I'd like to migrate my photo library out of Aperture, but still use it to edit photos (maybe). I'd like to export the masters and the modified versions of all my photos into standard Finder folders in the format YYYY/MM/DD. I can't seem to find any advice on how to do that. How to Back Up Photos on a Mac Using a Flash Drive. Mac computers are known for their user-friendly operating system and easy-to-access features. This not only applies to editing home movies and creating personal webpages, but also includes basic functions like backing up files and documents. USB flash drives, also. Save valuable space by moving your Mac Photos library to an external hard drive. Plus find out how to back up your entire iCloud Photos Library!

1. Export Photo Library Mac To Windows
2. Backup Photo Library Mac
3. Mac Photo Library Management

By Stephen Robles
Saturday, January 24, 2015, 11:00 pm PT (02:00 am ET)

Today's digital cameras and advanced smartphones like the iPhone 6 take stunningly detailed photos, but all that extra resolution comes at the price of larger image files. Moving part or all of your iPhoto Library to an external hard drive is one of the most effective ways to free up precious space.

1. Choose the photos you want to copy from your iPhoto photo library if your are using iPhoto, select 'File' from the top menu bar and then select 'Export.' Choose the 'File Export' tab and select.
2. Feb 02, 2018  Hi, I have a very old iMac which I have decided to replace with a PC (sorry Apple peeps). I wish to extract my entire Photos library (22,000 photos) including the 'structure' which I have painstakingly maintained over the years for migration, via the cloud, to my new PC.
3. Open Photos for me In the Photos app on your Mac, select the item you want to export. Choose File Export Export number Photos. Click the Photo Kind pop-up menu and choose the file type for the exported photos. Click the File Name pop-up menu and choose how to name the exported.

Before starting the process, we suggest making an up to date Time Machine backup of your computer to an external hard drive or Time Capsule. Be sure the external hard drive you use to perform this backup is a separate unit from the one you will move the iPhoto Library to should anything happen.
If you have an account with a cloud storage service, such as Dropbox, Google Drive or even iCloud Drive, you can also upload the iPhoto Library to these services for extra redundancy.

To begin moving your library, open iPhoto, click File in the Menu Bar and select Switch to Library.

A new window will appear listing any and all iPhoto Libraries detected on your computer. If you're not sure where the iPhoto Library file is located, look at the (Default) listing and the file path will be listed underneath. This should be located in the Pictures folder of your Home directory.

Quit iPhoto by going to Quit iPhoto in the iPhoto Menu Bar or pressing Cmd+Q. Connect the external hard drive that you will use to copy the iPhoto Library. You should see it appear on your desktop.

Open a new Finder window and click Pictures in the left sidebar. Click and drag the iPhoto Library file onto the external hard drive icon on your Desktop.

Depending on how large your library is and the connection speed of the external drive, it may take several minutes or longer to complete the copy process.
Once the copy is completed, hold the Option key on your keyboard and open iPhoto from the Dock or Applications folder. A new window will pop up asking you to Create a New Library, Choose the Selected Library or Other Library. Click on Other Library.

In the browser window that appears, navigate to your external hard drive, click the iPhoto Library file you've copied and click Choose.
iPhoto will open and as long as the external hard drive is connected, will reference the library on the external drive and not on your computer's drive.

Quit iPhoto once again and eject the external hard drive holding your new iPhoto Library. Open a new Finder window and navigate to the Pictures folder in the left sidebar again.
Right click or Ctrl+click on the iPhoto file and move it to the Trash.

Export Photo Library Mac To Windows

Finally, to free up the space on your internal hard drive, open the Trash from the Dock or Finder window and click Empty Trash in the upper right corner.

Your iPhoto Library has officially been removed from the internal drive. You can now reconnect the external hard drive you used to copy the iPhoto library, open iPhoto and use it as normal.
If you open iPhoto without your external hard drive connected, iPhoto will give you an error message saying the 'Library cannot be found.' Quit iPhoto, connect the external hard drive and reopen to fix.
For those looking to expand their beyond their Mac's internal storage HDD or SSD, AppleInsider

Backup Photo Library Mac

recommends having at least 1TB of extra space at the ready. A few high quality external and portable hard drive options from Seagate, HGST and Western Digital are listed below.

• Seagate 1TB Backup Plus Slim for Mac for $72.99 from B&H and Amazon.com or $88.99 from MacMall
  
  Also available in 2TB for $99 from Amazon and B&H or $149.99 from MacMall
  
  
• HGST 1TB Touro S Ultra-Portable External Hard Drive for $69.99 from B&H or $83.99 from MacMall
  
  Available in 4TB for $149 from Amazon and B&H
  
  
• Western Digital 1TB My Passport Drive for Mac from Amazon for $68.45, $69.00 from B&H or $70.99 from MacMall
  
  Available in 2TB for $96.24 from Amazon, $99 from B&H or $101.99 from MacMall

If you’re using the new Photos app on your Mac instead of the older iPhoto app, you most likely have a duplicate photo library floating around on your hard drive. For a lot of people, that could mean gigs and gigs of wasted storage space, especially on shared Macs with multiple migrated libraries.

Here’s how to check for multiple libraries and how to delete them…

Before deleting your old library: Make a backup

While the Photos app should have imported all your photos and videos just fine, I always recommend having backups handy. Perhaps you’ll delete an old photo by accident at some point and want it back later. If you have a copy of your old iPhoto library still handy, you can pull it form there as a last resort.

I saved my old iPhoto library to my Dropbox account. You can of course use any service of your choice, or just drop it onto an external hard disk you have laying around. Regardless of how you do it, I’d highly recommend saving a copy before deleting it.

Once you’ve backed up your old iPhoto library (if you chose to do so), you can proceed with deleting it:

1. Open a new Finder window on your Mac.
2. Click on Pictures in the left hand navigation. If it isn’t there, just search for your pictures folder using Spotlight.
3. You should see two libraries, one is your old iPhoto Library and one is your new Photos library.
4. Move your iPhoto Library to your trash can and empty it.

Check the storage space on your Mac, you should notice that you have more storage space available. If you are on a shared Mac and have multiple user logins, everyone using the new version of Photos on that Mac should make sure they don’t also have duplicate libraries.

I’m not sure why Apple doesn’t create a process to delete old versions of libraries after migrating to Photos, but they should. Until that happens, you’ll have to delete your old library manually.

Give this tip a try and see how much storage space you were able to clear up. As you can see in the screens above, my old iPhoto library was over 30GB, which was definitely a healthy chunk of hard drive space that I now have back.

Your Mac storage tips?

This is one of many ways to regain storage space on your Mac without having to sacrifice losing data. But we know there are lots of others. What are some of your favorite Mac storage tips for recapturing space? We’ve love to hear them in the comments!

Update

A follower on Twitter referenced to me an article written on Six Colors pointing out that the library is actually hard-linked between versions. While this may be true when you first migrate, it seems that if you make any changes to any files and the libraries become different, splicing can and will occur.

To test this theory, I deleted my iPhoto library on my other Mac to see how much storage was freed up. For those wondering, my iPhoto library was 35.99 GB and my Photos library was 41.16 GB. You can see the before and after results on my hard disk space below. I was able to free up over 20 GB of space. Go to library on mac. So I’m not sure what I think about hard linking or how well it’s actually working between Photos and iPhoto.

Mac Photo Library Management

Bottom line, if you’re short on storage space and you want to free some up, there’s really not much point in having two photo libraries floating around on your Mac. Hard linking or not, deleting the old library will free up space in almost every case.