Dealing with Lots of Saved Video & Other Files

[Joebrown]

I've had my iMac two and a half years now and it's beginning to slow down and bog up with the all the video and Media I have saved to it.

I have around 1000 tracks and 30 movies stored on it in itunes, a few thousand photos in iPhoto and endless hours of video and GoPro footage saved in iMovie, and it's hard drive is now full. So I wondered how you deal with so much media on your iMacs without deleting it, but still having it for use.

The obvious answer I know, is external hard drives. But can you put video files etc. from iPhoto and iMovie onto an external hard drive, without removing them from easy access and use in iMovie and iPhoto itself?

Any advice would be great, as I think my iMac's on the brink of collapse any minute right now!

 

[thedeske]

I've had my iMac two and a half years now and it's beginning to slow down and bog up with the all the video and Media I have saved to it.

I have around 1000 tracks and 30 movies stored on it in itunes, a few thousand photos in iPhoto and endless hours of video and GoPro footage saved in iMovie, and it's hard drive is now full. So I wondered how you deal with so much media on your iMacs without deleting it, but still having it for use.

The obvious answer I know, is external hard drives. But can you put video files etc. from iPhoto and iMovie onto an external hard drive, without removing them from easy access and use in iMovie and iPhoto itself?

Any advice would be great, as I think my iMac's on the brink of collapse any minute right now!

You'll have to plug in the external to use, but yes. Copy the iphoto library inside the pictures folder to the external and erase the one on the mac after you're positive it's good. iMovie is a little different. Launch it and copy each project, one at a time (project and events button) to the external inside iMovie. The external should show on the left when plugged in under available hard drives.

itunes - copy the itunes folder inside your music folder. When done, Option click iTunes to open with a dialog asking to choose a library and navigate to the copy on the external and choose the actual library file inside the copied itunes folder. It will launch and should be the same. You can now trash/delete the itunes folder on the Mac.

Best to have a backup/clone on a different drive first before you start this. It's possible you can get away with just one or two moves and free enough space.

Once you've tested and removed all the stuff from the mac, it's a great idea to repair permissions on the mac hd in disk utility.

 

[Joebrown]

You'll have to plug in the external to use, but yes. Copy the iphoto library inside the pictures folder to the external and erase the one on the mac after you're positive it's good. iMovie is a little different. Launch it and copy each project, one at a time (project and events button) to the external inside iMovie. The external should show on the left when plugged in under available hard drives.

itunes - copy the itunes folder inside your music folder. When done, Option click iTunes to open with a dialog asking to choose a library and navigate to the copy on the external and choose the actual library file inside the copied itunes folder. It will launch and should be the same. You can now trash/delete the itunes folder on the Mac.

Best to have a backup/clone on a different drive first before you start this. It's possible you can get away with just one or two moves and free enough space.

Once you've tested and removed all the stuff from the mac, it's a great idea to repair permissions on the mac hd in disk utility.

Hi thanks for that, I'll follow your lead once I get a good hard drive ready! Once I've compied over itunes and deleted the old, what will happen when I import another track for example? Will they automaticslly be saved onto the external or internal hard drives? Thanks

 

[thedeske]

Hi thanks for that, I'll follow your lead once I get a good hard drive ready! Once I've compied over itunes and deleted the old, what will happen when I import another track for example? Will they automaticslly be saved onto the external or internal hard drives? Thanks

the external

 

[Joebrown]

Another thing, questions just keep springing to mind! When I then use time machine to back up my mac, does it also back up the files on the external hard drives too or do I have to do that manually myself?

Also, is it possible to then unplug the hard drive with those files on and plug it into a seperate MacBook Pro and carry on in say iMovie where I'd left off on my iMac or play a film saved on that hard drive from the iMacs iTunes too?

Thanks for your help, these are proberbly really obvious questions

 

[Weaselboy]

Another thing, questions just keep springing to mind! When I then use time machine to back up my mac, does it also back up the files on the external hard drives too or do I have to do that manually myself?

External drives are excluded from TM backup by default, so you will want to open TM prefs and go Options and remove the external from the exclude list. Then it will be backed up with TM.

Also, is it possible to then unplug the hard drive with those files on and plug it into a seperate MacBook Pro and carry on in say iMovie where I'd left off on my iMac or play a film saved on that hard drive from the iMacs iTunes too?

Yep. That will work.

 

[Joebrown]

External drives are excluded from TM backup by default, so you will want to open TM prefs and go Options and remove the external from the exclude list. Then it will be backed up with TM.



Yep. That will work.

Hi again Weaselboy, I've been on holiday the last week but I've got a hard drive for my files now and am looking at getting another for Time Machine backups, I wondered if you could advise?

As I said in the posts above, I have a 500GB iMac which is full and so I want to move all those iTunes and iMovie files to my new external 1TB hard drive, which I now know how to do. But to backup my iMac and the first external hard drive together, do you think another 1TB backup drive be enough? Or do I need to buy a 2 or even 3TB? Thanks

 

[Weaselboy]

Hi again Weaselboy, I've been on holiday the last week but I've got a hard drive for my files now and am looking at getting another for Time Machine backups, I wondered if you could advise?

As I said in the posts above, I have a 500GB iMac which is full and so I want to move all those iTunes and iMovie files to my new external 1TB hard drive, which I now know how to do. But to backup my iMac and the first external hard drive together, do you think another 1TB backup drive be enough? Or do I need to buy a 2 or even 3TB? Thanks

It really depends on how much music and video you think you will be adding later on. If you plan to add a lot, then yes a 3TB would be a good idea. If you don't plan to add tons more than you have now a 2TB I think would be plenty.