Simple way to store old photos on external drive?

I've got 12,000 or so old photos that seem to gum up iPhoto whenever I launch it. I want to save the pics and keep them available but don't need them to be accessable each and every time I launch iPhoto. Is there a simple way to store the bulk of these on an external drive?

You could create a new, "holding" library on the EHD and use iPhoto Library Manager to transfer the photos from your working library to the holding library. Then when you've verified that the holding library has the photos safe and sound you can delete them from your working library. This way you can keep the keyword, titles and comments and edited versions ready to view and use by open the library with iPhoto or transfer those you need back to the working library.
OT

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I photo and external drive

how do i save photos to external drive and possibly set it up that all photos go to external drive so i can save room on my hard drive

Hello Myron,
It can be very handy to store your iPhoto library (and your iTunes library for that matter) on an external drive. Make sure the drive is formated for Mac (MacOSExtended) rather than for Windows (MS-DOS, etc.). Storing Mac data on a windows formated drive reduces performance and can damage data over time.
Apple documents moving the library to other locations on their website: http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=iPhoto/7.0/en/6331.html
You can check to make sure your drive is formated correctly and re-format if needed following another knowledge base article:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=306143
Please be aware that if you do have to reformat the drive it will ERASE any information currently on the drive.
Cheers!

Unable to access photos on external drive

I have Aperture 2.1.3 and I have been using Photo Mechanic to quickly import, edit, and save my photos to one of my external drives. I have been using Aperture to adjust some of these images by importing them into Aperture but the stored files have remained on the external drive. Suddenly, when I try to import the photos from external drive for Aperture manipulation the photos are not available for import. But the photos are viable on my external drive, and If I use Photoshop or Photo Mechanic, I CAN access and import these same files .
I hope this makes sense! I need advise!
thanks to all!
Tony P
Radical Sports Photos

.plist is the preference file. Go to your User/Library/Preferences and take com.apple.Aperture.plist (the preferences are in alphabetical order) and put the file on your desktop. Then restart Aperture. Aperture will return to its default settings and there will be a new preference file in the Library/Preferences folder.
If this clears your problem, then your old plist file was corrupt and you should put it in the trash and rebuild your own preferences.
If you still have the problem after restarting Aperture, then it's not the plist file, and you can trash the new plist and restore your old one from the Desktop back into the Library/Preferences folder.
Have you tried to reboot the machine. Sometimes things go wrong in the connection with an external drive and rebooting the machine clears the problem. You could also reset the PRAM (on boot, hold down Command-Option-P-R and wait for the second chime). Sometimes the PRAM gets corrupted and this affects the relationship with external drives.
You could also import the RAW files into Aperture, instead of using them as referenced files.

My Mac crashed. I got a new hard drive. I reinstalled Lightroom. Fortunately ircats are stored on an external drive. How do I import all of the old catalogues from external drive into a new LR catalogue. I have done it before. It has just been many years

My Mac crashed. I got a new hard drive. I reinstalled Lightroom. Fortunately ircats are stored on an external drive. How do I import all of the old catalogues from external drive into a new LR catalogue. I have done it before. It has just been many years and I can't recall how.

If you had stored your catalog files on an external drive, then all you have to do is double-click on them to open them and use them.
Or you could move them to the internal drive and double-click on them once the move is completed.
To create a single catalog file from multiple ones, you could use File->Import from Another Catalog

I can't Access my 1TB STORE.E ALU 2 External Drive

my name is Martin, I purchased a 1TB STORE.E ALU 2 External Drive frm a dealer in Ghana but can not access the drive though it can be detected alright and thought it requests to be formated but when you try to format it cannot format, pls kindly help me to get this drive to work sincce I can't return it back to where it was purchased, thanks.
I need urgent help !!!
my e-Mail: [email protected]

Hi,
I have just come across the same problem w?th the 320GB STORE ALU External Drive, that we bought 8 months ago, but just today came to use it to free up space on laptop.
Followed Quick Start Guide- Start was ok w?th E icon appearing, and transferred folders showing on new HDD.
But shut down to cool off in hot weather.
Now go back and reattach and the request pops up to Format!
Cannot format as data on it. Tried on other netbook - same request to format.!
But I transferred data to free up Laptop so as to be able to backup off new HDD!
In FAQ- it categorically states that Formating is not required as done in Factory. So what is happening here??
More to the point- can I recover my data?
( did not register etc)
Thanks
CB

Retrieving old photos from external hard drive without replacing current library

Hi everyone,
This problem has probably been discussed before but I have not been able to find a definitive answer. Hopefully I can find a solution to this problem here.
I am having trouble with my workflow in iPhoto. Right now when I place an SD card full of digital photos into my Macbook Pro, I import all of them directly into iPhoto. I use iPhoto to organize my photos and do simple edits and changes. However, recently I have begun to fill up my 250GB hard drive with photos and HD video, so I use an external hard drive to backup my computer before deleting unneeded items. Obviously, the purpose of backing up is to be able to go back and retrieve those items. With items saved in Documents>Photos, they can be easily organized, and then retrieved later from whatever date they were saved on the external drive, adding them back to the existing photos currently on my computer. However, iPhoto is a great tool, so I prefer to use it instead. But I notice that saving an iPhoto library onto a backup drive is not the same as saving a folder full of pictures. When I try to open an iPhoto library from my external hard drive, it tells me something about not being able to open it, or replacing my current library with the old one just to view my pictures. I simply want to find old photos saved within iPhoto, and add them to my existing library. Does iPhoto really only allow you to open one library at a time, and not browse them and add them together? If so, then just saving photos outside of iPhoto in Documents seems like a better workflow for retrieval, but at the cost of not being able to utilize iPhoto's capabilities.
If my view of how iPhoto works here is very wrong, please let me know. I just don't want to have to save my photos outside of iPhoto just to be able to find them again without replacing my current photos. Thanks everyone for your help.

iPhoto can only open one library at a time.
Here's one way to do what you want:
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 option (or alt) 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

I have a macbook air late 2010 and keep getting a warning that my hard drive is full and to delete things so I purchased a external hard drive (1TB) but I'm just not sure what the correct way to transfer and store files to the external drive is. First MAC

I purchased a macbook air about 5 months ago and lately i keep recieving a warning that the hard drive or disk is full and that I will need to move items to trash in order to free up space on it. I purchased a external hard drive 1 TB but I'm very new to mac and ios and unsure as to how I'm suppose to transfer my files (video, pics, music etc.) from my mac over to the external hard drive in the correct way so I won't end up deleting them permenately or screwing anything up with my mac as far as the applications and programs being able to run. Am I supposed to just copy to the external hard drive and then move to and empty the trash? That's pretty much all I could come up with, but then what if i need or want to access that file again at a later time. Also, I have an i Phone and i pad so with i cloud it automatically syncs all my purcheses and if i delete something from itunes on my mac it deletes from my ipad.
I'd appreciate any kind of input i think im just a little lost here. I have to say i love my Mac and wouldn't trade it for anything (except maybe a macbook pro w/more memory)... Is there something I'm missing???

To free up hard drive space the best bet is to move data files that you don't need access to all the time. Likely candidates are music, video, and photos. Things like word processing and spreadsheet files can also be moved but they tend not to be very large and so don't free up much space. The problem with moving the above mentioned files is that iTunes and iPhoto need to know where the files are stored.
Here's an article explaining how to move the iTunes folder. You can move the iPhoto library using the Finder but there is a slight complication. Start iPhoto, open the Preferences and click on the Advanced tab. The first option is "Copy items to the iPhoto Library". If this option is checked, copy the iPhoto library to your external folder (drag it from the Pictures folder to your external drive) and then delete it from your Picture folder. If this option is not checked, it is a bit more complicated and we'll need to talk a bit.

What is the best way to move photos to external drive?

My internal drive is filling up and I'd like to move my photos in iPhoto onto an external hard drive, but stil view them in iPhoto?
What is the best way to do this?

You can copy your entire iPhoto library to the external drive. You can find it in your user library.
After copying it over, start iPhoto with the option key depressed. It might be the Control key instead so try that if the option key doesn't work. This wil give you the option of selecting a different iPhoto library. Navigate to your external har drive and select the iPhoto library you copied there. iPhoto will, in the future, continue to look for the library on the external drive every time you start iPhoto. You will not have to navigate there again, iPhoto will find the library as long as you do not move it and the drive in on and connected.
Once iPhoto is finding the library on the external drive you can delete the library on your internal drive to free up space there.

What's the best way to store old FCP projects & media?

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I've started to accumulate more and more video content of client projects, but I don't want to delete it in case they come back a year later looking for an update on the video product I made them.
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I thought maybe a BluRay burner might do the trick.
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Easiest Way to Move Media from One External Drive to Another?

My MacBook Pro only has a 500GB hard drive and I currently have all my movies on a 1TB external hard drive. Everything works fine through iTunes, but now since the 1TB is maxed out, I'd like to use my new 2TB external hard drive going forward. I understand that I need to re-route where iTunes finds the movies, but what is the easiest way to make the conversion from the 1TB to the 2TB?
I have copied all movies from the 1TB to the 2TB. Is the only thing left to do is re-route the location to the 2TB? Or do I need to drag and drop all movies into iTunes (they're all already in there)? Just didn't know if I needed to add them into iTunes again so they know to point to the 2TB drive. (sorry if I didn't explain that good!)
Thanks in advance for your help!

Thanks Limnos! Really appreciate the help!
To clarify:
- I currently have only movies on the external 1TB drive (which iTunes points too). The downside is that I ALWAYS have to have my external drive plugged in, in order to play on Apple TV (or view on MacBook). I have appx. over 500GBs of movies on my external 1TB.
- All music (appx. 200GBs) is currently on my internal hard disk, but with a 500GB internal hard drive, that's going to fill up quickly (just so you know - I already have about 125GBs of pics in iPhoto AND work in Photoshop regularly so PSDs lessen my internal 500GB space quickly).
Eventhough I HATE having to keep an external drive plugged into my MacBook, I'm just going to have to suck it up and get used to it so I will have more space and my MacBook will run faster.
With that in mind, I was thinking about moving my music (200GBs) onto my 2TB external drive (along with the movies). So that would leave roughly the photos and Photoshop files (and random other things that are small in size) on my internal drive.
I could start all over and delete all movies that are in iTunes (the application - not the folders) and then drag and drop them into iTunes from the new 2TB, but I wasn't sure all the metadata (really the cover artwork) would be attached when I did that? Going that route really doesn't bother me since I've already copied all movies files from my 1TB to my 2TB. Basically, I would be starting over from scratch as if the old 1TB never existed.
Trying to run this through my mind and come up with the best/easiest way. What I don't want to do is try and find cover artwork for the almost 300 movies I have (and all the cover artwork for the CDs I have too if I decide to keep my music on the 2TB external drive).
Hope that helps and makes sense? Thanks again!

Migration of catalog file only to a new computer, keeping photos on external drive

I have PSE 10 on an old computer, and have all of my photos stored on an external hard drive. I now have a new computer with PSE 11 on it, and I'd like to move the catalog file, which sits on the old computer to the new computer so that I can use it to see all the photos on the external drive now. I do not want to do a full backup and restore, since the photos are staying on the same external hard drive. I just want the file that has all the tags and organizational information to move to the new computer. How do I do that? The system information process on the old computer said that the catalog is named My Catalog and is in a particular directory (C:\ProgramData\Adobe\Elements Organizer\Catalogs\My Catalog\), but I don't see a file by that name when I look there, even though in control panel I have the system set to no hidden files. Thanks for any help - I'm getting incredibly frustrated.

OK one last question - I moved the catalog file to the new computer, but I put it on the desktop. I double-clicked it and it all worked like a charm. And now all the temp files and such live there.
Is there a good way to move it into the Adobe folder? I tried moving it all into the C:\Program Files\Adobe\Elements 9 Organizer, but there isn't a "Catalog" folder like there was on the old computer. So I just moved it in the C:\Program Files\Adobe folder and double-clicked it; i got an error saying the catalog was corrupt or something. So I moved it back to the desktop and all is fine.
So how do I move it off the desktop - and where should i put it?

Deleting photos from external drive when referenced (not copied) to iPhoto

Hi, I've seen similar posts, but none of them really answers my question.
I have an external NAS drive with RAID, where I keep ALL my data, because I use number of ways to access them. I also have my photos there. I recently bouht MAC MINI and I want to use it to organise my photos. Because I have only 80G drive on MAC, I choose to import the photos from the external drive to iPhoto, NOT copying them to it's own library but rather referencing them only.
Now the question I have - When I delete a photo in iPhoto by putting it to Trash and then empty the trash, the file still stays on the external drive, although it disapperas from iPhoto library. This is uselesss to me, because I WANT the file to be deleted from the external drive (orginizaing the files, right?).
The only way I found I can do this is clicking on the file in iPhoto, selecting "find file on disk" then deleting the file from disk, then deleting from iPhoto, one by one. That is no way to do it, I would rather use Picasa instead, although I like iPhoto more, I think it is superior in almost everything else.
One more question: is there a way to see a list of directories imported to iPhoto?
thanks,
J.

J.
What I need is to delete the file when I "look" at it,
Use a File Organiser. That’s what they are for, organising files. Other than that, if you’re using a database application such as iPhoto then you have to use the application to manipulate the data.
You ask a question:
But I am still wondering why isn't there any setup option to actually allow iPhoto to delete referenced files.
and the answer
I know it may cause some problems for some user,
iPhoto is firmly focussed on the home user with a point and shoot camera. It’s very effective at what to does, but it does very simple things. Any setting that could lead to inadvertent data loss is avoided. (There are occasional posts on the forum from folks who uncheck that ‘Copy Files to Library on Import‘ setting but who then don’t actually move the files from the camera. They wonder why iPhoto has “lost their photos“.)
You mention that you’re using the NAS so that access your photos in a number of ways. IF you can tell us what ways you use, perhaps we can help.
I just need to know which directories I imported to iPhoto.
How are these directories organised? Named?
Regards
TD

Moving photos from external drive to iPhoto '11

OK. I'm going nuts. I recently purchased an iMac and I migrated all of the photos from my old G5 with no problems. All of my photos and their Album structures came along. Now, I also have a lot of different photos on a MacBook that is also running 10.6.6 and iPhoto '11. The MacBook is backed up onto an external drive which I am trying to use to move the photos to the iMac. I have tried what Terrence Devlin suggests. I tried to drag the MacBook iPhoto library into the iMac Pictures folder, but it asks me if I want to replace the existing iPhoto library. I most certainly do not. I don't want to lose anything that is already on the iMac.
I tried manually exporting folders from the external drive by clicking individual albums in iPhoto and "exporting" them to the iMac desktop, but not all of the photos come in the export, no matter which folder I try to export.
Yesterday, before I updated the laptop to iPhoto '11, I created a new iPhoto Library on the iMac and dragged the entire iPhoto Library from the MacBook into that new Library. It worked, however it all came over into one big album and my previous album structure was gone. There are waaaaay too many photos for me to go back through and sort them again. Did that happen because I was going from an older version of iPhoto to a newer version or will it happen again if I drag the MacBook iPhoto Library into a NEW library on the iMac? (I only ask before I try because it took several hours the first time.)
So what do I do? I want all of my photos on the iMac with my existing Album structure. If I have to do it Album by Album fine, but how? Selecting every photo from an album and dragging it to a folder on the desktop doesn't work either. I can always take every photo minus one. Weird.
Thanks,
John

What you want to do is merge the two Libraries? The only way to do this is to use the paid ($20) version of iPhoto Library Manager
I created a new iPhoto Library on the iMac and dragged the entire iPhoto Library from the MacBook into that new Library. It worked, however it all came over into one big album and my previous album structure was gone
Never import one Library to another. Every version and thumbnail is imported like a distinct photo, you lose all your Albums, Keywords etc., the link between Original and Previews is destroyed, the non-destructive editing feature is ruined and so on. In summary: it's mess.
Regards
TD

Best way to back up mac and external drive to time machine?

My LaCie external Time Machine drive crashed on me somehow and I had to repartition it. I have a second back up (different external drive) through CCC so Im not worried about data loss, but for the life of me, I cant remember how I had time machine configured to back up. I have a second separate external drive that contains my iphoto, imovie and itunes libraries on it. I think I had time machine set up to back that drive up along with my mac separtely somehow, but after thinking about it, isnt that a little redundant. Am I not backing up my iphoto/imovie/itunes external drive through my mac back up? Seems like before I could go into time machine and open that drive from there. If so, is there any reason to back up the iphoto drive separately along with my mac back on time machine, or is that even possible? Would it be easier to restore the iphoto hard drive if it were backup up separately, not as a part of my mac backup? I have had my CCC back up (a second external back up drive) set up to back up the mac and the pic/video/itunes drive separately.

If you open TimeMachine's preferences and click on the Options button you'll see that it works with a simple exclusion rule. It assumes it should back up everything on every drive connected to it except for those files, folders, and drives you exclude.
Like you, I have a separate external drive for media. After playing around with TimeMachine way back when I realized that each time I edited the meta data for music the song or movie got backed up again. I also discovered that at that time TM didn't play nice with iPhoto's library. Given these issues I decided to exclude my media hard drive from TimeMachine and back it up using ChronoSync (on an automatic schedule) once a week.
After some thought I decided I didn't want a simple clone because if a song or movie became corrupt I didn't want to overwrite a good song with a corrupt version. ChronoSync does archiving. When doing a backup if it finds a file has been changed it archives the old one and overwrites with the new one. I look at the logs each week to see if any archiving took place. If I didn't do any editing that week there shouldn't be.
BTW - being a belt and suspenders kind of tech, I have multiple backup drives so one TM drive and one media drive is always off site. A backup is no good if the thief steals it.

Simple way to store old photos on external drive?

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