New to Mac - iPhoto and files question

[joshua_msu]

Hello y'all. Just recently purchased a new iMac. I finished loading all of my old photos into iPhoto, about 4300 in all. While I was searching my hard drive (not sure what you call it, but on Windows was "My Computer"), I noticed a search folder called "All images". I noticed that it had about 9000 images in it, which is double what I had originally loaded. I noticed that each image is listed twice. A file could be called Pic 123.JPG, and there is the same pic only called Pic 123.jpg. Notice the lower and uppercase .jpg. While do I have all of these duplicate photos? Thanks. I dont ant all of my pictures to take up more hard drive space than necessary.

 

[sharky05]

If you click on one of the icons to select it in "all images" mode, you should see at the bottom of the window a series of icons telling you the location of the folder that file is in. Find two duplicates, and see which folder they're from - might help you see if it's worth deleting them. It could well be that iPhoto has created a duplicate of all these files

 

[joshua_msu]

After looking through finder, I noticed one file would be in the pictures/iphoto/originals folder, while the copy is in the pictures/iphoto/data folder. Is this normal?

 

[joshua_msu]

After looking through finder, I noticed one file would be in the pictures/iphoto/originals folder, while the copy is in the pictures/iphoto/data folder. Is this normal?

 

[skybolt]

After looking through finder, I noticed one file would be in the pictures/iphoto/originals folder, while the copy is in the pictures/iphoto/data folder. Is this normal?

Yes, that is correct, and you need both of those in order for iPhoto to run properly. Some are thumbnails, some the actual photos. If you modify a photo from within the app, it will then show up in a "modified" folder. iPhoto keeps the originals so that you always have the option to revert to the original and start your editing all over, should you wish to.

Do not mess with anything in the library in finder -- forget that that file is there and do anything and everything to/with your photos from within the app itself. iPhoto organizes itself so that the app can find photos, and if the user does anything to change that, then iPhoto can't find what it is looking for and you will have a corrupt library. Don't worry about how many it looks like you have, it is not important to you, just important to iPhoto. Figure that you have as many photos as is reported in the app itself, and just go with that.

Good luck! Welcome to the wonderful world of macs!

 

[Latro]

skybolt has it right. the "second" copies you're seeing are thumbnails and are extremely small. This makes for faster loading of your images when browsing through them in iPhoto.

Manage your photos through iPhoto and not through finder.