- Mac Merge Iphoto Libraries
- How To Combine Iphoto Libraries
- Combining Iphoto Libraries Mac
- How To Merge Photos Libraries
No, that is not the problem. The problem is, that iPhoto has no built-in features to merge photo libraries; the advanced Pro version 'Aperture' has, but not iPhoto. In iPhoto you will have to export the photos from your old library to a set of folders and then to import these folders in your new library. Apr 08, 2015 One of the great features in Aperture (but not iPhoto) was the ability to merge libraries. There isn't a merge feature in Photos, but there is a workaround. This will be critical to know if you want to play with Photos today, then later combine this with your existing Aperture or iPhoto libraries. How to Merge iPhoto Libraries in Photos for OS X? Option-launch 'Photos' app on your mac. Select 'iPhoto Library' which you want to merge with another. Once conversion is done, choose 'View' option. Close 'Photos' app and re-open it with the library which you want to merge into.
As of OS X Yosemite, Apple is encouraging everyone to use its new Photos program for managing pictures in OS X. While Photos has a number of pros and cons, it does share a limitation of its “iPhoto” predecessor, in that while it uses a library system for managing photos and offers an option to create multiple libraries, it can only have one open at a time. This means that if you wish to consolidate libraries, you might find yourself jumping through hoops; however, there is a relatively simple way to get this done.
First, the classic way of doing this would be to use an export/import option:
- Open Photos while holding the Option key
- Select your desired Library to open
- Select all items and export them to a folder
- Quit and re-open Photos while holding the Option key
- Select a second library to open
- Import all of the items into this second library.
Select other libraries in iPhoto you’d like to get merged. For merging more libraries in iPhoto, repeat the Steps 3 and 4. The library mentioned in the above step 2, includes the contents of all the libraries that have been merged. All other iPhoto libraries are present and still can be accessed through your Mac. Mar 18, 2020 If you're sure that you've exported all of the photos and videos that you want to keep from the source library, you can delete it to save disk space on your Mac. First, open the Finder and find the source library that you want to delete. By default, photo libraries are stored in your Pictures folder. While limited in terms of features, iPhoto Library Manager for Mac works well as a library manager. After a year away I needed to merge 3 iPhoto libraries and keep them sorted into events etc.
This approach will undoubtedly take a long time, and will require you essentially duplicate your library contents more than once to consolidate them import them all into the second library. While it may be doable for those with only a few libraries to manage, for those with a number of different libraries, the following approach may be more streamlined:- Open Photos to load your current library (or open with the Option key held to choose a different or new library to use)
- Open the Terminal utility (in the Applications > Utilities folder)
- Type the following command, then hold the Option key immediately after pressing Enter to execute it:
When you do this, a second instance of the Photos application will open, and will request you select a library. Do this for a different library, and you will now have two Photos windows on your screen with different libraries open. Now you can select some or all the photos from one library, and drag them into the second Photos window to add them to that library. You can do this for individual photos, entire moments, or custom selections as you browse through your photos.
Note that copying in this manner may cause Photos to briefly hang and show your cursor as a spinning beachball, but do not interrupt the process. After a short while, your photos will be copied and show up in your second library. You will also see a notification that confirms the number of photos imported.
This window will pop up if you held the Option key at the appropriate time when launching an instances of Photos (if not, then quit Photos and try again). Use it to select a photo library other than the one open in your primary instance of Photos.
When done, close the second instance of the Photos application, and then repeat the Terminal command (press the Up arrow to quickly load the previously-entered command–be sure to hold the Option key after pressing Enter), to load a new library and copy your files into your main library.
Mac Merge Iphoto Libraries
One quick warning with this approach, is that you should not load the same library in two separate instances of Photos, as this may lead to conflicts in how data in the library is handled, and could corrupt the library. Therefore, just be sure you load separate libraries in separate instances of Photos, and you should be good to go.
Merging libraries from two different Macs
If you have iPhoto libraries on two separate computers and would like to merge them together into one library, the first thing you need to do is choose which machine you'd like to use to perform the merge (we'll call this the 'merging machine'), and make both libraries accessible from that machine. This can be done a few different ways, including:
How To Combine Iphoto Libraries
- Set up one machine to access the other machine's library directly over the network. Instructions for doing this can be found here.
- Rather than using the library directly over the network, you can instead first copy it to the merging machine's hard drive, and then perform the merge using the copy of the library instead. This is the recommended approach, assuming you have enough free space.
- Copy the library from the other machine onto an external hard drive, then connect that hard drive to the merging machine.
- Put the other machine into target disk mode and connect it directly to the merging machine
Combining Iphoto Libraries Mac
Once you have the library (or a copy of the library) accessible to the merging machine, next add the library to iPhoto Library Manager's library list. Once both libraries are visible in iPhoto Library Manager, you can the merge the libraries like any other libraries on your machine. If you would then like to use the merged library on both machines, simply copy the merged library back to the other machine and add it to iPhoto Library Manager so you can use it there as well.