Backing up videos to external HD

[vjaaan]

I am looking for the simplest way to back up all my video files to an external, to free space on main computer, and to be available for use in iMovie.

My videos were imported into iPhoto, so they are lost in the Finder hidden files folders. Even when I "show package" to see the iPhoto Library files, the videos (.mov files) do not show up. (I have to go into iPhoto and individually choose a movie and click Show in Finder.)

How do I find and do a simple Copy of all those movies to my external drive?

Thanks.

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Also, I have not yet upgraded to Mountain Lion (on my MacBook Pro). Would doing so provide a better way to back these things up?

 

[Weaselboy]

You could follow this to make a smart album that would just show videos. Then from in that album just drag them to a folder on your desktop or to the external drive like you want.

 

[vjaaan]

Thanks for that suggestion. I made the Smart Album, highlighted the 500 videos, and dragged them into a folder on my desktop. I realized I could have gotten the same result by highlighting all of them when I did a search from within iPhoto for videos. But I really like the smart album idea for keeping better track of them.

I noticed it taking a very long time to populate that desktop folder and realized since it was duplicating all those massive videos, I was running out of hard drive space. So I had to abort for now.

First I'm going through all videos to trash those I just don't need. Then I will highlight small portions of the Smart Album and copy only those to the desktop folder, and then copy them to my external backup drive. Then I'll delete the contents of that desktop folder and reload it with more, etc, etc.

Hmmm, as I'm typing this I realized another problem. My main purpose, besides backing up stuff, was to clear most videos off my computer completely to free space. I plan to plug in my external drive when working with those videos in iMovie. So how can I locate the movies I want from the external and work with them like I would in iPhoto?

Can an album be made to read from an external drive?

 

[Weaselboy]

You can create and use two iPhoto libraries. One on the internal and another on the external for the videos. Just follow this guide from Apple.

If you are short of drive space you can drag the videos from iPhoto directly to the external. Then import them from the external to the second iPhoto library stored on the external. This would solve your drive space issue with the dupes.

 

[vjaaan]

Ok, that sounds like a perfect idea! I was reading about making other iPhoto Libraries, but I assumed they had to be on the same computer drive.

And I totally forgot about being able to drag the photos directly to a location on Finder. Thank you!!