Sep 23, 2011  also, if you buy a mac, and then transfer all of your photos at once, and forever upload your photos via iphoto, i can see it doing a good job of organizing, but i am combining photos from years, and some of them are duplicates, others i want to throw away, i need to. 'PowerPhotos is an extremely useful addition as an enhancement for any Photos user trying to perform tasks that fall outside of Photos restricted purview.' – Macworld 'PowerPhotos may lack the punch of its predecessor, iPhoto Library Manager, but it’s indispensable for those.

• macOS Mojave or Catalina

The ultimate toolbox for Photos on your Mac

PowerPhotos works with the built-in Photos app on your Mac, providing an array of tools to help you get your photo collection in order.

Create and manage multiple libraries

Instead of being limited to putting all your photos in a single library, PowerPhotos can work with multiple Photos libraries, giving you many more options for how to organize your ever growing photo collection.

Splitting your photos between multiple libraries helps Photos open more quickly, lets you archive older photos, store some of your collection on an external hard drive, and reduce storage space used by iCloud Photo Library.

Copy photos and their metadata

You can split your library by copying albums and photos with a simple drag and drop. PowerPhotos will take care of copying the photos and retaining their metadata, including keywords, descriptions, titles, dates, and favorite status. Read more about what PowerPhotos can copy.

Merge Photos libraries

Got a whole bunch of libraries you want to consolidate into one? PowerPhotos lets you merge your libraries together while weeding out duplicate photos in the process. You will be shown a preview of what your merged library will look like before any modifications are done, to ensure your merged library looks how you want.

Find duplicate photos

It's easy to have multiple copies of the same photo creep into your photo collection over time. Use PowerPhotos to find duplicate photos in one or more libraries, view them side by side, and separate them into albums where you can easily delete them from your library.

Browse and search

Use PowerPhotos' image browser to quickly view your photos without having to open Photos itself. View detailed photo information using List View, and search for photos across all your libraries at once.

Migrate your iPhoto/Aperture libraries

Merge Photos Libraries Mac Os

If you have a lot of existing iPhoto or Aperture libraries that you want to migrate over to Photos, PowerPhotos will help automate your migrations so you don't have to spend time babysitting this lengthy process.

Links and reviews

'PowerPhotos is an extremely useful addition as an enhancement for any Photos user trying to perform tasksthat fall outside of Photos restricted purview.' – Macworld

'PowerPhotos may lack the punch of its predecessor, [iPhoto Library Manager], but it’s indispensable for those making the transition to Photos.' – Mac|Life

Video tutorial: Remove duplicate photos in Photos for Mac – PC Classes Online

'PowerPhotos was just what I needed… Two features make it a must-have: merging multiple Photos libraries into one, and finding duplicate photos' – Bob Levitus, Houston Chronicle

With the upgrade to Photos, many Mac users have been left with a duplicate iPhoto library on their Macs. Here’s how to delete iPhoto library and clear out some clutter.

iPhoto used to be the standard photo editor and photo management system on Macs, at least for the average computer user. Like it or not, however, that all changed when Apple first introduced the software, nearly a year ago. If your Mac came from Apple with Photos already installed, you don’t need to worry about old iPhoto libraries.

A Mac that was upgraded to a new version of OS X that added the Photos app, however, can end up with what look like duplicates of their photo libraries. The first time you start up Photos after upgrading, your Mac will copy over your photo library into the new software (if you explicitly set up more than one old iPhoto library, you’ll have to copy them over yourself). It doesn’t go back and delete the old one, though.

Here’s where things get a little bit confusing: you don’t actually have two copies of your photos. Thanks to the way OS X (the software that powers your Mac, like Windows powers a PC) works, your pictures aren’t actually stored in those libraries. Instead, they’re stored somewhere else on your hard drive, and each library has what Apple calls a “hard link” to the pictures. As a result, each library can access the photos, but store separate information about them. You can delete either library safely; only if you were to delete both libraries would you lose access to your pictures.

While having a second copy of your photo library doesn’t take up that much extra space on your computer, it can still be confusing – first of all, each library reports that it’s a certain size, which can make it difficult to figure out how much room is left on your Mac. Additionally, if you need to back things up, it can be hard to figure out where your files are.

Still with us? Let’s recap:

• if you upgrade your Mac from iPhoto to Photos, you’ll get a second photo library
• if you had multiple iPhoto libraries (you would know if you did), you’ll need to copy them into Photos manually
• the libraries each link to a single copy of your photos, rather than storing each photo twice
• it can appear that your libraries are taking up more space than they are, thanks to the way hard links work
• you can safely delete either photo library – only if you delete both of them will you lose access to your photos

How to delete iPhoto library on your Mac

Now that you understand why you might want to delete an old iPhoto library, and why you don’t necessarily have to, let’s talk about how to actually do it.

Before you do anything like this on your Mac – that is, delete something potentially important – you should back up your software with something like Time Machine.

Read: How to Backup Your Mac with Time Machine

That way, if you accidentally delete something important, or something else goes wrong, you can always roll things back to how they were when you started. This is really easy, and there’s nothing to be concerned about; it’s just good practice to back things up (and keep them backed up) before you muck about in your computer.

First, you’ll need to open a Finder window: you can do this by clicking on the Finder icon (it looks like a square face) on the dock, or by clicking on your Mac’s desktop background and hitting ⌘+N (Command + N) on your keyboard.

Next, look at the left-hand column in the new window. You’ll see a list of locations around your Mac; find the one that says Pictures and click on it. You’ll be taken to that directory, which contains libraries for Apple’s image-related apps (Photos, iPhoto, Photo Booth, etc).

In the list of files on the right, scroll down and look for your iPhoto library – it’ll be a little iPhoto icon, and the name will read, unsurprisingly, iPhoto Library. Don’t worry about accidentally deleting your Photo Booth or Photos libraries; you’ll be able to see which one is which.

To actually delete the library, you can do one of three things:

1. Click on the iPhoto Library listing, and without letting go of your mouse or trackpad button, drag it until it’s over top the Trash icon on your dock. Once you’re on top of the Trash, let go.
2. You can select (click on) the iPhoto Library, then right-click on your mouse or Trackpad (Apple will call this Secondary Click in your Mouse or Trackpad settings). A new menu will pop up; find the entry that says Move to Trash and click on it.
3. Finally, you can also delete your iPhoto Library by clicking on it and hitting ⌘+Delete (Command + Delete) on your keyboard.

How To Combine Photo Libraries

Read: How to uninstall apps on Mac OS X

Merge Photos Libraries

Now that you’ve gotten rid of your iPhoto library, it makes sense to completely uninstall iPhoto – that way you won’t accidentally create a new iPhoto Library and have to repeat all these steps. It’s as simple as opening up your Applications folder, and deleting iPhoto (using one of the three steps we just discussed). For a more in-depth look at how to uninstall apps on your Mac, be sure to check out our guide above!

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