I am in need of moving my photo library from my MacBook Pro to an external hard drive to free up space. I have set up 2 separate Vaults. Each on a 1TB WD external hard drive. I have copied my “managed” library to a 3rd portable external drive that I now plan to use for all my photos. My question is, how do I now use that portable drive with Aperture? If I connect it and double click it in Finder, the library opens in Aperture. I get that, but when I’m Importing new photos do I just have to have the drive connected and highlighted in Finder so the items now import here instead of my internal hard drive or will Aperture prompt me where I want them to go on in the import window?
How do I update my Vaults when my photos are stored on the EHD? Do I just have to have both drives connected when updating the Vaults?
Also, what happens with my Photo Stream? How will my iPhoto photos get into the library on that external drive?
Kind of new to all of this so I don’t want to mess anything up.
Thanks!
Aperture always imports into the Library currently open. Yes, you must have your external HD connected to your laptop and the Library on it open in Aperture. Imported images will then be placed in that managed Library. If you are confident your external HD Library is good, you can navigate to your internal HD Library with Finder, select it, and delete it.
Photographer | https://www.walterrowe.com | https://instagram.com/walter.rowe.photo
Thank you Walter. That explanation is a huge help. I didn’t know about Aperture always using the “Open Library.” Everything seems good with the External HD Library. I have opened and closed it numerous times and all my photos are there. It and my 2 Vaults are showing the same number of photos in each. I have to admit, I’m still a little nervous about hitting that “Delete” button in Finder. I think that’s why I’ve put this off for so long.
Thanks again!
Katie S.
Happy to help!
Photographer | https://www.walterrowe.com | https://instagram.com/walter.rowe.photo
How many places for the Library are enough…
Keep the old Library on the computer HD for a while as you are only enlarging the EHD library. At some point you will get up the nerve.
OR…get a backup EHD and keep a second copy there, update it periodically. I wont speak for Walter but I don’t think he is a big Vault fan. Rather he keeps several Library backups, including one off site.
As everybody keeps telling me; sooner or later hard drives fail.
Stan
sbysshe.smugmug.com
Stan is correct. I don’t use Vault. I have nothing against Vault, but I find synchronizing my Library disks to other disks is much faster than updating Vaults, and it is easier to recover subsets of images from a backup Library without having to restore an entire Vault. Stan is also right that you can’t have too many backup copies of your data. I have one master and three copies. One of my copies does stay off-site.
Photographer | https://www.walterrowe.com | https://instagram.com/walter.rowe.photo
I think I might have made a mistake. I wanted to ask before I start redoing things. I created my two Vaults before transferring my library to the EHD. Should I have created my Vaults with the library that I moved?
Katie S.
You’re good as your have it.
Photographer | https://www.walterrowe.com | https://instagram.com/walter.rowe.photo
I’m doing same thing Katie is doing with moving managed library to external drive. Just want to make sure I’m deleting correct file after I’ve verified external drive is set up and showing up correctly…file is called “Aperture Library.aplibrary” and is found in
finder>pictures>Aperture Library
this is the file you, Walter, are referring to when you say to select it and delete it, correct?
Steve Hadeen
Yes, ”Aperture Library.aplibrary” is the name of the library.
Photographer | https://www.walterrowe.com | https://instagram.com/walter.rowe.photo
Thanks much!
Steve Hadeen
Steve Hadeen
Hi, Fairly new to aperture, but my question is along this line… Lets say i move my library to the external HD, but what if i want to import my photos to the local library to edit, how would i then export, or sync them to the external HD?
thanks!