Turns out that Photos does pretty sophisticated library management; enough so that you're not duplicating space if you're migrating from iPhoto or Aperture. If you've migrated an existing iPhoto or Aperture photo library to Photos, Photos creates a brand new library structure but doesn't, in point of fact, duplicate your images. Instead it creates links to the original and preview versions of your images.
Nov 12, 2019 Assuming you use Photos or iPhoto as your Mac image library app, then the library may hold the only copy of every photo you've ever taken with a digital camera or your smartphone. Your image library should probably have its own dedicated backup method in addition to Time Machine to ensure that one-of-a-kind photos are retained for the long term.
When you're looking at your Photos library in the Finder, it includes all of your original images and previews. But the images exist only in one location on your hard drive, even if you have multiple photo libraries.
Here's what Apple has to say for people anxious to pull the delete trigger:
- Jan 13, 2020 Turn on iCloud Photos. It's easy to get started. Just turn on iCloud Photos in your Settings and make sure that you're signed in with the same Apple ID on all of your devices. On your Mac, go to System Preferences iCloud and click the Options button next to Photos. Then select iCloud Photos.
- Discover how to free up hard drive space on a Mac or MacBook. Using iCloud Photo Library if you delete the photos from your Mac they will be deleted from iCloud too, iCloud is not a way to.
- Feb 21, 2020 If your Photos library is automatically updated with iCloud Photos, the entire contents of the library will re-updates with iCloud when the repair process completes. Bonus Tip: Create a new Photos Library. The other alternative way to repair corrupted Photos Library is to create a new Photos Library on Mac.
After you migrate your iPhoto or Aperture library to Photos, you might feel tempted to delete your original iPhoto or Aperture library. Because the migrated library takes little additional space, you don't need to delete the original library.
So don't do it, even if you're tempted to.
You can still use your original photo library with iPhoto (version 9.6.1, as of this writing) and Aperture (version 3.6) after you've migrated it to Photos. Just bear in mind that any changes you make in iPhoto or Aperture will be resident only in those applications, not Photos. So if you make new image edits in Aperture or create a new iPhoto album, those will only appear in their respective apps, not Photos.
Mac Clear Photos Library
(Hat tip: Dave Sanderson)
Photos for Mac
Main
We may earn a commission for purchases using our links. Learn more.
More Apple TV+ contentHow To Clear Photos Library Mac
Martin Scorsese's next movie might come to Apple TV+ after Paramount walked
Repair Mac Photos Library
Spiraling costs have put Paramount off Scorcese's next gig and Apple TV+ is one potential suitor. Netflix is said to be another potential avenue.