Photos library transfer

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Background info:
  1. Wife's Macbook Air running out of HDD space
  2. Start moving files to an external HDD
  3. Move the entire Photos library to an external HDD - no problems there
  4. Finally find a place to put in a new HDD (now rocking a 256 GB)
  5. Now I want to migrate the Photos library back to the internal drive

I do not know if my wife has been adding photos to the internal drive in the meantime - I doubt it as I am the more technical person in the family.

I checked the current Photos library on the computer. There are pictures in the library but they appear to be via the stream since they are all from her iPhone or ones shared with her.

The basic question is: how do I transfer the library from the external drive back to the internal?

I have obviously searched for this answer, but results deal mostly with the other direction or are not clearly described.
 
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The basic question is: how do I transfer the library from the external drive back to the internal?
Just drag it from the external drive and drop it into the Pictures Folder on the MacBook.
 
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What about the existing library in the Pictures folder?

Will it be overwritten?
 

chscag

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No, it should not get overwritten, you'll have two libraries instead of one. However, it's always a good idea to backup your existing Photos library before moving the external library back.
 
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Rod


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You can have multiple Pictures libraries. Some consider this a good idea. For example if you are a photographer you may have one portable library for work. My wife has two.
One for our family and the other for business. If you press and hold the option key while launching Photos you can see a list of available libraries (this will include a library on an external drive if it's connected) you can also create and name a new library. The only catch is you can only open one library at a time. Obviously it would be handy if you could open more than one at once. So if you want to move pics from one to another it's a bit slow. You would need to drag photos to say, the desktop, close the Photos app, reopen it again holding option, pick the other library, open and import the pics from the desktop. Leggy huh? So make sure you have the right library open before importing new pics.


Sent from my iPhone
 

IWT


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Rod,

May I take up a point you made in your post (#5)?

When Photos app came along, I imported my old iPhotos library into it.

If I created a second Photos library, could I import my Aperture library into that; thus keeping that library completely separate from my "main" Photos library?

(Of course, the bigger problem is retaining the structure, metadata and the like of my original Aperture Library - but that's a different matter).

Ian
 
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Obviously it would be handy if you could open more than one at once.
Yes. Seems odd that you can access multiple libraries in iMovie, but not Photos or iTunes(unless Home Sharing).
 

Rod


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I don't have my MBP at the moment as it's having its battery replaced by Apple so I don't have access to all my files but I seem to recall that the developers of Duplicate Fixer Pro had an app that would allow editing of more than one Photos Library at a time. That was a while ago so there's likely to be more now.
That aside Ian, I'm sure you can do what you propose. I can't say if it would cause duplication or loss of metadata. I'm not anyone's idea of a photographer.
 
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Rod,

May I take up a point you made in your post (#5)?

When Photos app came along, I imported my old iPhotos library into it.

If I created a second Photos library, could I import my Aperture library into that; thus keeping that library completely separate from my "main" Photos library?

(Of course, the bigger problem is retaining the structure, metadata and the like of my original Aperture Library - but that's a different matter).

Ian

This may help.
https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-250000662
 

IWT


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Very helpful link, Sue. Thanks.

Ian
 

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