Resolved Moving to a new Mac, what do I do with Photos?

[davidg4781]

I'm going to be moving to a new Mac mini and getting rid of my MBP.

Do I need to do anything different with Photos since I'm using Photos in the cloud now? My Photos library is about 32 GB. Should I let it just download from the cloud or move the library package over and hope I don't end up with duplicates or anything?

 

[maflynn]

I think copying it over from the MBP would be better then downloading 32GB. I'm sure there's a way to easily transfer it over, such as using migration assistant and/or time machine to avoid duplicates.

 

[davidg4781]

Just wanted to update this. I tried copying my library over and right at the last 30 seconds it failed, stating there was already a library there. Up to this point I had not opened Photos. I just checked the size and it's only 17.37 GB on disk. Good thing I came across this thread and caught that before deleting the original.

 

[lht0747]

IS the library from Photo app or iPhoto app?

 

[davidg4781]

It's from Photos. The iPhoto one is long gone.

Yesterday I tried copying it again, to a new folder in my Documents folder, no where near where the original library is. It got to the last 30 seconds of transfer and then said a photo library already exists, then stopped and deleted what I had transferred.

Both libraries are showing the same amount of pictures and videos, so I'm not sure why the original one is 32 GB vs 17. I don't do much photo editing and if any, it's just cropping out a few pictures, so that couldn't cause it. I'm also not worried about losing a lot of work I may have done.

 

[lht0747]

You maybe copy the Photo Libray to other folder not Pictures and open Photos - Preferences - General then set your Library to the new folder. If you can open that Library, it means the Library is OK. Now you can CLEAN your other libray from Pictures folder then copy 32G Libray to Pictures.

 

[davidg4781]

I think I'm going to leave it as is. I randomly checked several photos throughout the years on there and they were all the same quality and size. I did notice that all they're all listed in Rockwood, TX. Never been there. But it's like that in both libraries.

The only thing I can maybe think of what happened is there's a Trash folder that's not showing on the list of Albums that has a copy of the old library. It's roughly double in size, so that may be it. I'm surprised I even have 17 GB of pictures. Most are dumb things I'll come across and take a picture of with my iPhone. And the other half are stuff I've found on the internet.