Move Photos Library To External Mac

Tips

By Stephen Robles
Saturday, January 24, 2015, 11:00 pm PT (02:00 am ET)

Today's digital cameras and advanced smartphones like the iPhone 6 take stunningly detailed photos, but all that extra resolution comes at the price of larger image files. Moving part or all of your iPhoto Library to an external hard drive is one of the most effective ways to free up precious space.

Oct 25, 2019 Click on Photos in the sidebar, under the Library section. Pick out the photos you want to add to an album, either new or existing. Hold down the command key on your Mac and click to select multiple photos. Right-click on your chosen photos and videos. This action doesn't delete the photos from the library. Switch to the library you want to add them to. Import the photos into the new library. Move Your iPhoto Library to a New Location/Mac. Even though you can use the multiple libraries tricks to move your photos to a different location, you can also move it by using a simple drag and drop. In addition to moving your multi-gigabyte iTunes library to an external drive, a significant amount of Mac storage space can be freed up by moving your photo libraries onto a separate drive. If you take a lot of pictures with a DSLR camera or your iOS devices and import them in Photos, you’ll fairly quickly run out of free space on most Macs.

Click the Add icon on the top right of the window. Click “Open” to start to input songs from PC/Mac to iTunes Library.Option 2. To make it fast to add a couple of songs to iTunes Library, you’re suggested to put them in a folder first before importing them to iTunes Library.In the pop-up window, find the song or folder that you want to import to iTunes Library. Then choose either “Add File” or “Add Folder”. Choose the way that’s right for you to add songs to iTunes Library.Option 1. Library



Before starting the process, we suggest making an up to date Time Machine backup of your computer to an external hard drive or Time Capsule. Be sure the external hard drive you use to perform this backup is a separate unit from the one you will move the iPhoto Library to should anything happen.
If you have an account with a cloud storage service, such as Dropbox, Google Drive or even iCloud Drive, you can also upload the iPhoto Library to these services for extra redundancy.


To begin moving your library, open iPhoto, click File in the Menu Bar and select Switch to Library.


A new window will appear listing any and all iPhoto Libraries detected on your computer. If you're not sure where the iPhoto Library file is located, look at the (Default) listing and the file path will be listed underneath. This should be located in the Pictures folder of your Home directory.


Mac Photo Library Management

Quit iPhoto by going to Quit iPhoto

Move Iphoto Library To Photos

in the iPhoto Menu Bar or pressing Cmd+Q. Connect the external hard drive that you will use to copy the iPhoto Library. You should see it appear on your desktop.


Open a new Finder window and click Pictures in the left sidebar. Click and drag the iPhoto Library file onto the external hard drive icon on your Desktop.


Depending on how large your library is and the connection speed of the external drive, it may take several minutes or longer to complete the copy process.
Once the copy is completed, hold the Option key on your keyboard and open iPhoto from the Dock or Applications folder. A new window will pop up asking you to Create a New Library, Choose the Selected Library or Other Library. Click on Other Library.


In the browser window that appears, navigate to your external hard drive, click the iPhoto Library file you've copied and click Choose.
iPhoto will open and as long as the external hard drive is connected, will reference the library on the external drive and not on your computer's drive.

Quit iPhoto once again and eject the external hard drive holding your new iPhoto Library. Open a new Finder window and navigate to the Pictures folder in the left sidebar again.

Right click or Ctrl+click on the iPhoto file and move it to the Trash.


Finally, to free up the space on your internal hard drive, open the Trash from the Dock or Finder window and click Empty Trash in the upper right corner.

Copy Photos Library To External Drive



Your iPhoto Library has officially been removed from the internal drive. You can now reconnect the external hard drive you used to copy the iPhoto library, open iPhoto and use it as normal.
If you open iPhoto without your external hard drive connected, iPhoto will give you an error message saying the 'Library cannot be found.' Quit iPhoto, connect the external hard drive and reopen to fix.

Move Photos Library To External Mac Drive


For those looking to expand their beyond their Mac's internal storage HDD or SSD, AppleInsider recommends having at least 1TB of extra space at the ready. A few high quality external and portable hard drive options from Seagate, HGST and Western Digital are listed below.

Apple Photos Library External Drive

  • Seagate 1TB Backup Plus Slim for Mac for $72.99 from B&H and Amazon.com or $88.99 from MacMall
      Also available in 2TB for $99 from Amazon and B&H or $149.99 from MacMall

  • HGST 1TB Touro S Ultra-Portable External Hard Drive for $69.99 from B&H or $83.99 from MacMall
      Available in 4TB for $149 from Amazon and B&H

  • Western Digital 1TB My Passport Drive for Mac from Amazon for $68.45, $69.00 from B&H or $70.99 from MacMall
      Available in 2TB for $96.24 from Amazon, $99 from B&H or $101.99 from MacMall