Hook new Mac to existing iphoto library.

Hope to make my problem crystal clear.

1. Have perfectly fine iphoto library (from older version) that resides on external drive.
2. Replaced Mac, now have new iphoto software.
3. Hooked new Mac to external drive.
4. Want new Mac to carry on adding pictures to existing library
5. Prefer to work in-band if possible, i.e. use iphoto itself to do this rather than mucking with files and folders.
6. Can't find clear unambiguous instructions how to do this. Not sure what the "import" options actually do. Surely this is a common thing. What I don't want to do is make another copy of it.

Please help with CLEAR instructions that do not assume I know anything. Just EXACTLY which buttons to press in exactly the right order. Is there some kind of conversion I have to do to turn my existing library into a package.

Thank you.

Two options:

1) Leave the iPhoto library on the external drive
- Connect the external drive
- Quit iPhoto
- Hold down the option key on your keyboard and click the iPhoto icon in your dock
- Choose "Other library" and find the external drive's library

2) Move your old library to the internal harddrive
- Quit iPhoto
- Go to your Pictures folder on your internal drive and move the iPhoto library that is there to your desktop or somewhere else (assuming you have no pictures in there)
- Go to your external harddrive and drag that iPhoto library into your pictures folder
- Open iPhoto

Other Library

Yes yes thank you. Option 1. And to answer my other question yes you have to convert the library so the old iphoto can't use it anymore and it takes a while. But that's OK.

tixrus said:

Yes yes thank you. Option 1. And to answer my other question yes you have to convert the library so the old iphoto can't use it anymore and it takes a while. But that's OK.

Click to expand...

Glad to hear it worked out!

Just a friendly reminder to back up that external drive though, to prevent your photos being lost if it fails.

Indeed. Back up That's another Terra drive. Now why can't I share on Facebook or Flickr. The share otions are dimmed out. I set up the accounts. And enabled the whole lib for sharing. Yes the external drive will eventually fail. And even if u burn DVD's they fail too.