How to transfer photo's and video's to an external hard drive...

[Johnson4612]

I just recently purchased a Seagate 2TB external hard drive in hopes that I could transfer all my photo's and videos from both my MacBook Pro and I-Mac. I am in desperate need to free up space on both. Can someone tell me how I can transfer all my photo's and videos over? Thanks

 

[vansmith]

Plug it it and simply copy them over to the external hard drive. It's as simple as that.

 

[zdavidson00]

You may want to be careful because if you simply want to transfer photos and videos then it is as simple as plugging it in and transfering, but if you arent careful it will try to use time machine which will back up your whole computer.

 

[Peezie]

Just a quick addition... remember to "copy" not "cut" for just incase something goes wrong during the data transfer you will still have the original;P

 

[Johnson4612]

Unfortunately, it did use the Time Machine to back up my whole computer...how do I go about cleaning the external hard drive and starting over, just copying over photo's and video's?

 

[chas_m]

"It" didn't use Time Machine -- you did. When attaching a new external hard drive, Time Machine will pop up and ask *you* if you want to use it for backup. YOU said that you did, so that is exactly what happened. Let's not blame the computer for human error, m'kay?

You can simply erase the Time Machine drive, then plug it back in and THIS time, say NO when you are asked if you want to use the drive for Time Machine (or just turn TM off from it's preferences). Then copy the folders you wish to copy over using drag and drop as described.