Store Mac Photos Library On External Hard Drive

Tips

By AppleInsider Staff
Wednesday, January 31, 2018, 04:40 pm PT (07:40 pm ET)

How to safely move your Mac's iPhoto library onto an external drive. By Stephen Robles Saturday, January 24, 2015, 11:00 pm PT (02:00 am ET) Today's digital cameras and advanced smartphones like. Change where your files are stored in Photos on Mac. When you import photos and videos into Photos, they’re copied to the Photos library in the Pictures folder. If you prefer, you can store photos and videos outside the Photos library (for example, in a folder on your Mac or on an external drive) and still view them in Photos. Jan 23, 2017 This is a tutorial on how to copy all photos from Apple's new Photos App (2017) to a hard drive. Including iCloud. HOW TO MOVE APPLE PHOTOS LIBRARY TO EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE - Duration: 7:58. Oct 18, 2015 I am trying to downsize the space used on my hard drive (OS X El Capitan 10.11, 2.5 GHz Intel Core i5, 4 GB 1600 MHz DDR3). I took a new Seagate Backup Plus Portable External Hard Drive (1 TB), formatted it and copied the Photos library to it (took over an hour to copy the file with other programs on my MacBook Pro not in use).

Storing an entire collection of photographs in Apple's Photos app on macOS can be a great way of keeping precious memories in order, but there are occasions when it needs to be stored on an external hard drive. AppleInsider explains how to shift the Photos Library to a new location while keeping all images safe and intact.

There are multiple reasons to move the Photos Library away from its default location, with the primary reason being to free up a Mac's storage. Images and videos can quickly consume storage, especially for prolific photographers shooting RAW files, so moving the library to an external drive can be the best option for those with internal drives that are close to their capacity limit.
Putting the library onto external storage also provides the option of sharing the library with others directly, by disconnecting the drive from the host Mac and plugging it into another. This is also useful for those who wish to use the same library across multiple desktops, like an iMac and a MacBook Pro, if they need to regularly access and change the held files.


Pre-move Backup


Before attempting any file transfers, it is highly recommended to make backups of all images, as there is always the possibility of file corruption or another mishap, and keeping a backup is always a good idea for just these occasions. An up-to-date Time Machine backup is ideal, but it is best to make sure the external or remote drive used for the backup is different to the one you wish to use for the Photo Library storage itself.

It may also be worth using cloud storage services to hold the images, such as Apple's own iCloud Drive, Dropbox, and Google Drive. It might also be an idea to try out iCloud Photo Library, a service that automatically uploads your photographs to iCloud, which can be shared to iOS devices and other Mac desktops using the same Apple ID.


Finding the Folder


Before you can make the move, you need to find where the Photo Library is actually located. In most instances, it should appear in the Pictures folder of your Home directory, labelled as 'Photos Library,' potentially alongside other similar libraries for Photo Booth and iPhoto, the predecessor to Photos.

Store Mac Photos Library On External Hard Drive Best Buy

In the event it isn't at the default location, you can find it by opening up the Photos appStore, clicking Photos in the Menu Bar, then selecting Preferences. At the top of the General section will be a line marked

Apple External Hard Drives

Library Location, which will show where it is located, as well as an option to Show in Finder, which will spawn a new Finder window at the right directory.


Importing from iPhone


First, connect your iPhone to your Mac with a Lightning to USB charging cable. A popup will ask if you want to trust your computer, tap 'Trust' and enter your passcode.
Now open Photos on your Mac, where your iPhone will appear under the Devices tab on the left side of the app. From here, you can browse through all of the photos or video in your iOS Camera Roll.

At the top of the page, click on Library, and you can choose to make a New Album for the import. If you wish to erase the photos off of your iPhone after importing, check the box below the Import button before clicking it.
If you chose that option, you will see your photos being deleted off of your iPhone in real-time after importing is completed. Your iPhone photos are now successfully backed up onto your Mac.

The Move


If it is still running, quit Photos by selecting ExternalQuit Photos under the Photos Menu Bar, or by pressing Cmd+Q.
Connect the external drive that you wish to use for storing the library, and once it appears on your desktop, drag the Photos Library away from its current location within the Finder and on top of the external drive icon. If you want to place the Photos Library in a specific place within the new drive, open the external drive in a second Finder window, navigate to the correct directory, and drag Photos Library to the right place.
The amount of time it will take for the Photos Library to transfer to the new location will vary on a number of factors, including the amount of images that need to be transferred, the speed of the external drive for transfers, and the transfer method itself. Generally, transfers to an external drive over Thunderbolt 3 will offer the fastest potential speeds when compared to Thunderbolt 2 and USB-based drives.


Accessing the Library


After the file transfer has completed, you will need to inform Photos of the new location. To do this, hold the Option key and click the Photos icon in the dock to launch the app.
This will bring up a new Choose Library window, with a list of libraries available for you to access. Click Other Library and navigate to the location on the external drive that holds the now-transferred Photos Library, select the Library, and then click Open.


At this point, Photos will open and use the library located on the external drive.
While this process can be used to reconnect with the Photos Library, it can also be used to switch between multiple Photo Library archives. This is handy in some cases, such as if a friend or colleague provides their Photo Library on a portable drive for you to browse and use for work.
Note that in order to access your photographs, the external drive needs to be connected to the Mac before entering Photos. The Photos app will warn you if the Library is not accessible in this case, with the solution being to quit Photos and reconnect the drive before relaunching Photos.

Designating the System Photo Library


If you want to use the moved Photos Library - or one of a collection of the Libraries - with a number of Apple services and features, such as synchronization with iCloud Photo Library, iCloud Photo Sharing, and My Photo Stream, you will need to designate it as the System Photo Library. This also applies if you wish to have the photographs used by other apps, or to set an image as the desktop background.
Generally, the initially created Photo Library will be the System Photo Library by default, but actions such as moving it or designating another Library temporarily with the label can stop a Photos Library from being used in this way.
To re-enable it, hold down the Option key and open Photos, then select the Library you want to use as the System Photo Library. Once opened, select Photos in the Menu bar then Preferences.
Within the General tab of the Preferences window, you should see the current Library's path under Library Location, and two buttons: the previously discussed Show in Finder and Use as System Photos Library

Store Mac Photos Library On External Hard Drive For Mac

. Click the second option to set it as the System Photo Library.


Clearing Space

Store Mac Photos Library On External Hard Drive 500 Gb


One of the main aims of this project is to free up space on your Mac's internal drive, and since the Photos Library resides elsewhere, it is likely to be in your interests to delete the locally-held version. Make sure that this Library is no longer required, and that the version on the external drive is complete and functional before considering deletion of the local copy.
Use Finder to navigate to the directory where Photos Library was located, as discovered in the 'Finding the Folder' section above. Right click on the Photos Library and select Move to Trash.
To completely remove it from the Mac, open the Trash from the Dock or Finder window, and click the Empty button on the top right of the window, followed by selecting Empty Trash in the confirmation dialog.
31 17 likes 23,943 views Last modified Mar 10, 2019 1:54 AM

This user tip has been moved to this new location: Where is it safe to store a Photos Librar… - Apple Community


Store Mac Photos Library On External Hard Drive Black Friday

The old version will no longer be updated, because editing it will change the formatting.


Mac Photos Library On External Hard Drive

--------------------- deprecated, ignore ---------------------------------

Photo Libraries tend to grow over the years, and sooner or later they will be too large to be stored on the system drive. We can move our Photos Libraries to an external drive, but the drive needs to be correctly formatted as MacOS Extended (Journaled) or APFS and locally mounted. Do not format the external drive for the Photos Library as case-sensitive, if the internal drive is not case-sensitive. A case-sensitive drive for the Photos Library can cause flag, if the drive is to be used from different user accounts or computers.

You should not use the drive you are using for Time Machine to host your Photos Library, or Time Machine cannot back up the library. See: Back up the Photos library on Mac - Apple SupportWARNING: If a Photos library is located on an external drive, don’t use Time Machine to store a backup on that external drive. The permissions for your Photos library may conflict with those for the Time Machine backup.Occasionally Photos will also not be able to connect to the library again, if you want to open it a second time.

This user tip was generated from the following discussion: Where is it save to store a Photos Library? Requirements for the external driveApple fixed the Photos Help. The paragraph below is no longer valid:

Moving photo library to external drive mac. Launch Photos on your Mac.Either right-click on My Albums in the sidebar, or hover above and then click on the + button that appears next to My Albums. They're great for helping you quickly organize images without the need of manually adding each one to an album because it's all automated. Click New Folder.Give your folder a name.Drag the albums that you want into that folder.How to use Smart AlbumsSmart Albums are like regular albums, but smarter, obviously.

Photos 3.0 on macOS 10.13 High Sierra introduced an added complication. If we move a library to an external drive, the library can no longer be backed up using Time Machine. We have to use a different backup method for the library, for example clone the external drive to a backup drive.https://support.apple.com/guide/photos/system-photo-library-overview-pht211de786

WARNING: If a Photos library is located on an external drive, don’t back up the drive using Time Machine. The permissions for your Photos library may conflict with those for the Time Machine backup.