How to move Photos Library to External Hard Drive on Mac
Ғылым және технология
This guide goes through the steps on how to relocate your Mac's Photos library over to an external USB Hard Drive. You'll need a Hard Drive that is large enough to store your Photos library.
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Пікірлер: 296
What did you think of this video? Wanna learn more about the Mac? Checkout my online training course - 'Master the Mac' - bit.ly/macOSGuide
@sovereignstretchandstrength
2 жыл бұрын
Great Emillio! Thank you for all your hard work. Will dive in again I'm sure!
@arttyree4504
2 жыл бұрын
Emilio, this is very well presented. Concise and clear.
@billpick54
Жыл бұрын
I followed your instructions and everything worked out fine. However, when I open Photos-settings- general there is a message that says it is not searchable in Spotlight due to its location... and goes on to say all the things you cannot do from the hard drive. Especially when it comes to sharing photos and collaborating with others. This would lead me to believe that any photos i want to share or perform other functions with I would have to copy them back to my macbook and reregister the primary location. i don't know for sure. I'm brand new to Macbooks after 40+ years on the PC system. Just trying to get my pictures on my 1TB SSD. Ameteur Photographer/Videographer so need lots of space (and 1TB doesn't cut it). thanks for the video and any feedback you can provide.
@michaelwells1349
Жыл бұрын
Not helpful. When I open my finder, I don't have anything called "Pictures" on the left hand column....so I'm already stuck at the very beginning. Would be great to know how to get Pictures to show up in Finder like you had it.
@hnia0
Жыл бұрын
how do I reverse this???? please someone help me - i followed the video and the library is now on an external memory drive - but I want to reverse it and just have my library back to open from my MacBook. can someone help me please
Okay, am I the only one wondering why Mac would make something so simple, a task worthy of a 9 minute video?
@Domestikos88
Жыл бұрын
Recently switched from PC to Mac and I find this so unnecessarily crude
@pythagoras281
Жыл бұрын
Same here, I'm switching to my PC to finish the job.
@salman_3833
11 ай бұрын
to be fair, the first 2 minutes was a bunch of useless information
@ScoobyAndFriends
4 ай бұрын
Because these people making videos enjoy hearing themselves talk and best to speak to your dumbest possible viewer.
This was the best process guide ever! Zero frustration. 100% success. Yay to free space! THANK YIU!
Thank you SO much for this!! Easy to understand, love the walk throughs ☺️
Thank you for the simplicity. I’ve watched several videos and this was the easiest to understand! I can finally get rid of my storage nightmare!
@my_studies2888
5 ай бұрын
SAME!!!
Some videos are too long, some are not detailed enough. You made it easy from start to finish. I had no problems following each step as you explain the reasons for the process. Thank you!
@CelestialCipher996
2 ай бұрын
With this method does your photos open on another pc other then mac?
Perfect execution on explaining everything I needed to do! Thank you so much!
Great job leading me thru the process! Really appreciate your skills.
Helped me soo much i been trying figure how to transfer to my hard drive for months THANK YOU 🙏🏾
just got a new iMac, So I've been looking at tutorials all evening for hours. But your tutorial was by far the best one for me. The details your gave were put in the best way for me to understand. Thank you. I will check our your others videos and maybe your classes if they are applicable. Awesome video thanks :)
Any advice on Live Photo’s? Basically when moved to a flash drive it splits the file into a still photo and a mov file.
This worked perfectly! I was able to dump 284.46 gb of photos and videos onto my hard drive, thank you so much for the tutorial! 😄
I appreciate this video so much. As a new KZreadr with a new camera, I was putting all my photos on my computer now my computer school and my iPhone storage is full and it’s just been a mess. I appreciate this video so much.
Really clear and easy to understand thank you
Very easy to follow & informative! Before doing this though, if I transfer all my pictures to the external hard drive, what happens to all the Smart Folders & iPhoto Events I created to organize them? I also have some Project folders in the works... Do I lose all this? Or will it keep these in tact... Thanks!
Well done. Very straight forward! Thank you.
With nearly 200GB of photos, it took a few hours but now it's offloaded to a passport external hard drive with 4TB vs the 1TB on my system hard drive. Now I can import more pictures. Thanks!
Before I do the transfer of my photos library onto the USB flash drive, I want to know if once I copied my photos library and delete the original Photos Library and emptied from the Trash bin, would I be able to add new photos to my Macbook pro again? will the photos icon be there? Thanks.
I really really appreciate you because it’s been 2 weeks I’m just looking for how to move all my photos and videos to the external hard drive so I done it thank you so much really it was helpful 😊
Simple, perfect. Thanks
This was super helpful. Thanks so much.
@TechWithEmilio
2 жыл бұрын
Glad it was helpful!
Thank you! Wonderful explanation.
very easy to understand, thankl you for the information...
Great piece of instruction, just need to buy external hard drive then i will give this a go, thanks Emilio
Hey Emilio, just wondering if I were to do this again (ex: save another Photo library for photos next year), would I save a new updated Photos library to my external hard drive and have to reroute the Photos app again to open a new Photo folder on my external drive? So if I have multiple photo libraries, would I have to reroute each time I want to view the libraries?
Thank you. Help a lot. Good luck in your channel.
Nice information, summary at beginning etc 👍
Thank you so Much I’m from Indonesia, your videos really helping me!
Great 👍 thanks 🙏 I was exactly looking for this steps
@TechWithEmilio
Жыл бұрын
You’re welcome 😊
thanks so much emilo , this is awesome , so simple , id done this years ago on an older external hd and need to relearn how to do it on a new ssd type device , thanks so much ! 🤩
This is clear, thanks.
Perfect Tutorial N, thanks 🙏🏽
and when you add new photos in your mac and want to backup again, you have to have separate libraries or can you add the new photos to the library that is already in your external hard drive?
That was what I was searching up 💪 thanks for saving my time and really easily explanation for windows lover how I can do this 😁
Thank you Emilio..this was very helpful..
This was a very good and helpful video. Thank you!
@TechWithEmilio
2 жыл бұрын
Glad it was helpful!
@elixirx07
Жыл бұрын
@@TechWithEmilio Can you still remove the external hard drive from your macbook after you do all of this ?
Super clear instruction provided!!!👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻
@TechWithEmilio
2 жыл бұрын
Glad it was helpful!
@cda3715
Жыл бұрын
@@TechWithEmilio hello. Is it possible to still sync your photos library on the external drive to your iPad or iPhone. I wish Apple would let us create separate photos libraries and Apple TV libraries for movies so you can choose which library you want to sync to an iPad for example and choose a different photos library or movie library to your iPhone etc…. I know you can create more than one movies and photos libraries. Just can only have one “system library”. From my understanding only the designated “system library” will sync to your devices. I have tried making libraries and putting them in other folders. But this also does not work. Ugh.
This tutorial on copy photo library to external hard drive (SSD) is the best explanation I have viewed. I notated your site to Apple on the just completed survey. Thank you again (and I would have saved 3 months work had I viewed your site back in January). Thank you... I am a New Subscriber.
Great job! Thank you.
Thank you for the video Emilio. Will this sync with cloud for the photos library so that all my apple devices are updated with the latest photo updates?
very simple , perfectly explain fo ra nerd to explain ;) well done! THANKYOU
Why when you export your picture library to the seagate external hard drive are the pictures not in the same order as the photos library on your mac etc and the original date that you took the photos does not show, it shows the date of creation which seems to mean the date that you imported them to the device not the actual date you took the picture. A video on this would be very helpful.
Well presented. I now have to try it.
@TechWithEmilio
2 жыл бұрын
sounds good
Thanks Emilio, this was very clear and helpful. I transferred to ext HDD. When I went to change preferences to choose other library, I clicked on my ext HDD but can not get the OPEN button to work?
I have a big photo and Video library im currently storing on my 4TB harddrives I would be happy to buy a huge Harddrive to cater for all my stuff which harddrive would you recommend?
very informative thanks
🇨🇦 👍💯 Fantastic visual presentation and to the point...no mucking about! The only difference at 7:16 time stamp instructions on your vid is that on my iMac was that there was no preferences when you click on Photos but to click on settings when you click on photos. I could see that the photo library default was now changed to the Extra data external hard drive which has 1T for storage. Thank you Sir! I subscribed to your channel!☺🍁🇨🇦 Eastern Canada chiming in
excellent vid thank you!
Hi there! I'm planning to do this for my photos because I really like organizing using the Photos app. Once I connect the library to my hard drive, if I make an album to organize the photos from the library, are those albums stored in the hard drive as well?
Cheers mate! Worked a treat 👍🏆🇬🇧
GREAT!! So now I have a question. As I take more photos on my iPhone and eventually I import that into my photos app on my Mac... how do I ensure it goes into this location on my external harddrive and not just back into my photos on my Mac? Will it do it automatically? Thanks!
Thanks for the video. Can I still use iCloud given the photo library is external HD?
My wife said thank you it’s very straight forward and worked 100%.
Very useful. Can you rename or date the file for another time? Thanks
I spent my entire day attempting to transfer over 9,000 photos and videos from my iPhone to an external hard drive using my MacBook. I wish I had discovered this video sooner. Despite trying the Image Capture app, it failed to copy all of them to my external drive and left some files behind. This method seems to be the smartest way to store files outside of my MacBook while still using the Photo app.
1. Copy Photos library from the Pictures folder into your properly formatted external drive. 2. Hold Option key while clicking Photos app to select your library. 3. Try opening the copied library (can verify location in the selection). 4. Delete the original library,
@danseuretoile27
Жыл бұрын
Question #1. How do I revert it back to the original library on my macbook (Like if I want to not use my external hard drive as the designated location for my Photos app?) Question #2. Can i use the photos I transferred into my external hard drive as individual files which i could manage without the use of my macbook? (example: Managing the transferred files on my external hard drive in a windows computer)
@TechwithEmilio What's the best/fastest external drive for 2013 MacBook Pro? Still running great after 10 years but Photos is painfully slow on older USB My Passport External drive
Thank you for making this video and a well explained process! Question - once your Photos library lives on the external drive, can you still turn on iCloud photos?
I would redo this video and add 'Use System Library' button in Photos Preferences, as the final step in relocating your Photos library. But thank you for your effort, it all contributed to me understanding this task better.
@TechWithEmilio
2 жыл бұрын
thanks for the tip geek mee
Can I use my external SD Card Reader to open pictures or should I use the SD Card Reader on the back of my iMac?
got a question, now I managed successfully to do what you very efficiently explained, but now if I have more pictures to upload from my phone how to proceed? thanks francois
Thank you !
thank you so much
How do i add my photos from my photos app on the mac back to my iphone? I lost all my photos and my icloud is empty too when accidentally deleting everything on a new ipad which i didnt know was linked to everything… around 60k photos. but i did have a lot of them on my laptop photos app . Any help would be appreciated
good info and how you explained. better then others.👍
@TechWithEmilio
11 ай бұрын
Glad it was helpful!
Good video easy to follow
@TechWithEmilio
Жыл бұрын
Glad you liked it
Thank you very much 🥰
can you delete the previous photo library thing from the Mac hard drive?
Thakn you.
love this! now am i able to delete the photos off of my phone and mac?
Great video
@TechWithEmilio
Жыл бұрын
Thanks!
Hi thanks for the video, i do still have a question do. After i moved the library to my external drive i cant inport any pictures in to that library. if you import pictures its does not give an error but it just dont do anything. I use a 4 tb t7 samsung external ssd. Any idea how to solve this ?
THANK YOU
Thanks for the help, subscribe is a must 👌🏼
@TechWithEmilio
2 жыл бұрын
Thanks for the sub!
Thank you for putting together this video. I was able to move my Photo library to an external SSD and everything works well. The only issue is that I downloaded all my photos from my iPhone and now I want to move a few back to my iPhone 13 Pro Max. Unfortunately, when I tried sending the in iMessage the iMessage App couldn't locate the photo library. Is there a way to update the directory in iMessage? Also, is there an easy way to transfer a photo back to my iPhone from my Macbook Pro? I don't use iCloud so this is not an option.
So will this library also be stored in icloud so I dont lose them if say the hard drive was stolen? If so there will be no reason for me to keep deleting photos from iCloud as I copy them to external drives now Im a bit of a fanatic....Would I be able to do this with my 2011 iMac or is it too old as I cant undate anymore to big sur like I have on my Macbook Pro..
Thanks a lot. 🙏
Thank you
Brooooooooo love you Thanks a loooottttttt😢😢😢😢😢😢😢😢love you brother
Useful and insiteful
Hey Emilio! Is it possible to store the photo library files on not an apfs drive, like a synology nas or something? Just for backup purposes, storing the file NOT using it?
Can you still remove the hard drive from your macbook tho after you do all of this ?
So funny how you described where the Alt button is : DDD
Emilio this is SO helpful. Now I am wondering, when I want to upload my iphone photos to the new library on my external HD. How do I do this?
can you do the same with Photo Booth, and if so could you explain? this video was very well explained!!
would this be the same method for documents and files in other libraries?
Question if you upload new photos does it go to the photos application or does it go to the copy on the external hard drive
THANK YOU!!! Subscribing!
@TechWithEmilio
2 жыл бұрын
Thanks for the sub!
hey thank you so much for the video it was super helpful straightforward steps. My only issue here now is that whenever I open a photo or video from photo library from my external hard drive it keep saying (Cannot start editing!) pictures quality is not high also my videos cannot open anymore. please advice on this. Thanks
@silentskies
Жыл бұрын
You must make sure that your photos library has been synced successfully with iCloud and in preferences select download and keep originals. If your preferences is set to optimise storage and you use the drag and drop method, you will be saving the low quality versions of your files.
Hey! I need help please! How do I put photos from my iPhone to the library in the external drive without putting it in the library of the macbook?
@pthaloblue100
2 жыл бұрын
Did you figure this out? I have the same question, problem to solve!
Does this work if I am copying an outdated photos app into a hard drive to move to a new Mac? Which would obviously be the latest version of the photos app
Hi I got an question I put all my pictures on the usb but when nog you see img but not the small picture pictogram some do but soms don’t the first time all the pictures where showing in small but now u you see img but when u click on them u see the picture but now I have to click them individually to see witch picture I’m clicking how can I fix this also on Mac
I found the photos app in the application tab but not the photos Library in the in the photos tab. Currently copying the photos app but I’m not sure if it’s the same thing. The file seems way too small for the amount of photos I have
Is there a way to as the max to find pictures in a external hard drive and import them into my Mac?
Now how easy is it to back up HD Photos Library to say, google drive. And/Or can the Photos Library be saved directly to google one. I haven't tried yet, a bit afraid to start that.
If I add photos/videos to my library but the external hard drive isn’t in, will it sync those into my external hard drive library the next time it’s plugged in? Or will it create duplicates/make it so there are 2 different libraries?
I have a pc and multiple picture folders is it can I download everything in the one shot to an external harddrive
i’m confused. i’ve completed this, but you can only use your photos app on mac when you have your external drive connected. i want to just transfer all my icloud photos to my external hard drive and clear my photos app? if i delete the original photos collection as seen in this video, then i won’t be able to open my photos app on my mac without having my drive connected?
Hello and thank you it seams when I plug my phone into the Mac it uploads all photos back on my Mac and not the external hard drive ??
does this mean I can only see my picture on a mac ? or can i see them if I plug my external hard drive in a pc ? thanks for the video !