Both "Photos" and "Photos Library" occupy space on drive

[xiaoming92]

Hi Mac Users,



I have a late 2012 Macbook Pro, with macOS Sierra version 10.12.1. My hard drive is 128GB, and now only around 20GB space available. I tried to clean up some space and realize my photos take twice as much storage. Here is what's I found troublesome:



Click Apple logo - About This Mac - Storage - Manage



At this page, you can see how much space do "Applications" "Documents"...take on you drive.

If I click "Documents" - "File Browser" - "Pictures" (which occupies 37.6GB of space) and "Photos Library" underneath it, occupies 36.29. This is all good, since My photos and videos in Photos Library are around 33GB.

However, if I scroll down on the left where shows "Applications" "Documents"...to the bottom, I can see "Photos" which occupies 42.09 GB. This is the part I really confuse. I did a thorough check on my Mac, my iPhoto has been deleted completely including the iPhoto Library, All my photos and videos are in the Photos Library. I makes sense that my photo library is 36.29GB big, but why is the "Photos" 42.9GB?



Can anyone please help, Is there a way to free up the 42.9GB of space under the name of "Photos"? I am really confused, since all my photos and videos are in the Photo Library, What does that 42.9GB under "Photos" store?



Thank you so much, Really appreciated for everyone's help!



Mark

 

[IWT]

Hi Mark, and a warm welcome to Mac-Forums.

This is my understanding of the situation:

Originally, long before you upgraded to macOS Sierra, you were using the iPhoto app. At some stage, presumably after macOS Sierra, you imported your pictures in to the Photos app.

I suspect that since then, you have been adding pictures to Photos. This could account for the 36.9 GB (iPhoto pictures) and the 42.09 GB (Photos pictures).

Although you say that the iPhoto app has been deleted, this may or may not be the case. In any event, it looks as though your iPhoto Library is still there along with the new Photos Library. At least, that is a plausible explanation.

May I ask you do to something please?

Go to Macintosh HD > Users > your name > Pictures and look for:

iPhoto Library.migratedphotolibrary (this should be 36 GB or so)

iPhoto Library.photolibrary (this, if it exists, will be minuscule)

Photos Library.photoslibrary (this will be 40+ GB)

It would be very helpful to have confirmation, or otherwise, of the presence of any of these Libraries.

If I'm right, your original iPhoto Library is still there as well as your new Photos Library. We shall see,

Ian

 

[xiaoming92]

Hi Ian,

Thank you for the reply
In my Picture folder, I only have my Photos Library. And the whole Picture folder is sub 40GB in size.

When I deleted the iPhoto Library, there was 14GB Being freed(although iPhoto Library was around 40GB in size, there were some overlapping between iPhoto and Photos Library)

Could there be anywhere else that hide some of my pictures?

Thanks again!

Mark

 

[IWT]

Well, you were right, and I wrong!

About This Mac is quirky in its measurement of Storage. Lots of threads cover that on these forums.

Seems quite clear that, as you said, iPhoto & its library is gone.

Try a reboot and see if storage info changes.

I can't think of where other pictures could be. You could try a Spotlight search kind:jpeg

I'm sorry, I'm not being very helpful, but it seems to me that what you are seeing in "Pictures" is the true state of affairs.

You ideally want at least 30-35 GB of free space. May have to consider moving some stuff off the Hard Disk Drive to an External Hard Drive (EHD).

Ian

 

[xiaoming92]

Hi Ian,

You are being very helpful! I really appreciate that

Mark

 

[Rod]

The transition from iPhoto to Photos has caused more than a few problems for many people. Obviously duplication has been a major issue and there are not any easy ways of solving this problem with the native software.
You could look into such third party apps as Gemini by MacPaw or but considering the cost and how seldom you need to use it, well, it's difficult to justify.
Other free apps (shareware/donationware) that may be of help are The Duplicate Finder by Rocky Sand and Find Any File which is a very handy app allowing you to search for file types like, as suggested jpeg.
All of these apps still require manual selection of the file you wish to trash/keep, a slow tedious process no matter how you go about it.

 

[xiaoming92]

Good idea I will try some third party apps see how they work thank you rod