iPhoto Library on External Drive?

[Sweener88]

Hi there, I recently go into photography and have taken many 100's of pictures which have quickly filled my macbook pro's harddrive. So, i bought an external harddrive and i was wondering how i go about making it my iPhoto library so all he pictures will be on the external drive (i will keep back ups of my fav/best pics on my computer to i have copys in 2 places for safety). Thanks for the help!
Taylor

 

[tilman]

So, i bought an external harddrive and i was wondering how i go about making it my iPhoto library so all he pictures will be on the external drive.
Taylor

The easiest thing to do is quit iPhoto, then find the folder with your iPhoto library. Move the entire folder to your external hard drive. If you want to be cautious, copy the folder instead of moving it, and rename the original folder (so that iPhoto won't find it on startup). Then restart iPhoto. It will complain that it can't find the library. Choose the new location, and you should be back in business. To be sure, navigate to a photo, pick "Show in Finder", and make sure it is located on your external drive.

 

[Richard Flynn]

To be absolutely certain that iPhoto is going to prompt you to choose a library, hold down Alt/Option while iPhoto starts up. That way you can keep a library on your internal drive, and have another library on your external drive. You then just hold down Alt on startup to choose which library you want to work with in that 'session' of iPhoto. This can get a bit complicated, since you'll need to have your wits about you and remember what you're doing with each library, but it's very flexible.