How to move an Apple Photos for OS X library to an external drive A reader would like to host his Photos Library on a drive other than the startup volume. Aug 16, 2018  How to Transfer iPhoto Library to Photos App on Mac OS X Yosemite. Click on Finder and Go to your Pictures folder. You’ll see Photos Library and iPhoto Library. Open Photos Library and make sure there is nothing inside. Now, delete the Photos Library as usually to prevent it from creating multiple files. Ensure that the Apple Photos Library you want to migrate is set as the Systems Photos Library. To set your library as the Systems Photos Library, follow these steps: Open Apple Photos and select Preferences in the menu bar. Currently only the keyframe is migrated. If you want all the Burst photos to. Oct 25, 2019 How to switch between libraries in Photos for Mac; How to move your Photos library to an external hard drive; How to add pictures and videos to albums. If you have a lot of photos and videos, one of the simplest and easiest ways to start organizing everything is to make use of albums, especially when you give them good names. Sep 18, 2017  To save storage on your Mac, drag the Photos Library to an external drive. Photo can open it here, if you double click the library in the Finder to open it in Photos. If the library is working well on the external drive, you can delete it from your Pictures folder. Copying the complete library is the only lossless wa to save all your adjustments and titles and other metadata you applied your photos. I would make a.

Your Photos library holds all your photos, albums, slideshows, and print projects. If your library is large, and you want to free up storage space on your Mac, turn on iCloud Photo Library and use Optimize Mac Storage, or move your library to an external drive.

Before you start, be sure to back up your library.

Prepare your drive

You can store your library on an external storage device, such as a USB or Thunderbolt drive formatted as APFS or Mac OS Extended (Journaled).1 Find out how to check the format of your external storage device.

To prevent data loss, Apple doesn't recommend storing photo libraries on external storage devices like SD cards and USB flash drives, or drives that are shared on a network.

Move your Photos library to an external storage device

  1. Quit Photos.
  2. In the Finder, go to the external drive where you want to store your library.
  3. In another Finder window, find your library. The default location is Users > [username] > Pictures, and it's named Photos Library.
  4. Drag your library to its new location on the external drive. If you see an error, select your external drive's icon in the Finder, then choose File > Get Info. If the information under Sharing & Permissions isn't visible, click , then make sure the 'Ignore ownership on this volume' checkbox is selected. If it's not selected, click to unlock it, enter an administrator name and password, then select the checkbox.2

  5. After the move is finished, double-click Photos Library in its new location to open it.
  6. If you use iCloud Photo Library, designate this library as the System Photo Library.

Delete original library to save space

Move Photos Library To External Drive Mac

After you open your library from its new location and make sure that it works as expected, you can delete the library from its original location.

In a Finder window, go back to your Pictures folder (or whichever folder you copied your library from) and move Photos Library to the trash. Then choose Finder > Empty Trash to delete the library and reclaim disk space.

Open another Photos library

Mac Photos Library Location

If you have multiple libraries, here's how to open a different one:

  1. Quit Photos.
  2. Press and hold the Option key while you open Photos.
  3. Select the library that you want to open, then click Choose Library.

Photos uses this library until you open a different one.

Learn more

Move

If you have a permissions issue with your library, you might be able to resolve the issue by using the Photos library repair tool.

Mac Os Move Photos Library To External Drive

1. You can't move your library to a disk that's used for Time Machine backups.

Repair Mac Photos Library

2. If the volume isn't formatted APFS or Mac OS Extended (Journaled), or has been used for Time Machine backups but hasn't been erased, this checkbox will either not be present, or won't be selectable after unlocking. Erase and reformat the drive for this option to be available.

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