photos size

[darkweather]

i have a folder of photos about 20 gb. i import that photos to photos app now i have a 20 gb of photos folder + 20 gb of photos.photoslibrary file = 40 gb disk space.
is there anything to do that make photos app use folder instead of library file?

 

[mgroot]

It is not taking up an extra 20Gb, it's hard linked to the photos.

Here's a good article explaining it http://sixcolors.com/post/2015/02/the-hard-link-between-photos-and-iphoto/

 

[darkweather]

It is not taking up an extra 20Gb, it's hard linked to the photos.

Here's a good article explaining it http://sixcolors.com/post/2015/02/the-hard-link-between-photos-and-iphoto/

Thank you. But my english is not good enough to understand that. Can you make a simple summary?

 

[mgroot]

Thank you. But my english is not good enough to understand that. Can you make a simple summary?

Very simply said it's only a link to the original picture and not an actual extra copy of the photo. So because it points to all the same photos as are in your folder the size is the same, but it's not added to the original size already there.
It's just a very small file (for lack of a better word) that says.. Oh, you want to watch photo100.jpg? Then go there (and it points to the photo in the folder)

DON'T do this, but if you were to delete the library you would not gain any diskspace

 

[darkweather]

Ok. So, why finder shows the size of "photos.photoslibrary" file 20gb? Is it a mistake?

 

[mgroot]

Ok. So, why finder shows the size of "photos.photoslibrary" file 20gb? Is it a mistake?

Because the size of the folder with the photos is 20gb, it's basically only a mirror of the other folder (without it actually being there). So it's not a mistake, it's how it works on these types of operating systems.

 

[diesel]

Doesn't make any sense to me. I deleted my iphotos library after upgrading to 10.10.3 and importing photos into my new photos library. After the import I had duplicate pictures between the iphotos and photos libraries. After deleting the old iphotos library I recovered 3 gb of disk space.

 

[mgroot]

It may not make sense to you, but it's how it works!

 

[dcorban]

Photos by default makes a copy of any photos you import. So, it is possible that he has double the storage use and could delete the folders.

Regardless if they are duplicated or hard linked, he is able to safely delete the folders of photos

 

[darkweather]

i use omni disk sweeper and it shows that photos file (like an archive file with lots of file in it) keeps 20 gb of space. so i still can't understand.