Help me solve this mystery! Transferring iphoto library

[emhan98]

Hi everyone, so I've encountered a weird situation. I know this is a long email, but I'm truly confounded and am hoping that one of the extreme geniuses here can help me out. It really is a mystery to me what's going on here...

I had an older MBP - was stuck on OS 10.5.8, wanted new one, waited for rMBP, happy days. I first got the base $1299 13 incher, took it home, transferred my iphoto library via external HD (copied the library to the drive, then copied the library into my pictures folder on the new rMBP). No problems, I opened iphoto, it said I had to update the library in order for it to work on this new version of iphoto, it did, and great (I think it made HD thumbnails?).

I came to realize the rMCP wasn't going to be enough HD storage, so I deleted my files and returned it to apple store, got the upper end rMBP. Brought it home, did the exact same thing with iphoto, but this time, when I open iphoto, it doesn't prompt me or anything, but it just opens and says "no photos" in library. But it's definitely assigned to my library (about 43 GB), etc.

So, I tried to rebuild the library by holding down option-control while opening iphoto, etc. It discovered over 12,000 photos in the library that was not in my database, so it recovered them. Great, except for two things (1) on my old mac, my iphoto says I only have 8,400 photos. So did it recover all my trashed photos too? (2) I lost all my metadata, no albums, events, etc.

I'd love any thoughts or help -- why didn't the new rMBP prompt me the same way as with the previous new rMBP? How can I recapture the albums? Why does it say 12,000 photos instead of 8,400?

 

[McGiord]

iPhoto produces many smaller sized photos of your originals for fast browsing.
Be carefull between the originals and the smaller photos.

Do you want to copy the photos only and loose all the albums and grouping they have already? If yes go ahead with what you are trying to do.

In your original Library in your old Mac, make a backup if you haven't.
Then go to the originals folder and copy them to your new library in the new Mac.


Another way, and probably the one I should have suggested first is to use Migration Assitant to move all the things from your old Mac to the new one. This helps maintaining integrity between the old library and the new one.

Otherwise you need to also copy the whole library with some of the now hidden folders. Apple trying to simplify the user experience hid some of the background stuff from the users in the Finder.

 

[emhan98]

Hi! Thanks --

(a) I couldn't use Migration Assistant b/c my older mac was at such an old OS that they couldn't connect.

(b) When you say:
"In your original Library in your old Mac, make a backup if you haven't.
Then go to the originals folder and copy them to your new library in the new Mac."

Can you tell me - what do you mean by "originals folder"? Is that something different from just copying the whole "iphoto library" over to the new computer?

 

[McGiord]

Yes, it is different.
The original photo files are placed inside a folder.
In the newer versions of oPhoto they are within the library package.
Right click the library and select show contents or something worded like it (in am writing from my iPhone, can't get the exact reference).
With this it will open the folders inside the Library, and from there you can copy any specifics of you want to copy simply the files.
Again if you only copy the photos they will be like that just the photos and not the albums and the other things you may had created with them.
In the newer versions of iPhoto there other library things that are located inside the user folder.

However when you copied the old library to the new Mac, and the you open it from iPhoto, it should be good to go.
Maybe you need to use Disk utility to repair the permissions to make things clean for your anew Mac's user. If you didn't use the Migration Assitant the new Mac has a different user than your older Mac for OS X things.

 

[emhan98]

Thanks this is very helpful - off hand, do you know what I need to try to copy over specifically to get the photos and albums?

I've also wondered about the permissions issue - I just don't understand why it worked in the previous rMBP (that I returned) but not with this one. That said, when I check the permissions on the actual library file (using the simple "get info"), it said that I have read/write permissions - is that not enough?

If I use Disk Utility, do I risk losing anything?
Also, can iPhoto Library Manager help in any way?

(Sorry for all the questions - I really appreciate your help on this)

 

[McGiord]

Thanks this is very helpful - off hand, do you know what I need to try to copy over specifically to get the photos and albums?

I've also wondered about the permissions issue - I just don't understand why it worked in the previous rMBP (that I returned) but not with this one. That said, when I check the permissions on the actual library file (using the simple "get info"), it said that I have read/write permissions - is that not enough?

If I use Disk Utility, do I risk losing anything?
Also, can iPhoto Library Manager help in any way?

(Sorry for all the questions - I really appreciate your help on this)

No need to be sorry, asking questions and getting answers is the main goal of this forum.

Sorry for my bad spelling (iPhone typing).

With Disk Utility you can manage all your Hard Disks, so be careful NOT to click on Erase the Disk.

To repair permissions, it is very straight forward, in Disk Utility just select the Hard Disk drive and click on Repair Permissions and it would repair all of them.

I have Lion in my Mac. I haven't used the iPhoto Library Manager so I don't know about it.

My Library got very big ~150GB therefore I am using Aperture instead of iPhoto, but I managed to get the iPhoto library transferred to it.

The way to maintain the integrity of the Library is to open the Library in your new Mac. So if you copy the old Library to your new Mac it should be able to open it after updating it.

Check your iPhoto preferences inside the App, and be sure it is not searching for all pictures in your Mac, because it will get all images (from email attachments and downloads, etc…) unless you want it to. This might me the source of all those extra photos that you are seeing??