iPhoto backup options?

[Big Stevie]

What is the easiest way of copying an iPhoto library to an ext HD?

I have about 13,000 photos in my iPhoto library, taking up nearly 200GB. Before I start importing any of the photos I've taken in 2014, i'd like to copy my current library to an external HD.

Should I highlight all the Events, and then File > Export them to the external HD? Is there a way of keeping the photos within their Events and preserving their Keywords?

I do have Aperture although Im not too familiar with this app yet, hence why I'm still using iPhoto.

Cheers

 

[flynz4]

What is the easiest way of copying an iPhoto library to an ext HD?

I have about 13,000 photos in my iPhoto library, taking up nearly 200GB. Before I start importing any of the photos I've taken in 2014, i'd like to copy my current library to an external HD.

Should I highlight all the Events, and then File > Export them to the external HD? Is there a way of keeping the photos within their Events and preserving their Keywords?

I do have Aperture although Im not too familiar with this app yet, hence why I'm still using iPhoto.

Cheers

Your best approach would be to start using Aperture. Then you can select individual projects (or all of them) and switch to "referenced originals". They would all be moved to your external HDD, and your Aperture library would be much smaller. You would still have "previews" which are generally lower resolution/smaller copies of your photos available (by default, they are enabled)... and you could still use your library even when your originals are online.

One more thing... you should edit the title of this post replacing "iPhone" with "iPhoto".

/Jim

 

[Big Stevie]

Thanks Jim, Ill open up Aperture and have a look.

Thread title updated

 

[flynz4]

Thanks Jim, Ill open up Aperture and have a look.

Thread title updated

My personal recommendation is to learn the Aperture basics first, before migrating your library to referenced. I have two suggestions:

1) Robert Boyers Ebooks. A3 File Management & A3 Organization. Both are inexpensive yet invaluable to really learning the basics cold. photo.rwboyer.com

2) Aperture Expert Videos. There are about 50 of them, and I learn from each and every one. I think they are about an hour or less... and only $2 each. Cheap entertainment for an evening.

Both are great. I would go in the order recommended above.

/Jim

 

[Weaselboy]

What is the easiest way of copying an iPhoto library to an ext HD?

I have about 13,000 photos in my iPhoto library, taking up nearly 200GB. Before I start importing any of the photos I've taken in 2014, i'd like to copy my current library to an external HD.

Should I highlight all the Events, and then File > Export them to the external HD? Is there a way of keeping the photos within their Events and preserving their Keywords?

I do have Aperture although Im not too familiar with this app yet, hence why I'm still using iPhoto.

Cheers

You can just open the ~/Pictures folder and drag the entire iPhoto library file to the external drive and by that you have a backup of the entire library.

Or you can use the iPhoto export option that exports either the current or original photos in a flat file format. There is an option where you can have the photos exported in a folder for each event you have. Give This a read.

Thanks Jim, Ill open up Aperture and have a look.

Thread title updated

Just to add to my comment above. I recently switched to Aperture based on flynz4's advice in another thread and I really like it a lot.

I initially just allowed Aperture to use my existing iPhoto library but learned that, although that works fine, it does not take full advantage of some Aperture features.

What I ended up doing is using iPhoto to export both original and current (edited) photos with them sorted by folder per event. Then I moved both those exports to an external for safe keeping in a flat file format.

Then I created a new, blank Aperture library and imported the "current" version photos I had exported from iPhoto. This worked perfectly and the new Aperture library now has a "Project" (events are called projects in Aperture) for each event I had in iPhoto. This reduced the size of my photo library by about 30%.

The downside is you can't "revert to original" on those old photos any longer, but I don't need that feature at this point. If I ever do on an old photo I can still grab them from my external backup.

My personal recommendation is to learn the Aperture basics first, before migrating your library to referenced. I have two suggestions:

1) Robert Boyers Ebooks. A3 File Management & A3 Organization. Both are inexpensive yet invaluable to really learning the basics cold. photo.rwboyer.com

2) Aperture Expert Videos. There are about 50 of them, and I learn from each and every one. I think they are about an hour or less... and only $2 each. Cheap entertainment for an evening.

Both are great. I would go in the order recommended above.

/Jim

Based on your suggestion in last week's thread, I bought the two Boyers ebooks and they were very helpful. Thanks

OP>> I would echo flynz4's suggestion to make a blank Aperture library first then maybe dump in a couple hundred photos to play with as you read the material and get the hang of things. This will also help decide what the best method to import to Aperture fits your workflow the best without worrying about messing things up. When you are done learning/experimenting you can just delete the Aperture library and make a new one to import your iPhoto data.

 

[Big Stevie]

Thanks for the detailed replies, they are much appreciated I will have a read of those books and start experimenting with the different options. I do agree that perhaps I need to start using Aperture more than I do

 

[QiSoftware]

If your external drive is large enough, I would "archive" the entire iPhoto Library and copy it to the new drive. The drive will have to be large enough to store the archive and "unzip" the contents.

I copied my entire iPhoto Library to a 16 GB flashdrive yesterday and it took about an hour. I did not archive the library before I did this. Good luck.

p.s. All of my events and photo information were saved and copied to the new external drive.

Q...