Double "photo" libraries? - Help

[lowercaseperson]

Hi all,

I was just looking through some of my files and I noticed that I currently have a "Photos Library" (34 GB) and an "iPhoto Library" (43 GB).

Can anyone tell me what is going on here?

1. Why do I have "Photos" and "iPhoto" separate? Shouldn't it all just be a "Photos library?"

2. Why is there a ~9 GB difference between the two libraries? Is there any easy way to rectify this? Or perhaps has the "photos library" just deleted a bunch of duplicates?

Thanks,

LP

 

[DeltaMac]

When you first upgraded to Yosemite, and the Photos app was added, the iPhoto library was imported automatically into the Photos. Both library files were kept. You will likely see that the iPhoto library has not been updated (and the date on the iPhoto library file is from around the time you first updated to Photos.
If you don't ever use iPhoto now, you could safely delete the iPhoto library. I did copy the iPhoto library to an external volume, just for safety backup. Delete the iPhoto library file from your user folder, which will get you 43 GB of space back. I suspect that you will never miss whatever file adjustment took place during the import into Photos. The import would have left behind files that use features that are no longer available in Photos, and some of that may have been intermediate edits that Photos doesn't need, or can't use. The database layout used could be substantially different, and might account for much of the space difference, but likely most of that is simply parts that were not imported, because they were simply not used in Photos at all.
You COULD prune out all the originals from the old iPhoto library file (there's a folder of originals in that file, probably named "Masters"), keep those, and get rid of the rest of the file. Everything else, used by Photos, would have been brought across to the Photos library at the time of the original import.

**I did some extra looking, and found this article. It should answer your question more clearly than my post.

 

[Weaselboy]

Delete the iPhoto library file from your user folder, which will get you 43 GB of space back.

Interestingly, it won't free up that drive space. Photos library uses hard links to the same images that are in the iPhoto library so they are not duplicated on the drive. So in the OP's case, there may be around 9GB freed up due to the mismatch, but not 43GB. Good article here that explains how it works.

OP>> Since updating to Yosemite, have you been using iPhoto or the new Photos app for image management? It sounds like maybe Photos imported the existing iPhoto library creating the new Photos library file, then after that you continued importing files in iPhoto causing that library to grow. Does that sound like what happened? Does the total number of photos shown in each app match?

 

[lowercaseperson]

Interestingly, it won't free up that drive space. Photos library uses hard links to the same images that are in the iPhoto library so they are not duplicated on the drive. So in the OP's case, there may be around 9GB freed up due to the mismatch, but not 43GB. Good article here that explains how it works.

OP>> Since updating to Yosemite, have you been using iPhoto or the new Photos app for image management? It sounds like maybe Photos imported the existing iPhoto library creating the new Photos library file, then after that you continued importing files in iPhoto causing that library to grow. Does that sound like what happened? Does the total number of photos shown in each app match?

I haven't opened iPhoto since upgrading. Also, what you said makes sense, because I'm not missing a bunch of space from my SSD

 

[John Svec]

I'm still pissed Apple has pulled the plug on Aperture, my library is 180 gig's. Photos is a joke. I have a real camera, Nikon D90.

 

[Weaselboy]

I'm still pissed Apple has pulled the plug on Aperture, my library is 180 gig's. Photos is a joke. I have a real camera, Nikon D90.

I bought Aperture also and like you was a little annoyed when they pulled the rug out from under us. But I have adapted to Photos pretty well. I am admittedly not what you would call a pro user in the photo department though.

 

[John Svec]

I'm sure you are a fine photographer... I like to have all the plugins and work in raw. Sure someone will hack Aperture, only other alternative is to make folders of all your raw images, named as they appear in Aperture, then export originals each catalog at a time, then you could use DxO Optics Pro, or Photoshop, or OnOne, or Capture One. large task indeed.

Didn't mean any offense

 

[Weaselboy]

Didn't mean any offense

None taken my friend. Have a happy new year.