Needing to rebuild iPhoto library

Question

In an attempt to move my photo collection to our external hard drive, my iphoto library (iPhoto 4.0.3) seems to have turned into unreadable files. I did the drag to the hard drive from pictures. From what I have read here I think it is time for the rebuild option. Problem is that I was trying to free up space on the internal and the rebuild instructions indicate I should have space equal to the current iPhoto library. What is the best and quickest way to empty out some internal hard drive space? Anything else I need to know about attempting this rebuild? I am using the information in apple support article #107947. Also, what is the exact method for storing my photos on the external where I have plenty of room? Thanks for your help!

Answer 1

Welcome motherofthedome to the discussion group.
I'm not too sure about rebuilding the library, cuz I never have had to do it. I'll leave it to other to respond on this one.
<What is the best and quickest way to empty out some internal hard drive space?>
You did not tell us anything as to what computer you are running, how much internal HD space do you have etc etc...
How big is your iPhoto library? Do you have a very high quality camera 6-8Mpixel, that takes 4MB size per picture? If you tell me that you have a G5 with 120GB internal and it's full, then you must have some enormous files in there.....Do you edit video with iMovie? it could be videos, music iTunes library could be big etc etc.... To give you an example my iTunes library is 23GB big!!!!
< Also, what is the exact method for storing my photos on the external where I have plenty of room>
1-go to the Pictures folder level
2-create a new folder in the External HD and name it "pictures" as well (or yu can add the word "backup")
3-select the iPhotolibrary click and drag over the External HD into the "Pictures Backup"
et voila!
Now if you want to use the iPlibrary that is on the external HD as your default one for iPhoto to use, then follow theses steps below.
iPhoto has to be "inactive" or off.
1-on the Internal HD, in Pictures>iPhotolibrary add a number (any number) to the name, such as "iPhotolibrary8"
2-launch iPhoto... and you will get a dialog box telling you that iP is not able to find the library, (because we changed the name of it with the "8"- computers are dumm sometimes) and it will give you 3 choices. click on "look for the library" or similar. Then search for the library located on the External HD and voila! iPhoto will always launch with that library on the externaHD!
Side note
Keep in mind that if your iPlibrary is very big (3GB or more - mine are about 2GB each) and you are transferring your ONLY one library to the external, then you become vulnerable to loose all your pictures should the external HD crash on you. I'm sure you have heard that It's not a matter of "if" but rather "when" can this happen to you.
It happenend to me and had to spend $800 on a company called Drive Saver to transfert the data from my 2 week old HD that crashed to a newly replaced under warranty HD. Yes the HD was under warranty, but they are not responsible to transfer the info from one HD ot another. Learn from my painfull $$ mistake.
So if you only have one copy on the external HD.... that's it! you can loose everything! I personally left my original on my internal ( I have the space), and have 4 other External HD where I make at least 3 backups of all my iPlibraries. I can't imagine all 4 drives crashing all at once! So think of a location where you would make a copy every week or so! Do you have a laptop with 80GB drive?
Backup baby backing up to DVD is too much of a hassle.
I have 8different libraries that I manage separately with the help of Iphoto buddy. This way I can switch from one library to another without having to use the "primitive change the name/ add a number" technique.
Hope this help!
Michel