How To Move Your Mac Photos Library To An External or Different Drive

How To Move Your Mac Photos Library To An External or Different Drive. We got a fair bit of questions in regards to how to move your photos library to another hard drive or somewhere else on your Mac. So before we get into the photos training, we figured that we would make this quick video showing how easy it is to relocate your photo library. Again this means that you can move the library to an external drive or somewhere else on the same drive. Just be aware that if you do move the photo library somewhere else that drive has to be available when you want to open the photo software or want to access the photos in that library. Hope this vid helps some of you and answers your question.
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[@gregtoope]

Moving your library can be a nice way to clean up some space. Hopefully, this helps. Let me know if you have any additional questions in regards to this. Please ✅ Subscribe ✅& hit the 🔔 Notification Bell 🔔 if you're new to the channel, for more Tech Videos, Vlogs and Motorcycle related episodes coming in the next few days! Make sure to comment as well as we love hearing from you! Please make sure that your comments follow the KZbin guidelines. All comments that are abusive or portray bullying will be immediately sent to KZbin and removed from our channel.

[@theworldreadsyou7382]

Thanks for your great help. Will there be difference in the file size when we take a copy without the original?

[@gregtoope]

@@theworldreadsyou7382 not sure i understand. The actual library will be the same size, but since you are moving it to an external drive, you can delete the library in the original location. (after you verify that the new library works)

[@SaL-ep7zb]

Where can I find information on how to format my External Drive to be compatible with my Macbook Air, I can't move any photos into my External Drive as soon as I open it, it feels like it's blocked.

[@michelleauyeung2701]

Hello Greg, please help me, I am using a MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Early 2015), I was watching your video, and trying to create a photo library, so I can move all my photos from my Mac to a USB hard disk, but it seems I did something wrong, because after the photo library is created, all my photos are disappear from my MAC, what can I do so the photos can be back? Thank you in advance!!!!

[@holla4hala1]

I've been delaying moving photos from my old Macbook Pro hard drive to my new Mac library for about two years because I was so scared I would ruin the photos or because I thought it couldn't be done and the photos were lost forever. Thanks to your step-by-step tutorial of going through the Photos App ->Show Package Contents >Originals/Masters, I listened to your advice and was able to save THOUSANDS of my pictures and videos that I thought could maybe be lost FOREVER. Thankyou ENDLESSLY for these helpful videos that saved all my memories! I'm eternally grateful! No other video on KZbin was able to guide me through the steps like your videos did!

[@gregtoope]

Much appreciated. Glad it all worked out for you!

[@wayner2560]

Thank you for sharing! I am stressed out on storage. I have fell behind on my projects due to limited space. You are a life saver! This really helped. My brain is fried from trying to figure out photos and photos library. Cheers!

[@suziec7091]

THANK YOU! Watched many and never got the info I needed. You were spot on, clear and made it simple.

[@annmariebastasa]

Finally I found the very helpful video! Thank you very much! ❤ I really struggled transferring photos from my MAC to external drive since it always took so long but your video showed it can be as fast.

[@createanddaydream]

Thanks Greg for uploading this. I know it is a year old but it is exactly what I needed to learn today.

[@KordTaylor]

A SUPER HELPFUL and concise video I have to say. This is particularly helping my sons photo backup woes. God bless you!

[@gregtoope]

So glad it helped 👍🏻

[@Muelerama]

Thank you, really concise and easy to do 👍🏼

[@welderone5070]

Thank you for your simple, easy to understand, visual directions. I have always struggled with understanding computer systems, especially Mac. I belong in the 80's and not in these times of computer technology.

[@gregtoope]

well if you have any other questions let me know. maybe ill make a video. 👍🏻

[@dandaman0856]

Awesome, very well explained! Thank you

[@OneDarkMartian]

This is extremely helpful, thank you!

[@yorwebb]

lifesaver!!! Thanks for tips.. followed it exactly and worked perfectly!!!

[@ruhroah5044]

oh my god...this is exactly what I'm looking for. THANK YOU

[@gregtoope]

Glad it was helpful

[@julianacarpenter3476]

That was awesome info thank you!

[@Tiffers963Hz]

Thanks so much Greg. Your video is sooooo helpful. Respect to you.

[@gregtoope]

appreciated. thanks. glad it helped. 🙏🏻

[@tinlizziestudios4344]

Wow, Learned a lot. Thank you for the detailed explanation. The why's are important to me.

[@gregtoope]

glad to help

[@adamhenderson7484]

The best tutorial I've seen on this... Thank you

[@eleanam4835]

Loved this video! Thank you🙌🏻

[@gregtoope]

very welcome. thanks for watching.

[@zooedca]

Thanks for all the Apple tutorials they are really helpful !

[@gregtoope]

Happy to help! More will be coming soon.

[@JayJayRealhiphop]

Nice. Very concise and explanatory

[@gregtoope]

Appreciated. Thanks!

[@bettydambach7371]

Very helpful. You saved me a ton of heartburn!

[@gregtoope]

Glad I could help!

[@joseaalbuernemata378]

THNX FOR THIS VID :)

[@thetroothhurtz]

Thx brother!!

[@IAM-iv1oz]

Great and to the point video. Well executed. New sub here for you bro. Thank you for the excellent content. Happy New Year Greg.

[@gregtoope]

Happy new year and thanks! Much appreciated!

[@twinkletOos1]

thank you! That was helpful :)

[@gregtoope]

You are most welcome!

[@karenandros4317]

Going to try this. Thanks for the help.

[@gregtoope]

most welcome.

[@luiggimondoli]

Thank you very much! I need to make space.

[@iamtheplayer3818]

Thanks for the video.

[@gregtoope]

most welcome.

[@remmy1219]

Thank you so much for this!

[@gregtoope]

most welcome

[@robertcharran3830]

Thanks

[@eddysel10]

Great and short tutorial

[@ReneaDooserider]

Oh my gosh thank you so much I was struggling getting 256 GB off my phone to a external SSD card using Monterey thank you thank you💕💕👍🏻💜💕

[@gregtoope]

Glad I could help

[@orencohen714]

You saved my pictures thank you

[@aedynryan]

thx homie

[@janiscollette1737]

Thank you for this and showing just how simple it can be. question though....I'm a photographer having a nightmare of a time with my storage space constantly filling up. You know what that' like when you're dealing with raw files etc. I have a very large Lightroom Library. Can I move that the library onto a separate drive like this without messing up syncing with Adobe etc?

[@maddknitter]

Hi Greg… thank you for this video! I got through the transfer and it WORKED! Question: now is the time to empty the trash?

[@sheilacrain7747]

Thank you for your easy description. I have a question...I keep several hard drives in the event one of them fails and each of then are pretty much a mirror of the other. My macbook always contains the current year of photos that I have been transferring from my phone and then at the end of the year I will copy onto the drives, name it according to the year and free up that space on my computer. Is there a way to combine my libraries that are on my external drives so that I don't have them sorted by individual years. As it is, I need to close and reopen a new library if I want to reference a photo from another year which can problematic if I'm simply searching for a photo. Thanks in advance for your help.

[@SnuggleBunny.]

Thank you sooooo much for the added step of SHOWING that it would link you to the photos library and OPENING the file. I cannot tell you the countless videos I have watched that have either showed the file duplication w/o opening the file but ASSUMED we just knew it would lead us to the photos library. I was wondering why I kept popping back up at my own photos library. I thought I did something wrong. I didn't know that was suppose to happen. I must have done this at least 10x's already and wasted 2+ hours. THANK YOU!!!!

[@gregtoope]

most welcome. thanks for watching. we have moved into a new location and will be starting to do more tutorial videos. Let us know if there is anything specific that you would like for us to do.

[@DrWenChannel]

How about Music Files? Can you please also do a tutorial for moving music files from early 2014 Macbook Air to external hard drive? Thanks!

[@ryandrake6864]

great video. what's your approach to now backing up the new library on external hard drive? You can use a 2nd hard drive as a backup, however every time you want to backup hard drive one, do you then have to delete the prior hard drive 2 photolibrary. not aware of a way to merge just the new photos since last backup? hopefully that made sense?

[@marylouiseminer2364]

Thanks so much. I have a question. When I move a library does it move the way I’ve saved that library. For example, I have separate files for different family members to copy photos to. Will the move to an external drive set up the same as what is on my computer?

[@AliceBowie9]

great tutorial - I have a unique situation, and wondering if you had any advice. Last week, I ran a Time Machine backup and it popped up a window halfway through saying there was not enough space so it deleted older backup. I wanted to see what photos were in the now oldest backup on my external time machine. I double clicked on the photps app from a 2016 date and all of the sudden it "updated" my photos library. when I checked the library after it completed it had only Dec 2016-Jan 2020 photos and my library size is now around 10GB. I take a ton of video so my library would have been way bigger consisting of around Jan 2012 -Jan 2022 I need to backup all photos that are presently on my mac before any further damage is done. To complicate this even more my wife is a separate user on this same mac and her photo library is around 180 GB and she did not lose anything.

[@anamikakumar4814]

Thank you so so much for this video!! I have a question, every time I import new photos from my phone onto my macbook, will it automatically update in the photo library on my hard drive or will I need to copy the photo library again? Please help 😭

[@tto1910]

This would be helpful if I had a photos application under my drive or whatever he used

[@shanecammell]

hey - have a question. Was needing to combine libraries, so I exported a library-worth of photos to a folder on an external drive. I had the library that would receive those photos via import on the same external drive. I imported the photos, they're now in the library, but the actual library size didn't change. Prior to the import, it was 76GB, it's still 76 GB even though I imported 130GB worth of photos into it. Is it because the photos to be imported were in the same drive location as the library that would receive them?

[@BCK2BCK]

Can u physically transfer all of your library completely from one mac to another? My issues are the loss of timestamps and location if I transfer it any other way.

[@GeorgeAmodei21]

Thx You :) George Amodei

[@carlosschein9283]

If we already have done this process previously how do we simply update the photos file on the hard drive? I delete my photos once I copy the photos library to the hard drive so I need to save the ones on the hard drive as well as add the new ones from my computer.

[@alfonsomartinez2763]

great video super helpful, I'm currently running out of space on my cloud I am trying to move 3 years of photos and videos to my external hard rive, that's 27GB I know that's a lot. my question is how long will that actually take currently it is saying it will be done transferring in about 2 days!!!! is there a faster way of doing this or do I just have to suck it up and let it to its thing for 2 days? I would really appreciate some feed back on this.

[@createanddaydream]

Hey Alfonso, my name is Gena, nice to meet you. I was wondering if you figured this out as I am in the same situation. Hope you see this.

[@nicojuve1099]

Even though on the front end it looks simple I think it’s important to know in depth how the whole app works. One wrong click and you could mess up your whole library. Only thing I still don’t like to this day is the fact that the all the photos are stored in a single proprietary file. Not sure if It’s possible to read it from a Windows machine or recover single photos in case the library gets for whatever reason corrupted

[@gregtoope]

actually, you can. Maybe ill do a quick video to show you how in the next video!

[@reneebrown4610]

I have the same concern as Nick. I have my photolibraries saved but what if I know longer have an apple one day. No one could see the photos...

[@tatianashnorhavorian521]

How do I find my "user" in finder. My Mac doesn't show that tab?

[@pmontoyap]

I had the same issue as I was running El Capitan, just type in “photos” in the finder search and it will show up as photos library

[@bruhvideostudios]

Macintosh hd

[@markhoffman9655]

Does this bring along the photo edit-file as well or only the original photo?

[@digital360]

So in my case, if I want to move all of my photos and the folders they are in, I need to copy the library, then go back into Photos app on Mac and delete the pictures from each folder that I created? This way I can continue to utilize my existing photo folders on my Mac. This way I only have to connect the external HD when I want to reference old pictures. Is that correct? I don't want to have to connect my HD to reference my library every time I want to update with new photo dumps if that makes sense.

[@syednabi5473]

After copying photos to external hard drive, can you open the photos on windows computer.

[@PierreA213]

Hey Greg! Great video! I do have a question though. On the 2:10 mark in the video. How do I find the primary drive? I’m having difficulties because it’s not on the side bar as shown in the video.

[@TanayaJ]

I had the same issue. just command + space bar and type in your name or the word 'pictures'!

[@allandenola5968]

Great video Thank You - i tried this but a lot of my photos are in the cloud so i did not go any further because i am not sure how to move all the cloud photos to external drive . Any help would be great Allan

[@darcia9316]

Now I set up my external drive Photos as the Systems Library. I need it to download the iCloud photos that I didn't back up for 2 years. Do you think it will just synch on its own. Should I be using the computer while it works at the background or just leave it and not touch it? How do I start the downloading process? Thank you so much

[@superagent7063]

when you move your photo's library to external drive, will future photo's automatically store to that external? For example: I go out to a birthday party and take a bunch of photos on my iPhone. I come home, and turn on my Mac. will those photo's still download to the external via iCloud?

[@ozpain1]

Thanks for the video. I learned a lot, but sadly these fixes haven't worked for me.

[@pauldavies5144]

I'd like to know how to back up my photos library from the external drive I use for my photos to iCloud. Do I have to copy the photos library onto the iMac before I do this or can I transfer direct from the external disc to iCloud. I'd like some help please.

[@nikhilgawade5657]

Can I move or install actual appliances on external HDD? Like I have some large engineering CAD applications. I have around 2-3 apps which has size of 10-15gigs each app. I occasionally use this apps, usually 2 days of week. So I want to move this apps in external HDD, so I can plug in that HDD whenever I need those apps.

[@jagrelna5133]

If i move all to external and delete on the mac. Would all new photos automatically store on the external hard drive, or would they go on the mac and every so often I’ll have to copy and delete on to external hd? With this method.

[@TheDiegoloop]

How would you go about getting the photos from iCloud?

[@noura483]

hello if i want to put back my photo library to the way it was from a hard drive what do I do?

[@donnellabuxton3709]

My photo library is using up a lot of GB's. If I try to copy it before transferring it to external drive will that not use up all my space which is already very low? Then I would have two huge files to delete my Mac is already playing and shut down on me.

[@mikemoore6218]

QUESTION: How much of a performance loss is it, loading the library from an external? I'm about to do this from an old iMac with a 250gb library, years worth of family photos and video. My concern is that once done, having the library on an external will massively slow the load time, making it difficult to browse from album to album. Also, if I may add a wrinkle, my actual end plan is to plug this external into a wifi router so that both my wife and I can access it on our own computers. That way we can both easily add new pics from our phones to the same library. But if a plugged in external is slower, then wifi would be even worse! :( Thoughts?

[@gregtoope]

yes the wifi will be slower. Ive used an external for my photo library for years now with no real issues and my photo library is over 1TB in size. Just try and find an external drive that is fast. Speed is definitely something to be concerned with. In regards to sharing the photo library. The only concern I would have is that if the 2 users try and access the library at the same time. Then the database file gets messed up. So be sure that no other user is accessing the library when you want to use it. I would just grab a portable external drive and physically move it between machines and users. This way you should have no issues with database errors. Thats what I do.

[@stevenpollock4574]

@@gregtoope Hi Greg I hope this finds you. When you say fast hard drive what are you using ?. HDD or SSD ? My library is at 1TB on my MAC. I do some editing of the pics and would like similar performance. I would love to get away with HDD for cost reasons and the scale up I need will require I also upgrade my backup drive size. Does photos app on local drive catalogue the pictures for quick viewing ?

[@magnificentGS]

Hi, As you told I have been using an external since I bought M1 Mac Book. But something happened after the last update of the Mac Book and now I can not open my photo library on my external even I can not create a new library. Do you have an opinion? İs there a problem with the last macOS?

[@gregtoope]

there is no problems as far as i kno with the OS. Ive been using externals for my photo libraries for over a decade. You can try and repair the library if possible (hold command and option keys down when clicking on the photos app). If not can you create a new library on the main drive and move the originals to it?

[@AC-hv6md]

In my photo library I have created a shared folder which I use to allow my Apple TV to use as photos for the screen saver and for my family members to view. This folder has grown to about two thousand images. I have unsuccessfully tried to find a way to copy this folder to an external device so that I can check it for duplicate images. Is there a way to either move this folder to an external folder so as to run a program to check for duplicate images or to use a software to check the shared folder itself for duplicate images?

[@maryfrantzoulou4067]

How can I migrate a Photos Library to a new M1 Max MacBook Pro, when I’m not using iCloud. My old MacBook is 10 years old running MacOS Sierra, and so do not want to use Migration Assistant. Thanks.

[@km-kn6jv]

is it possible to add new photos on photo library on to an external disk without adding it to the photo library on the macbook? (so just transferring your photos from the iPhone to the external disc photo library)?? Please help!

[@gregtoope]

yes, just make sure that the external library is setup as your 'system photo library' in the preferences.

[@menelise]

What about photos belonging to the same user from various sources (say an iMac, a MacBook, some iPads) stored in iCloud?

[@ChristiannTyler]

Fantastic video! Something I’m struggling with is separating all the nonsense I shoot with my iPhone and the photos I want to put on my MacBook from my canon. I’ve never had a Mac before so this is a new issue. All of a sudden I have thousands of terrible iPhone photos mixed with photos from my canon 🤷🏻‍♂️ is there an easy solution to this other than having to remove my iPhone from iCloud? Then I wouldn’t get my emails/texts etc on my MacBook which kinda sucks. Unless I’m just.. slow and completely wrong lol. If you or anyone has some advice I’m all ears

[@llxeroxll]

hi, so everything was well until I tried to play a video from the iCloud library in the external drive. They don't play... and ways of solving it? Thanks

[@gregtoope]

if you have mulitple libraries you can only have one 'system' library and you need to make sure the photos app knows which one that is. In the photos program go into your preferences and make sure that the library is set to be the system library. Hopefully that will help. But you also want to ensure that they library has the originals first. this may be something you do with someone that is sitting by the computer that can ensure everything goes as planned. Dont want to loose anything if something goes wrong.

[@shawnatkinson5510]

Thanks. I’m doing it now. My phone is full and messing up. My computer was full so I couldn’t free up my phone.

[@my2009Babies1]

Can I move the library to a sd card sandisk?

[@camilledantes7763]

Hi there. I have followed all the steps but the photos won't transfer to my external hard drive. I get a message that says "The Finder can’t complete the operation because some data in “Photos Library” can’t be read or written. (Error code -36)"

[@Maggie4213]

I only want to move some photos to a usb. If I drag them to a usb will that change the format?

[@julienielsen3746]

I just want to move my photo library from my old 2012 Mac to my new iMac. Using a 32 GB USB Drive for 14 GB of photos in my library. Watching videos on doing this. formatting the USB etc. All new to me. I used CDs to move all my images that I had for my artwork. That was easy. But, moving all the photo library won't work on the CDs.

[@oanhchau89]

how about Live photos? They become the JPEG after being exported.

[@k2_fx521]

Good job for explanation but man Thank God I run Windows OS. My friend have Imac and need to move galery on external.

[@CANDYLOBA1]

Hi , how do you reverse that process? I want to bring all my pictures to my MacBook

[@joelongrid7625]

I'm trying to move only my raw videos and my edited videos onto a hard drive. I have started by putting my raw videos into an album by themself but I can't drag it to my hard drive. What step am I missing?

[@gregtoope]

check the format of the hard drive. if its NSFS then the mac cant write to it. Make sure its formated as exfat or one of the apple formats like HFS. Let us know if that the issue.

[@joelongrid7625]

@@gregtoope You nailed it. It is NTFS, should I buy a different formatted drive or can I reformat? It has tons of movies and music on it that I don't want to lose. Seagate 500GB.

[@jesse.medina]

I moved a photo library from my old MacBook to my new one thinking it would merge them and it deleted my current one. Is there anyway to reverse this? I don't have any backups. Any help is appreciated!

[@jesse.medina]

Update: found a copy on my Current MacBook and it let me switch the library back. It was under "Photos Library.photoslibrary" which is why I couldn't locate it by search. Leaving this comment up just in case it helps someone else out!

[@tomlucas4788]

How do you create a library from an external drive that has hundreds of just pictures over several years and from various apple, android and windows products? My hard drive on my max isn’t large enough to move them all to the new max and then move again

[@afreenadhil]

When I’m transferring videos it converted as jpeg (images) how can i move videos from mac to external hard drive??!

[@DanielFlores-cy1zc]

intend of a plus sign, I’m getting a 🚫. Can someone please help me? :/

[@clogat537]

Now, if I copy my library onto an external drive, but I have later on more photos and videos that are on my MacBook. How would I separate the two if I want to go back and re-look at what’s on the external drive? Are they basically two different libraries that I can explore?

[@gregtoope]

If you double click that library it’ll open that one.

[@clogat537]

@@gregtoope just tried that and it worked. Thanks a lot you’re video really helped me store my photos the best way possible

[@matteacolumpsi4079]

Can I move multiple mac photo libraries to my external hard drive?

[@gregtoope]

Sure. You just have to tell the computer which one to use when it opens. Or just double click the library that you want to use. Also, just be aware that only one of the libraries can be the master library.

[@d53101]

Now what we need to know how to tell Time Machine to backup the Photos library from it’s new external location.

[@gregtoope]

i believe you just have to go into Time Machine Settings and tell it not to exclude the external drive. Then make sure your back up drive is big enough to include both the internal and external storage. Time machine by default is set to exclude external drives from backup. So just remove those from the list

[@john04711]

The videos from mac or photos app don’t really play on the external drive and shows as jpeg How to fix this issue

[@stpisls]

If we want to take that photos library and put it on a new computer - how to direct the new photos app to this alternate library?

[@gregtoope]

Option click the photo app. It will ask you what library you want to use. Once chosen, make sure to open the photo preferences and set the library to be the 'system' library if it isnt already.

[@atnaturesgiftdothm1012]

I like how simple you make your videos. Great explanation. Thank you. However when I try to move a folder to my external drive it bounces back and doesn’t actually move or copy. Same goes if I try to delete something from the external drive, again bounces back and doesn’t go anywhere. HELP!!

[@gregtoope]

Heck the format of the drive. Make sure it’s Mac formatted.

[@atnaturesgiftdothm1012]

@@gregtoope it’s not a new drive, been using it for about 6 months. All of the sudden it’s not letting me add or subtract from it. It’s like it’s locked.

[@gregtoope]

Check

[@SomnambulistCraze]

but can i open that photo file on a windows pc

[@justanotherviewer52]

So many different concerns from Windows based systems.

[@gregtoope]

Its just different.

[@cruzsalazar3362]

Hello I still can figure out how to move video from my Mac to external hard drive

[@jirkadolezal8127]

👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍

[@gregtoope]

Thanks

[@luisr6110]

what if i don’t have a user tab on finder

[@mopnem]

I know I come from windows but..seriously apple always talks easy user interface yet, there is good reason to have a vid on transferring photos..like this isn't even a thing for windows smh..

[@goxyeagle8446]

I have already regretted for switching to the mac

[@toytalks7541]

Anyone having problem in importing photo to Mac Photo Library which living on NAS?

[@Resist4]

I migrated all the data from a old MBP to a new MBP and as I was deleting files that I didn't want on the new MBP I accidentally deleted my Photos App Library. Now I can't figure out how to transfer the original library photos from the old MBP to the new MBP, so I have the photos back on it. I don't have an external SSD to copy them to and even if I did I don't have the right cables as the new MBP uses Thunderports and the old MBP doesn't. The Migration option doesn't seem to allow just a photo library transfer. And I can't get the Airdrop option to work. I also don't have a big enough iCloud account to hold all the photos to that route. This Mac stuff is supposed to be easy, but it's not!

[@gregtoope]

actually its super easy all you need is an external drive. If you didnt delete your library everything would have been fine. Hard drives are cheap. Just buy one that supports USBC or buy an adapter.

[@Resist4]

@@gregtoope I have an external drive, I just don't have an adapter to plug into the M1 MBP.