Transfer Photo Library From External Hard Drive Back To Mac

05.04.2020
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  • Mar 18, 2020 Your Photos library holds all your photos, albums, slideshows, and print projects. If your library is large, and you want to free up storage space on your Mac, turn on iCloud Photo Library and use Optimize Mac Storage, or move your library to an external drive. Before you start, be sure to back up your library.
  • Jun 04, 2019  Move photos, files, and mail from Mac to Surface. Content provided by Microsoft. Connect the external hard drive to a USB port on your Mac and a power source (if required). You don’t need to copy the Photo Library folder in Pictures if you already moved your photos over.
  • Dec 11, 2018  Moving Your Photos Library. To understand how this works, it’s important to know how the Photos app catalogs files. It’s actually simple; there’s a single file that contains your entire library. If you want to back this up, you plug in your external hard drive and drag the whole file over to that hard drive in the sidebar of Finder.
  • Use external camera on mac.
  1. External Hard Drive Walmart
  2. Transfer Photo Library From Mac To External Hard Drive
  3. External Hard Drive For Mac
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  5. Transfer Photo Library From External Hard Drive Back To Mac Computer

Can I transfer an iPhoto library (Mac) to a Windows computer and still be able to access the files? I have two external hard drives that I frequently use to back up my files, and both are Mac/Windows compatible. How to increase photo library volume on mac windows 10. The issue is just if the iPhoto Library will be transferable or not.

Your Photos library holds all your photos, albums, slideshows and print projects. If your library is large, and you want to free up storage space on your Mac, turn on iCloud Library and use Optimise Mac Storage, or move your photo library to an external drive.

Before you start, make sure that you back up your library.

Prepare your drive

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You can store your library on an external storage device, such as a USB or Thunderbolt drive formatted as APFS or Mac OS Extended (Journaled).1 Find out how to check the format of your external storage device.

To prevent data loss, Apple doesn't recommend storing photo libraries on external storage devices like SD cards and USB flash drives, or drives that are shared on a network.

Move your Photos library to an external storage device

  1. Quit Photos.
  2. In the Finder, go to the external drive where you want to store your library.
  3. In another Finder window, find your library. The default location is Users > [username] > Pictures, and it's named Photos Library.
  4. Drag your library to its new location on the external drive. If you see an error, select your external drive's icon in the Finder, then choose File > Get Info. If the information under Sharing & Permissions isn't visible, click , then make sure that the 'Ignore ownership on this volume' checkbox is selected. If it's not selected, click to unlock it, enter an administrator name and password, then select the checkbox.2

  5. After the move is finished, double-click Photos Library in its new location to open it.
  6. If you use iCloud Photo Library, designate this library as the System Photo Library.

Delete original library to save space

After you open your library from its new location and make sure that it works as expected, you can delete the library from its original location.

In a Finder window, go back to your Pictures folder (or whichever folder you copied your library from) and move Photos Library to the trash. Then choose Finder > Empty Trash to delete the library and reclaim disc space.

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Open another Photos library

If you have multiple libraries, you can open a different one like this:

  1. Quit Photos.
  2. Press and hold the Option key while you open Photos.
  3. Select the library that you want to open, then click Choose Library.

Transfer Photo Library From Mac To External Hard Drive

Photos uses this library until you open a different one.

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Learn more

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If you have a permissions issue with your library, you might be able to resolve the issue by using the Photos library repair tool.

1. You can't move your library to a disc that's used for Time Machine backups.

Transfer Photo Library From External Hard Drive Back To Mac Computer

2. If the volume isn't formatted APFS or Mac OS Extended (Journaled), or has been used for Time Machine backups but hasn't been deleted, this checkbox will either not be present or won't be selectable after unlocking. Delete and reformat the drive for this option to be available.