I keep the originals of my photos separate from my iPhoto library and I would like to move both the library and the directory containing the photos to a different drive. Moving the library is no problem, but how do I tell iPhoto that all the originals are on a different drive?
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iPhoto -- moving original photo files to a different drive
- Thread starter akadmon
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Good question. I just copied my iPhoto files to an external hard drive, but I
left certain ones intact I expect to use or e-mail. What type of drive are you talking about . . and why did you move them to begin with ? ( File taking up too much original HD space ? ) PL
left certain ones intact I expect to use or e-mail. What type of drive are you talking about . . and why did you move them to begin with ? ( File taking up too much original HD space ? ) PL
I'm moving to another internal drive (I have a Mac Pro) on which I recently clean-installed Leopard. I know I could leave them on the Tiger drive, but I would like to keep both the Library and the originals on the Leopard drive. The Tiger drive is a 250 GB that cam with the Machine and It's gotten pretty full, which is why I want to move everything to a drive which has more room to grow.
coming from a unix background, this is a very crude way of doing it ...
open "Terminal"
$ cd "Pictures/iPhoto Library"
$ tar cf - Originals | ( cd /<your path of choice> ; tar xpf - )
$ rm -r Originals
$ ln -s /<path of your choice> Originals
note: tar might take up some time. add a "-v" on the tar command to see a verbose listing of files
again, this is very crude but should work
open "Terminal"
$ cd "Pictures/iPhoto Library"
$ tar cf - Originals | ( cd /<your path of choice> ; tar xpf - )
$ rm -r Originals
$ ln -s /<path of your choice> Originals
note: tar might take up some time. add a "-v" on the tar command to see a verbose listing of files
again, this is very crude but should work
I'm not at all versed in Terminal/Unix lingo. The files are on a drive called "Leopard" in a directory called "Photos". is the proper path string "/Leopard/Photos"? Also, there are several levels of directories/folders inside "Photos". Will this pick everything up, or do I have to repeat the process for each directory/folder?
EDIT:
when I type the firs line in your sequence above I get this:
-bash: cd: Pictures/iPhoto Library: No such file or directory
I so hate answering my own questions! 
It turns out copying both the library file and the folder containing the orginal photos to a new partition works just fine. iPhoto is now pointing to originals on the new partition I suspect the path used by iPhoto is relative, i.e., it does not matter what disk the library and the source photo folder are on, as long as their relative paths are unchanged.
BTW, I called Apple Care with this question earlier today, and they were clueless (the tech said what I just proved works could not be done). Duh.
It turns out copying both the library file and the folder containing the orginal photos to a new partition works just fine. iPhoto is now pointing to originals on the new partition
I suspect the path used by iPhoto is relative, i.e., it does not matter what disk the library and the source photo folder are on, as long as their relative paths are unchanged. BTW, I called Apple Care with this question earlier today, and they were clueless (the tech said what I just proved works could not be done). Duh.