Merge iPhoto libraries without 3rd-party software?

[dawindmg08]

Just got a Mini to replace an old iMac as media server in the house; now that I finally have all my Macs on El Capitan I need to start the slow transition to MacOS Photos from iPhoto. I have at least 5 iPhoto libraries I'd like to merge into a master library I'll keep in Photos on the server Mini (iPhoto libraries are on my laptop, my wife's iMac plus 3 older ones we backed up at various points).

Since Photos can only import one iPhoto library, I'd have to export all the other photos as files and import manually, losing all the albums and other sorting data. Is there any other way to do this? I know about iPhoto Library Manager, but I just hate to spend $30 on something I'm only going to use once. But I haven't seen a free solution yet for merging all these libraries, would love to hear anyone else's experience with this.

Thanks!

D

 

[grahamwright1]

Just got a Mini to replace an old iMac as media server in the house; now that I finally have all my Macs on El Capitan I need to start the slow transition to MacOS Photos from iPhoto. I have at least 5 iPhoto libraries I'd like to merge into a master library I'll keep in Photos on the server Mini (iPhoto libraries are on my laptop, my wife's iMac plus 3 older ones we backed up at various points).

Since Photos can only import one iPhoto library, I'd have to export all the other photos as files and import manually, losing all the albums and other sorting data. Is there any other way to do this? I know about iPhoto Library Manager, but I just hate to spend $30 on something I'm only going to use once. But I haven't seen a free solution yet for merging all these libraries, would love to hear anyone else's experience with this.

Thanks!

D

1 - Open your 'main' Photo library
2 - Locate and right click the next Photo Library you want to extract content from.
3 - Select 'Show Package Contents'
4 - Navigate to 'Masters' folder and drag the folder to your Photo's icon on the task bar. This should import all the images into the 'main' Photo Library.
5 - Repeat from step 2 for each other Photo Library you want to extract contents from.

 

[dawindmg08]

1 - Open your 'main' Photo library
2 - Locate and right click the next Photo Library you want to extract content from.
3 - Select 'Show Package Contents'
4 - Navigate to 'Masters' folder and drag the folder to your Photo's icon on the task bar. This should import all the images into the 'main' Photo Library.
5 - Repeat from step 2 for each other Photo Library you want to extract contents from.

Thanks for this!

Do you know if this will import Events/Albums too? I'm trying to avoid having to rebuild all that even if I can streamline the Photo import process.