How to move Photos Library to External Hard Drive on Mac

Рет қаралды 301,445

3 жыл бұрын

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.
Here's a 5TB USB drive that I love - amzn.to/3Oifm2F
👉 Best VPN | Best Deal - bit.ly/emilionordvpn
👉 Speed up Your Mac - bit.ly/CleanMyMacX2
👉 Best Image Editor - partner.canva.com/emilio
SUBSCRIBE to my Channel 👉 bit.ly/emilioaguero
🌍 My Website - www.emilioaguero.net
• How to move Photos Lib...
🎓 LEARN MORE TECH:
👉 Full List of Courses 👉 www.emilioaguero.net/onlineco...
➤ From IT Tech to IT Manager - bit.ly/TechToManager
➤ Learn the Synology NAS - bit.ly/LearnSynology
➤ Windows Server 2022 - bit.ly/server-2022
➤ VMware vSphere 8 - bit.ly/vmware8training
➤ Server & Network Administration - bit.ly/TechAdminToolbox
➤ WSUS Beginner to Pro - bit.ly/wsusUpdates
➤ Learn #homelab - How to Setup Your Own Lab! - bit.ly/homelab101
➤ How to Pass your Sys Admin Interview - bit.ly/sysadmininterview
MY GEAR (some of it…)
➤ Intel NUC Mini PC - amzn.to/3VJuer9
➤ ZimaBoard Server - amzn.to/3TNA4rM
➤ Raspberry Pi - amzn.to/3nsyShB
➤ Teltonika RUTX50 - bit.ly/teltonika-emilio
➤ NAS 2-Bay | Terramaster FS0210 - amzn.to/44ORHN0
➤ NAS 6-Bay | Synology DS1621+ - amzn.to/3xUl5Wi
➤ NAS Rack | QNAP Rack - amzn.to/44frTdb
➤ 34" Curved Wide Monitor - amzn.to/4aL6zyF
➤ Digital Camera | Sony A7C - amzn.to/3VVt4KB
➤ Shure SM7B Mic - amzn.to/3MjPRgc
➤ Speakers | Presonus XT - amzn.to/49XH2RH
ABOUT ME:
My name is Emilio Aguero and I’m a technology enthusiast from Melbourne Australia. I’ve been into computers ever since setting up my first pentium computer years ago. I love technology and make videos about all things tech every week. Would love it if you support my channel by subscribing and staying up to date with what I'm releasing!
⮕⮕ New Videos Sundays 2pm GMT ⬅⬅
GET IN TOUCH:
👉 Reach out for affiliate/sponsorship enquiries - contact@emilioaguero.net

Пікірлер: 295

@TechWithEmilio 3 жыл бұрын

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

@bronallmighty1 2 жыл бұрын

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.

@aileenbauerlin4529 Жыл бұрын

This was the best process guide ever! Zero frustration. 100% success. Yay to free space! THANK YIU!

@my3lilmunchkins Жыл бұрын

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?

@thebeachyblonde 2 жыл бұрын

Thank you SO much for this!! Easy to understand, love the walk throughs ☺️

@amc.amarie Жыл бұрын

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!!!

@WTHREET1 Жыл бұрын

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 :)

@JeffDaytonMusic 2 жыл бұрын

Great job leading me thru the process! Really appreciate your skills.

@TheBroncDiaries Жыл бұрын

Perfect execution on explaining everything I needed to do! Thank you so much!

@IndiaMonetspeaks 10 ай бұрын

I appreciate this video so much. As a new KZfaqr 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.

@moniquin29 2 жыл бұрын

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!

@neishadanyelle3817 2 жыл бұрын

Helped me soo much i been trying figure how to transfer to my hard drive for months THANK YOU 🙏🏾

@semimba 7 ай бұрын

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!

@nigelhunt574 2 жыл бұрын

Great piece of instruction, just need to buy external hard drive then i will give this a go, thanks Emilio

@girlinthestars Жыл бұрын

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! 😄

@MegsCarpentry-lovedogs 10 ай бұрын

🇨🇦 👍💯 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

@anabt9039 Жыл бұрын

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?

@geekmeee 2 жыл бұрын

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

@jaygre4836 2 ай бұрын

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.

@MelissaJetzt Жыл бұрын

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)

@marcusineson Жыл бұрын

Really clear and easy to understand thank you

@ferdsbisco3752 Жыл бұрын

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?

@Kris-rf1mo 2 жыл бұрын

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.

@rinkydinky-ob9pe 9 ай бұрын

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 ! 🤩

@bronweneberhardchangingnar2987 2 жыл бұрын

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?

@jamesye5060 9 ай бұрын

Well done. Very straight forward! Thank you.

@kriegerm.5048 Ай бұрын

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.

@sagelenyatsa8246 2 жыл бұрын

This was super helpful. Thanks so much.

@TechWithEmilio 2 жыл бұрын

Glad it was helpful!

@areenkamo-pf6uy 4 ай бұрын

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 😊

@Cinnamonn96 Жыл бұрын

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?

@peymanfasahati4342 2 жыл бұрын

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 ?

@pangvivien2902 2 жыл бұрын

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.

@staudingerk Жыл бұрын

Thank you! Wonderful explanation.

@arashsoleymani532 7 ай бұрын

Simple, perfect. Thanks

@Kraft5000 Жыл бұрын

Thanks for the video. Can I still use iCloud given the photo library is external HD?

@yagood0310 Жыл бұрын

This is clear, thanks.

@rosaameliabartra4440 2 жыл бұрын

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.

@marnacouvedemurville4014 17 күн бұрын

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?

@ronnae.15 Жыл бұрын

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?

@Elrevisor2k Жыл бұрын

Great 👍 thanks 🙏 I was exactly looking for this steps

@TechWithEmilio Жыл бұрын

You’re welcome 😊

@farhanzainuddin4763 10 ай бұрын

Thank you so Much I’m from Indonesia, your videos really helping me!

@koralzinser8188 Жыл бұрын

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!

@49Macman Жыл бұрын

Very useful. Can you rename or date the file for another time? Thanks

@ashoka6468 2 жыл бұрын

love this! now am i able to delete the photos off of my phone and mac?

@tkogf Ай бұрын

That was what I was searching up 💪 thanks for saving my time and really easily explanation for windows lover how I can do this 😁

@francoisgs1 11 ай бұрын

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

@elvecio.junior 8 ай бұрын

Thank you. Help a lot. Good luck in your channel.

4 ай бұрын

Can I use two external hard drives, one as the actual library , and another as a backup security copy? Thanks and congratulations for your work!

@camertm7527 4 ай бұрын

very easy to understand, thankl you for the information...

@iaraadeodato8497 Жыл бұрын

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?

@mogerry 2 жыл бұрын

Well presented. I now have to try it.

@TechWithEmilio 2 жыл бұрын

sounds good

@wyseave 6 ай бұрын

Perfect Tutorial N, thanks 🙏🏽

@hectoralicea1023 7 ай бұрын

Great job! Thank you.

@tkogf Ай бұрын

Nice information, summary at beginning etc 👍

@Rxaru Жыл бұрын

Thanks for the instructions, but I’m still wondering: If I set it up this way, what will happen if I import more photos from my iPhone? Will they be transferred directly to the external drive or will they still be transferred on the internal drive and have to be moved again?

@ExtraXP Жыл бұрын

I want to know this also!

@EurovibesbyMaria Жыл бұрын

Do you know the answer maybe already? :)

@MoritzWeller Жыл бұрын

@@EurovibesbyMaria same question here. Also, my library file is only 15 GB big but my fotos take like 160 GB up from my icloud space, so obviously a lot is in the cloud and only loaded on demand, so this probably isn't a reliable method.

@dannyveras 10 ай бұрын

can you do the same with Photo Booth, and if so could you explain? this video was very well explained!!

@JosefRapaport Ай бұрын

Thank you Emilio..this was very helpful..

@curiousm1nds 5 ай бұрын

excellent vid thank you!

@marshallsambrooks4351 Жыл бұрын

very informative thanks

@lifeandbeautybys Жыл бұрын

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.

@Carzytej Жыл бұрын

thank you so much for guiding, all these year I'm used to windows which is a game of goats but why Mac had to make this task game of thrones... still your video made it easy and task accomplished.

@enriquepadilla8826 7 ай бұрын

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.

@OTIS8883 Жыл бұрын

My wife said thank you it’s very straight forward and worked 100%.

@JackieMinton Жыл бұрын

THANK YOU

@debrahbiondi9069 2 жыл бұрын

Thank you !

@Oasis293 2 жыл бұрын

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?

@francoisgs1 11 ай бұрын

very simple , perfectly explain fo ra nerd to explain ;) well done! THANKYOU

@RaviVedanthy Жыл бұрын

Thanks a lot. 🙏

@gali130 2 жыл бұрын

Thanks for this. If you want to move your photos in the other direction - from an ext. drive back to the system library, how do you do that? Context: I have been keeping my photos on an ext drive for years, and do exactly the process you outline in order to get Photos to point to that drive. Now, I want to start backing up in iCloud, but iCloud will only work with the system library, so it's time for me to transition the photos back to the local system. Thanks!

@thelaurieproject 2 жыл бұрын

I am also looking to do this!

@bethmiller195 Жыл бұрын

I need to do same thing. Did you get an answer

@lennymac5915 2 жыл бұрын

I thought this was going to be a super difficult, but your directions were great, thank you. Do you have anything on merging photo libraries.

@fatmanawawi606 Жыл бұрын

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.

@nigelcarren 6 ай бұрын

Cheers mate! Worked a treat 👍🏆🇬🇧

@CwGamplay 11 ай бұрын

good info and how you explained. better then others.👍

@TechWithEmilio 11 ай бұрын

Glad it was helpful!

@widadalemam8375 9 ай бұрын

Thank you very much 🥰

@mas3974 Жыл бұрын

Useful and insiteful

@ralphbuettner7580 2 жыл бұрын

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?

@portraitgallery9627 6 ай бұрын

thank you so much

@jackprojectz Жыл бұрын

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 !

@lennymac5915 9 ай бұрын

Hi Emilio, I come back to this video time and time again, just to check I'm doing things correctly and it has been great. I need to move a heap of photos off my MacBook to free up space, and wondering does it matter how many Photo Libraries you have on an external drive, or do things get tricky if you have too many. I have bought a 5T EHD because I want to split all the photos into things like Cricket, Football, Art, Textiles, Garden and then just have the one library on the actual device. Is this something you thing should work?. My husband takes photos of all the kids football and cricket games dating back when they were very young, and now the oldest 34, and yes we have 1,000's, but I think they need to be in a libraries as that's what he's used to. Photos of Art, Textiles etc are just screenshots to encourage me to get my art supplies out, but I think it's easier to work in a library, Since the I cloud thing came along, I seem to end up with duplicates everywhere. Some photos, not just 2 or 3, sometimes 10-15. So I need to get it organised. I have a Desktop Mac, Mac Book, iPad and iPhone, so I need to make one of them the Mothership and download them onto the Desktop to stop all the duplicates. I can't tell you how many hours I've spent trying to delete duplicates. When I've realised I probably don't need to, Thoughts????

@PoetryFilms 4 ай бұрын

Very clear and precise instructions, and the new library on an external SSD works perfectly. However, if I connect the SSD to a second Mac (MacBook, for instance) and open the library file on the drive, though I can see all the photos if I try to edit any I’m informed it’s not the original file. Somehow the path to the original, full-res files is not being made clear to the second computer. Any ideas?

@Nate504boy101 Жыл бұрын

Good video easy to follow

@TechWithEmilio Жыл бұрын

Glad you liked it

@martinjmarchena 8 ай бұрын

Thakn you.

@joonyaboy Жыл бұрын

@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

@3jsmarttv Жыл бұрын

Thank you

@barbjacobs9333 2 жыл бұрын

THANK YOU!!! Subscribing!

@TechWithEmilio 2 жыл бұрын

Thanks for the sub!

@Fishrulestheworld 2 жыл бұрын

can you delete the previous photo library thing from the Mac hard drive?

@fantabarack 5 ай бұрын

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?

@Waszzakk 2 жыл бұрын

Thanks for the help, subscribe is a must 👌🏼

@TechWithEmilio 2 жыл бұрын

Thanks for the sub!

@km-kn6jv 2 жыл бұрын

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!

@alejandro12692 Жыл бұрын

Great video

@TechWithEmilio Жыл бұрын

Thanks!

@jasontong4914 Жыл бұрын

Can you do a video showing how to back up and restore this external photo drive when using Time Machine?

@TechWithEmilio Жыл бұрын

Will look into this!

@dollydarshan24 Ай бұрын

Thank you for your tutorial. Need advice. I backed up using time machine and realized a lot of repeats every hour, so deleted all the old back ups and kept the latest. Now when I open the latest, it says " cannot open photo library as it cannot find the original". So decided to copy and paste like you suggested separately without using time machine and now get the following error message " This operation cannot be completed as back up items cannot be modified" . The whole reason I needed to back up was for my photos. Now how do I ever get my hard disc to copy the photo library from my mac??? Need help!!!

@ammammavin_kadhaigal Жыл бұрын

any ideas on how to store Live Photos on external drives? how to store photos without decreasing the quality and informations of it

@artaffect 9 ай бұрын

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 ?

@lolitadeabreu3875 Жыл бұрын

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

@danseuretoile27 Жыл бұрын

@elizabethhanson4077 11 ай бұрын

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

@stephenchannon2138 Жыл бұрын

I have just watched this video, very simple to understand Thank you. However I have a few questions I would like to ask. 1. I will need to have my hard drive connected when uploading new images? 2. What do I do with the files of photos that are on my desk top? 3. Could I keep my photos on my computer, and just save images folders on my new hard drive? 4. Which is a better way to work using an external hard drive? It might seem like strange questions, but I am 64 and all of this is very strange. Do you have other videos I could watch to help me build up a simple work flow. Every blessing in Christ Stephen

@christopherbrown9206 2 жыл бұрын

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