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HowTos & Reviews I followed your instructions and in worked. But I have a question. Why is it, I deleted over 175G of data and only got back just about 95G. Something is not right with my computer. It's cheating me.
I went to apple 3 different times and spent over 10+ hours on the phone with them trying to do this exact thing you showed in less than 10 minutes. Liked for the youtube algorithm to boost this video.
I was very scare to delete my pictures, but I followed every step, and I am so happy, thank you, so much, I really appreciate you taking the time to do this video.
Just completed on my wife's laptop. Thank you for the very clear instructions, and look forward to seeing more from you. Seeing it is better than reading how to do it.
HUGE BLESSING for me!! I’ve been trying to figure out how to move photo files to external hard drive and was hesitant about trashing the photos folder. Thank you!!
This was SUPER helpful. My computer wouldn't sync with anything because I had too little space left. As I have tried to back up my photos before, I stopped short because I was afraid of losing my pictures. Even though this vid is now 4 years old, it was very accurate and useful. Thank you!
I struggled for YEARS to do the latter... this video honestly got me out of my comfort zone and forced me to learn more about my Mac and it’s components. I am now able to update and download freely- because I have free space now !
This was a blessing! I’ve been at my slow computer for an hour trying to copy and paste 13,000 images and videos to my hard drive!! I decided to search YT and quickly came across your video! I now have the photos copying on my hard drive and feel completely relieved !!! Thank you!!
THANK YOU. Please never delete this video - This tutorial was exactly what I was looking for and answered all of my questions. I just made a google doc instruction sheet for myself, and linked this video. Thank you!
You are very clear and I followed your tutorial step by step after years of fear of losing my pics, I finally have them in an External Hard Drive. THANK YOU so much!! Laura
Thanks so much for the patient and complete instructions. A few wrinkles you ironed out made things much safer and better for me. Saved lots of space on my air
Thank you for the very detailed Video, I've battled my Mac and Seagate 1Tb External hard drive for a few years trying to figure out how to save old photos and videos onto the External drive to free up space on my Macbook Pro and off load new pics from my DSLR camera for editing for so long and at last i've been successful thanks to you!! It was a blessing haha thanks again!!
truly a blessing applied the same concept but on myphone backed up all my photos from my computer to my har drive then delete doff me phone thank u very uch
I have added a LaCie 4TB External drive to my Macmini system. I then went on a search for a clear set of instructions on how to move the Photos library from the hard drive to the LaCie drive. Today I found this RU-vid instruction for making the move. THIS ISVERY CLEAR, PRECISE AND EASY TO FOLLOW. THANK YOU.
Thank you so much! I have been getting messages saying my startup disk is full for months now and I had to get my pictures off the main hard drive. Very straightforward tutorial!
thanks for the help, I couldn't figure out how to do this properly even following other online resources, and i consider myself tech-savvy, great explanation, worked perfectly.
This was really helpful. I had only 66 GB of photos, but just put them on my external drive and am expecting improved performance. Thanks for a clear and concise video that was easy to follow and detailed each step in the process.
This was SUPER fantastic, WONDERFULLY informative, SUPERBLY understandable and clear, and TRULY a great "how to" explanation for moving my photos from Mac to hard drive!!! THANK YOU FOR SHARING!!!
My god this just saved me. Everything I looked up was saying different things and I was confused and could never get it right. This is actually so simple. But you made it clear that it’s so simple by explaining it the way you did. Thank you!
So helpful!!! I've been needing to do this for YEARS and you made it so easy and understandable. Thank you for your time and creating this video to help others. :)
dude how much of a Straver is it I was about to throw myself out of a window having to constantly squeeze in a pinch. Every little bitches to process one image because of the high megabyte count especially when I enhance the photo file to be Lightroom this is great buddy congrats.
OMG thank you so much! I just copy and pasted the photos from the phone to a folder on my external hard drive. All 2,567 of them. I wanted to be able to search for things and edit through the photos app and I watch only a little bit of your video just to get me on the right track. Thanks everything is all set. Thanks so much! :)
3 months myself... :-( sniff!! still in the process.. this video helped get out all the photos onto an external hard drive that I had to 'learn' to format to ex-FAT n use just this morning. SO learning it is... although i'd prefer a one on one tutoring to use the mac.
I was very nervous to make the big click and empty trash but it seems like it worked! The instructions are calmly explained which made this video very easy to follow and understand. THANK YOU!
Thank you for taking time out to show a comprehensive move, I have in the past ended up with just thumbnails, completely ruing my photo collection. Cheers
Thank you so much! My photos library was copied so fast, with 12,583 photos... That now I'm wondering if everything got copied correctly (54 MB), so that I can proceed and delete Photos from my laptop.. Wish me success! ; ) Thanks for your super clear explanations!
You're welcome. Sorry for the delay. 54MB sounds too small....but the real test is for you to test the new library by attempting to open it as shown in the video. Also, after you put your old library into the trash, you can still retrieve it (before emptying trash). So it's a great idea to first test the new library. Then put the old library in the trash. Then retest the new library and make sure everything is working. Then you can have the confidence to empty the trash. This triple check will make sure you won't have any unpleasant surprises.
Happened to me too - all that means is your library is already consolidated (in one location). So the step is already completed. (Please, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong - that's just how it went for me).
I am so grateful for the simple and straight to the point instructions! I searched in Google everywhere for instructions and most of them are out of date and the steps do not match my system. Thank you so much!
If anyone is interested in speeding up a Mac the best info that i've had was by using the Mels Speed Method (just google it) definately the most useful resource i've followed.
Thank you from the bottom of my heart - I've spent practically ALL DAY trying to figure out how to do this, and have found other RU-vid videos on the subject laborious and frustrating. You have explained this extremely well and have 'taken me by the hand' to help me achieve this! I had not emptied my phone since 2015, and have had to purchase more iCloud space over time - 5 weeks ago I even ran out of that, meaning nothing has been backing up. Hopefully now I can clear my iCloud, phone, iPad and laptop and start afresh. It's terrible to be so computer illiterate - perhaps I shall do a course - something designed for Dummies in my case!!!
Found this in 2022 - Macbook still works perfectly on OS HIghSierra and the hard drive just a bit full. Thank you so much for this video, it is going to make my life a lot easier!!
Very informative, thank you! But I got a little confused at 5:20. I don't want all the pictures I upload from my phone to Photos Library to go straight to the external hard drive. I don't plan to always have my external hard drive plugged into my laptop. I want to manually put the photos onto the hard drive when I chose to (a few times a year maybe). I renamed the Photo Library I put in the hard drive so I can decipher between the two but now when I go to see my current Photo Library from my laptop I have to chose the Systems Photo option.
Hi, thanks for the video! Very clear! But I have a question: is there a way to copy photos from the library in a regular way without using the library itself? I want to be able to open the files on a windows pc without the hassle of downloading any programs to the other computer. So, can they be transferred separately as simple files? Thanks again!
Thanks a lot! This was incredibly helpful. I freed up some space on my macbook and at the same time transferred my actual photos to my external hard drive.
Because Mac Photos keeps everything in a hard-to-access "package file" (See appinitio.medium.com/hey-mac-user-where-are-your-photos-d9056ee4963e). There's a Mac app 'Photos Takeout' for extracting them into regular folders.
The most simplified version ever. Thank you. Question: So I sold my old Macbook and I copied the photo library just the way you described above to an external drive. Now would it be possible to take this library from external drive and permanently move to the new Mac I have just bought rather than plugging the external drive every time I want to see my old photos?
Hi there, I have made it to one of the final steps of deleting the Photos library/moving it to the trash, but it has been taking a very long time and just has the "Moving Photos to Trash" with an empty progress bar. Should it be taking this long to delete from my Mac? Thanks :-)
Hi, I have the same problem. For some reason is saying moving 2 items to Trash, its been there for good half an hour. When I moved the photos to external drive it took not even 20mins. Should I wait and just give it enough time?
I have this problem too. It has said, "Moving 'Photos Library' to trash for about 3 hours now. Did it finally work out for either of you? If so, how long did it take? I'm not sure if I can still use my computer for other things because the storage was so full.
A word to the wise here--DO NOT DO THIS IF YOU ARE USING TIME MACHINE BACKUP FOR YOUR MAC ON THE SAME EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE. I recently had to buy an new external hard drive and found out that there's something about using Time Machine Backup on the same external drive as Photos Library that corrupts the disk. What made this worse is that this very warning is mentioned in the information that comes with a new MacBook Pro. I don't know if this has ever been fixed, but last I knew this was still something to avoid.
So sorry to hear. It's so frustrating and the downside to using these "how-to" videos. Have you tried contacting customer service for the drive that you were using? There may be a way to retrieve the photos even though the drive is no longer usable.
Kulsuma Chowdhury Yes, it did for me. I had it divided into four partitions and it still corrupted the entire drive. Mind you, it didn’t do it immediately but over a short period of time. Errors began to occur then one day it was unable to read the drive at all.
Curtis The Mentalist thanks for the quick reponse ... I just started partitioning the hard drive. I'm still confused about how to relocate storage to the hard drive, I currently can't edit any videos or sync photos. Maybe the best thing to do would be to get 2 seperate hard drives?
Appreciate the video, just did on mine here, I bought a 1TB hard drive, I had about 22000 + photos and videos, it took nearly 3 hours to do it. Now its time to clean it up. Thanks for the video.
thank you so much! I've been needing to keep my photos on another harddrive for a while since I'm taking my laptop to be fixed and I don't wanna lose them (don't really care about the other data lolol). You really saved me
I just have a question, once the Photos library is on my hard drive can I unplug the hard drive and still have all my photos saved? or I can't unplug it? Thanks.
Hi Pedro. Yes, you can uplug the drive. When the drive is unplugged, the photos library will be unavailable. When you plug it back in, it will become available once more. Best wishes!
You will need the photos app from Mac. I just tried this on my PC and I couldn’t open the photos. I also tried it on a very old Mac that had iPhotos app and it said I needed “Photos” app. Mac always making things so difficult...
I receive "The Finder can’t complete the operation because some data in “Photos Library” can’t be read or written. (Error code -36) Has this happened to anyone? And if so can you shed some light on this issue? Much appreciated!
There are several suggestions for speeding up Macs easily Use the Activity Monitor. If you want to see what apps are using up your system, open the Activity Monitor in the Utilities folder. Turn off visual effects. Most Macs are now capable of running Mac OS X Mavericks. Update your software (and it set to auto update) Clean up your hard drive. (Reference: Achak Speed Plan website )
@@myrealusername9998 I try to avoid icloud because I haven’t figured out yet how to download to my computer in one big folder instead of clicking on each item to download. That could take FOREVER.
This was wonderful! Thank you so much. I had 15,000 photos on my Mac. Bought a new Mac and then it transferred - UGH! I use a Seagate and Porche external hard drive. You made this so simple! Thank you, Thank you, Thank you! xx
How is your experience now after some time? the apple guy told me not to export fotos on an external drive ... hm! Would love to know what s your experience. thx
I'm getting ready to transfer 40,000+ (yes, 40,000+) photos to my external hard drive. I'm so nervous that I'll do it wrong and lose all of our children's baby/toddler/gradeschool pics! Ugh......wish me luck!
When I drag my library onto the external hard drive it has a gray circle with a line through it. It won’t let me drop it on my hard drive. It’s this but gray > 🚫
I had the same problem, watch this video it will help you fix your external hard drive ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-sqTgYSPthDM.html
I followed step by step but when I try to launch the photos app that I just uploaded to my external hard drive to view my photos it says "The library could not be opened- Photos has attempted to repair the library "Photos library", but is unable to open it" but when I press "get info" on the Photos app that I uploaded it says it has (84.24 GB on disk)
I had the same problem and just figured it out! Right click on to your hard drive and chose ''get info'' and then check the format. If you're using a Mac then is has to say ''Mac OS extended (journaled)''. If it doesn't, then that means you need to reformat your hard disk, it's very easy and fast to do. Google reformat for your specific hard disk and you should find the steps. (warning, when you reformat, everything on your hard disk will be erased)
Whenever I try to open up the file in my drive this message pops up: "this library contains items that need to download from iCloud library". I've been stuck for hours and all my photos won't show up. What do I do?!?!?
Indeed a blessing. Thank you sir! I purchased an external hard drive so as to delete my apps and then redownload them to my external. Seeing this vid helped me determine that my apps take up nowhere near the amount of space on my Mac SSD that my photos do. I just cleared so much space! Again thanks!
