Can I just copy iLife appls to another Mac?

[Killerbob]

Hi,

I have a bunch of Macs which now need to be updated to Maverick, of course have all the iLife apps updated, as well as a number of other ones.

That is all simple enough, I can just do this via the App store. However, I live in Greenland, where we actually pay pr. Megabyte we download.

Until now Apple has provided updates via the Support/Download page, and I have been able to download these once, and distribute to my other Macs, but this is supposedly not possible anymore.

My question is; can I copy the file(s) in the Application folder to my other Macs, or is it necessary to install (so to speak)? And, if it is not possible, does anyone know where to download the install files for iPhoto, iMovie, Garageband, and Aperture?

 

[Bruno09]

Hi,

here is my experience :

I installed Mav to an external hard drive.

I copied on it from my Mountain Lion disk the apps : iPhoto 9.4.3, iMovie 9.0.9, Aperture 3.4.5

Then I logged in to the App Store, and was able to get iPhoto 9.5, iMovie 10 and Aperture 3.5 as updates, for free.

Garage Band is now free and you can get it without having a previous version installed.

Note that I DID NOT install the mentioned apps to the Mavericks disk, I only copied them from the ML/Applications folder to the Mav/Applications folder.

Also, this will work only with iLife11, not with iLife09.

So if you have iPhoto 8.x.x and iMovie 8.x.x, you won't get the updates for free.
You need iPhoto 9.x.x and iMovie 9.x.x

 

[jkmlaok]

Doing it here with no issues

There are several of us stationed in Afghanistan. We shared the install.dmg and we are each taking turns downloading ilife, iMovie, and iPhoto since our internet is terrible. The new Garageband will create a folder and drop the old one in it when you update Garageband. That's the only change I can see sharing the apps among several computers.

 

[Killerbob]

Hi jkmlaok;

Thanks for the confirmation that it works to copy the install.dmg file, but I wonder where I find that one? I updated my MBA and I can only find the iPhoto, Garageband, and the iMovie files themselves, not the install files...

And, good luck to you out there in AF!

@ Bruno09;

I have no problem upgrading the apps, I have the latest versions, and have licenses for all the apps on all my Macs. It is the distribution, so as not to have to download them all 5 times...

 

[jkmlaok]

Killerbob

Hey, when you or someone else downloads it from the app store, you should be able to spotlight search it and find it befor you install it. I believe it deletes the installer after it installs using the app store.

Also, the other issue we ran into was we tried to share the iTunes update but it says it is required by OS X and we can't copy, modify, move, or otherwise share the iTunes update. So far we have shared the install DMG, Pages, Keynote, Numbers, iPhoto, iMovie, and Garageband without issue.

If you don't find the installer, I use a show/hide special files app I found on google. It also let's me find iOS downloads so I can save them for later. I hope that helps.

 

[Killerbob]

Cool! The iTunes I have downloaded once from the Apple download site, so that's OK, it is the "other" iLife apps I need the install files to.

Do you remember where you find these on the OSX drive? Also, how do you "catch" the installer DMG before the installation via the App store?

 

[jkmlaok]

It mounted the DMG image to finder to run the install. Before you start installing it, just open finder, look to the sidebar, and see the image mounted. Go there and you will see the installer app. You can copy that or Command+I on the image mounted to see where the image is.

Sorry for the delay. Internet sucks here and is tremendously unreliable.