drives.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID
http://www.macgurus.com/
Good Luck

Need to free up space on hard drive

I have been trying to free up some space on my hard drive have removed all photos and a lot of music and some programs not using still not seeing much gain in storage space what can I do to clean up some space

teamfollis:
Dr. Smoke's FAQ linked by eww has a comprehensive list of things you can do to clean up your HDD. This should give you breathing space. However, your HDD remains the same, and the freed space will soon fill up again. Besides, if you have the original HDD in the computer, it likely near the end of its useful life.
Here are some other ideas:
• Get an external firewire HDD and put iTunes Music folder and iPhoto Library on it.
• Use your external HDD as your boot drive.
• Install a new larger capacity HDD. The original HDD in your computer is likely within the 3 to 5 years that these drives last on average. You can purchase and install a larger and faster HDD that will keep everything in one place, and will give you the 15% to 20% contiguous free space the HDD needs for efficient functioning.
Please do post back with further questions or comments.
cornelius
Message was edited by: cornelius

Just updated iPhone 5 to ios7. Now when I plug in, iTunes does not download photos, and iPhone is not showing as a hard drive on my computer. Windows used to have a pop up to download photos, which is no longer there. iTunes is updated and iCloud isoff

I also recently installed Norton 360, but that was eliminated via Norton Help. They remoted in, removed Norton 360 and problem persisted - iPhone did not show on the "Computer" window, and no pop-up to download photos even with no antivirus installed. Norton help advised to uninstall and reinstall iTunes, which seemed a bit excessive. Any other fixes I can try before an uninstall and reinstall?

Your iPhone is in recoverty mode at the moment so to possibly get it back up and running you would need to do a restore as you have been trying. Follow the steps in the article below for the specific error messages you have been receiving. If after following all steps the issue remains book an appointment at a local Apple Retail Store to have the iPhone evaluated.
Resolve specific iTunes update and restore errors

My computer will not let me authorize my music and movies when i transferred my external hard drive over to my new computer why

why can't i authorize my new computer

Two things:
- Completely remove and reinstall the Apple software by the following. That link provides a link for Win &.
Removing and Reinstalling iTunes, QuickTime, and other software components for Windows XP
- If you still have a problem after restoring the iPod to factory defaults/new iPod you likely have a hardware problem. An appointment at the Genius Bar of an Apple store is then in order.

Help with Touch photo and movie copy/paste issues

I recently moved all of my photos and movies from my Touch to a USB drive, and now I want to put them back but the Touch won't let me - how do I replace them?? My ultimate destination for the files is the Cloud, which I've just loaded.

It sounds like the poster tried to paste the photos into the DCIM folder in My Computer since that is how you can get photos taken by or saved to the iPod into your computer. However the reverse does not work for moving photos from computer to iPod.

Is there a way to transfer photos from a mini ipad to an external hard drive?

I'm looking to back up my photos and was thinking of getting an external hard drive, is there a way to transfer from mini ipad to an external hard drive? Or... Is there a better/simpler way of backing photos up? Thanks!

It's a great idea to back up your photos. Connect your iPad to the computer you normally sync with. Instead of starting iTunes start the image capture software you use with your camera. That software will allow you to copy photos taken with your iPad or copied using the Camera Connection Kit or copied from websites or emails to your computer.
Once on your computer you can back them up to an external hard drive. Having your photos in more than one location is also a good idea.

My MacPro says the startup disk is too full. I have 4 internal hard drives that have 2T each so there is plenty of space, but all start up programs, libraries, iTunes and application folder are on the '1st' hard drive. Can I move any to 2nd drive?

My MacPro says the startup disk is too full. I have 4 internal hard drives that have 2T each so there is plenty of space, but all start up programs, libraries, iTunes and application folder are on the '1st' hard drive. Can I move any to 2nd drive?

Your system will likely fit just fine on a small fast 250GB SSD
What you have is lots of stuff that should not be on the boot drive, data and graphics or media files and libraries that should be moved to another drive.
If you are getting a message like this, STOP, off load files, make room, and make sure to have 15% free or more.
Do not try to move anything from system and its library and sub folders. Move your home user account and just leave the essential home library but move all the rest.
A full drive can have trouble finding free space segments and writing out updates to files and to the directory. And loss of directory means loss of where files are located and their segments.

How do I make new albums in photos and move picture from one album to another

How do I make new albums in Photos and move photos from one album to another

At the moment you can't - though it should be possible (if it makes it into the final release) in iOS 5 which will be available sometime in the Autumn. Photos cannot currently be moved between albums on the iPad.
If you sync separate folders from your computer you'll get an album for each of them on the iPad, and you have to sync all the folders/albums that you want together as only the most recent photo sync remains on the iPad (not including a folder in a sync is the way that you delete it from the iPad).

Can I view photos and movies from my external hard drive? I used Time Machine and a WD Passport for backup. Since my drive on my MacBook Pro is filling up I was planning to delete some of the movies and photos.

Can I view photos and movies from my external hard drive? I used Time Machine and a WD Passport for backup. Since my drive on my MacBook Pro is filling up I was planning to delete some of the movies and photos. I wanted to see if I could view them from the hard drive. Thanks

Hello, eco1.
Thank you for visiting Apple Support Communities.
This sounds like you are wanting to move your iTunes media folder to an external drive and have iTunes this folder from this location. If this is the case then I would recommend taking a look at the article below.
iTunes for Mac: Moving your iTunes Media folder
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1449
Cheers,
Jason H.

Backing up photos and movie clips

It is necessary to erase everything on my computer and make a clean reinstall because of problems with Leopard. I have copied everything onto an external HD but am hesitant to erase everything without being double sure it was done correctly. The only thing I am really concerned about is my 70,000+ photos. I want to copy them to another external HD just in case they were not backed up properly the first time. In Leopard when I open up my Mac HD the following items appear on the left side: PLACES with a subheading of "Pictures" and SEARCH FOR with subheadings of "all images & all movies". Which one of these catagories do I copy onto an external HD to get every single photo and movie clip I have on the computer no matter wherever they are residing? (The external HD has no backup program so I am simple copying the photos.) Thanks for any help you can give me as I cannot afford to lose 70,000 images.

Those under the SEARCH FOR are what will get all the images and movies on your mac. But to be ultra-positive that you got everything just use the free version of SuperDuper! to clone your mac to this external disk.

Whats the best way to transfer all my pic and vid files from Mac Air to back up drive to free up space on hard disk?

whats the best way to transfer all my pic and vid files from Mac Air to back up drive to free up space on hard disk?

Get a third drive if needed, open the Time Machine pane of System Preferences, set it not to exclude that drive, and drag the files to it. If you're moving an iTunes or iPhoto library, launch the application with the Option key held down and choose the moved library.
(118789)

I have a 250GB western digital external hard drive for my time machine backups. if i just want to backup and recover my photos and movies how do i do that with time machine?

I have a 250GB western digital external hard drive for my time machine backups. I did not download the software that came with the external HD. If I only want to backup my photos and movies from my Macbook how do I do that in Tme Machine with my external HD?

Format the HDD in Disk Utility>Erase to Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and the open System Preferences>Time Machine and set up the external disk as the Time Machine HDD. Then look at the Options, and exclude what you do not want backed up.
Ciao.

Photos and movies don't appear in Events/Photos but do appear in Last 12 months

Hello. I'm using the latest version of iPhoto 11 (9.1.1). When I browse through my photos via the Events or Photos section of the iPhoto sidebar (under Library), certain photos and movies are missing. They simply don't appear there at all. However, when I click the "Last 12 Months" section of the iPhoto sidebar (under Recent), the photos and movies are there. If I try re-importing the missing photos and movies I'm told they are duplicates, so they must be in my iPhoto Library - they just refuse to show up under Events or Photos! I've tried ticking all the rebuild options by holding down command and option when I start iPhoto, but to no avail. Perhaps there's a setting I've inadvertently ticked that hides certain photos and movies? Hidden Photos is ticked under the View menu. I have View > Sort Photos set to "By date" / "Ascending".
Thanks for all your help!
Cheers,
Greg

since both last 12 months and events or photos are simply different views of the same photos in your library they are there - the most common issue is incorrect dates so you are looking in the wrong event - you can find the event by selecting the photo in the last 12 months view and and right clicking and using the show event command - you can correct the dates by selecting the photo and using the photos menu ==> adjust time/date command
LN

Moving photos and movies to free up space on hard drive

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