Jul 12, 2017 By default, Photos creates its library in your Pictures folder, but it can be easily moved or newly created. There are any number of reasons you might want to create a new Photos library or move it to another location. We wanted to move our library because our “Pictures” folder (which is actually a special user folder) is located on our.
Copying photos from one Mac to another
If you want to copy photos from a library on one Mac to a different library on another Mac, you can do that with two basic steps. First, follow the instructions in Accessing an iPhoto library on another Mac so that one of your Macs has access to both libraries. Then, you can perform any copying between those libraries just like any other libraries on your Mac, including copying albums, events, or photos, or merging libraries.
When copying between Macs, here are a couple things to watch out for:
iPhoto library open on the other Mac
An iPhoto library can only be open by one copy of iPhoto at a time, so if iPhoto is still running on the remote Mac when you try copying photos, you will probably receive an error message from iPhoto when you try to open that library, complaining that the library is locked. If this happens, make sure to quit iPhoto on the other Mac before proceeding with copying your photos.
Different versions of iPhoto installed on the two Macs
Ideally, both machines should be running the same version of iPhoto. iPhoto Library Manager will allow you to copy between libraries of different versions, but the library that you're copying to must always match the version of iPhoto that's installed on the Mac you're using iPhoto Library Manager on.
If the destination library is newer than your version of iPhoto, you won't be able to perform the copy, and you might want to consider working on the Mac with the newer version to perform your copying.
If the destination library is older than your version of iPhoto, then iPhoto will prompt you and ask if you want to upgrade the library to the new version of iPhoto. If you tell it to upgrade the library, and your other Mac is still running an older version of iPhoto, then you will not be able to access the upgraded library from that other Mac without installing the newer version of iPhoto itself. So, don't upgrade the library unless you're sure you have the right version of iPhoto installed on all the Macs you want to access that library from.
By Stephen Robles
Saturday, January 24, 2015, 11:00 pm PT (02:00 am ET)
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.
How To Copy Iphoto Library From One Mac To Another One
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.
Quit iPhoto by going to Quit iPhoto 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.
Copy Photo Library From One Mac To Another
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
Copy Iphoto Library To Another Mac
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.
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.
How To Copy Iphoto Library From One Mac To Another Mac
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.For those looking to expand their beyond their Mac's internal storage HDD or SSD, AppleInsider
How To Copy Iphoto Library From One Mac To Another Mac
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