With the upgrade to Photos, many Mac users have been left with a duplicate iPhoto library on their Macs. Here’s how to delete iPhoto library and clear out some clutter.
iPhoto used to be the standard photo editor and photo management system on Macs, at least for the average computer user. Like it or not, however, that all changed when Apple first introduced the software, nearly a year ago. If your Mac came from Apple with Photos already installed, you don’t need to worry about old iPhoto libraries.
Jun 23, 2015 Depending on how much content you have in your library, this process can take quite a while as it rebuilds and repairs the library on your Mac. Open Photos while holding down Command and Option to. When I try to close Photos for OS X, it closes down, but a message appears on my screen that says 'Closing the library' and will stay on overnight. The Photos program in the Dock shows that it is still 'open' and won't close or Quit unless i Force Quit.
A Mac that was upgraded to a new version of OS X that added the Photos app, however, can end up with what look like duplicates of their photo libraries. The first time you start up Photos after upgrading, your Mac will copy over your photo library into the new software (if you explicitly set up more than one old iPhoto library, you’ll have to copy them over yourself). It doesn’t go back and delete the old one, though.
Here’s where things get a little bit confusing: you don’t actually have two copies of your photos. Thanks to the way OS X (the software that powers your Mac, like Windows powers a PC) works, your pictures aren’t actually stored in those libraries. Instead, they’re stored somewhere else on your hard drive, and each library has what Apple calls a “hard link” to the pictures. As a result, each library can access the photos, but store separate information about them. You can delete either library safely; only if you were to delete both libraries would you lose access to your pictures.
While having a second copy of your photo library doesn’t take up that much extra space on your computer, it can still be confusing – first of all, each library reports that it’s a certain size, which can make it difficult to figure out how much room is left on your Mac. Additionally, if you need to back things up, it can be hard to figure out where your files are.
Still with us? Let’s recap:
Now that you understand why you might want to delete an old iPhoto library, and why you don’t necessarily have to, let’s talk about how to actually do it.
Jul 12, 2017 To move our Photos Library, we drag it to its new location, double-click it, and the Photos app will now point to it. So, that was pretty easy. We’ll next show you how to create a completely new System Photo Library. Creating a New System Photo Library. There are any number of reasons you might want to create a new system library in Photos. How to move photos from icloud photo library to mac. Mar 18, 2020 Your Photos library holds all your photos, albums, slideshows, and print projects. If your library is large, and you want to free up storage space on your Mac, turn on iCloud Photo Library and use Optimize Mac Storage, or move your library to an external drive. Before you start, be sure to. Jan 05, 2020 If you want your Mac's photos to wirelessly sync to all your other iOS devices and computers, you want to set up iCloud Photo Library: Apple's photo sync service lets you back up your images on all your devices, as well as access them — online or offline — on said devices.If you're willing to pay for the extra iCloud storage space, you can store an incredible amount of photos and videos. Mar 30, 2020 Also Read: Differences Between My Photo Stream and iCloud Photo Library Part 1. Transfer Photos from iCloud Photo Library to Mac. Photo Library uploads all photos to iCloud and keeps them up to date across devices and you also can get access to them through iCloud.com.
Before you do anything like this on your Mac – that is, delete something potentially important – you should back up your software with something like Time Machine.
Read: How to Backup Your Mac with Time Machine
That way, if you accidentally delete something important, or something else goes wrong, you can always roll things back to how they were when you started. This is really easy, and there’s nothing to be concerned about; it’s just good practice to back things up (and keep them backed up) before you muck about in your computer.
First, you’ll need to open a Finder window: you can do this by clicking on the Finder icon (it looks like a square face) on the dock, or by clicking on your Mac’s desktop background and hitting ⌘+N (Command + N) on your keyboard.
Next, look at the left-hand column in the new window. You’ll see a list of locations around your Mac; find the one that says Pictures and click on it. You’ll be taken to that directory, which contains libraries for Apple’s image-related apps (Photos, iPhoto, Photo Booth, etc).
In the list of files on the right, scroll down and look for your iPhoto library – it’ll be a little iPhoto icon, and the name will read, unsurprisingly, iPhoto Library. Don’t worry about accidentally deleting your Photo Booth or Photos libraries; you’ll be able to see which one is which.
To actually delete the library, you can do one of three things:
Read: How to uninstall apps on Mac OS X
Now that you’ve gotten rid of your iPhoto library, it makes sense to completely uninstall iPhoto – that way you won’t accidentally create a new iPhoto Library and have to repeat all these steps. It’s as simple as opening up your Applications folder, and deleting iPhoto (using one of the three steps we just discussed). For a more in-depth look at how to uninstall apps on your Mac, be sure to check out our guide above!
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