The Photos app in OS X tracks the location information of images stored in its library, allowing users to browse and sort photos based on where the shots were taken. Most smartphones and some recent pocket cameras use GPS to tag a photo’s location as part of the file’s metadata, and the Photos app on your Mac will automatically use this information to populate the image’s location field.
A robust and feature filled application, iPhoto is a great way to organize your picture library. iPhoto includes Events, Places and Faces, which can arrange photos by date, geo-location and facial recognition software respectively. You’re also able to create slideshows, photo books and albums.
With today’s HD camcorders and high megapixel cameras, storing all your photos on the computer can take up a large portion of the hard drive. When your iPhoto Library becomes to large to stay on your internal hard drive, it’s time to move it to an external or network drive.
First you must locate the iPhoto Library file, which should be located in your Pictures folder. Open a new Finder window by clicking on its logo in the dock.
Click on the Pictures folder in the left-hand sidebar. If you don’t see the Pictures folder here, you may need to select your Home folder first and then Pictures.
Inside the Pictures folder, click on the iPhoto folder. Here you will see the iPhoto Library file.
Control + click on the iPhoto folder and select copy iPhoto. If you have chosen where to move the Library folder, connect that external hard drive or other storage peripheral now.
The external or other drive will appear in the Finder window in the left-hand column. Select it and Control + click in the first column of folders. Select Paste “iPhoto” from the contextual menu. This copying process may take a few minutes depending on the size of your iPhoto library. The iPhoto folder will now appear on your external drive.
Close the Finder windows and locate the iPhoto application in your dock or Applications folder. Important: hold down the Option key on the keyboard while clicking on iPhoto to open it.
A pop-up window will appear asking you to Choose Photo Library. Click Choose Library…
The browser window will appear. Click on the external hard drive in the left-hand column, choose iPhoto and then click on the iPhoto Library file.
iPhoto will now store all of your current pictures on the external hard drive. Any future photos you import or copy into iPhoto will be stored in the new location on the external hard drive.