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zorinlynx

macrumors G3
Original poster
May 31, 2007
8,351
18,577
Florida, USA
Just a heads-up for anyone who liked having the "Masters" folder in Photos.app containing a complete copy of all your original photos and videos...

The file structure has VASTLY changed. The new equivalent of "Masters" is "Originals", and inside there are 16 directories, one for each hex digit from 0 to F. In those folders are your originals, but they have been renamed as UUIDs.

The files are all there and unmodified, but the original names are lost and all you have are a bunch of UUIDs. This is a much less convenient folder structure to work with than the old "Masters" folder was. I'm not too happy about this move; the "Masters" directory structure had been the same since the old Aperture days and it always felt like a good backup should the photo library get corrupted.

Additionally, this means if you back up your system using a folder-based backup method like rsync, your entire photo library will end up backed up again, wasting lots of space. I'm not sure how Time Machine is going to deal with this yet; I guess I'll know soon enough when I upgrade my primary workstation. (Which won't be anytime soon as this MacOS update has been a total hassle)
 

alazhaarp

macrumors member
Sep 17, 2014
50
38
Halle, Germany
I don't know if it has anything to do with this, but my Time Machine has been freeing up space for a couple of hours now (I'm using a full external HDD), I think it's going to make a huge backup. So maybe Time Machine is backing up the whole library all over again. We'll see.

I need to get some sleep, so I'm going to let it work.
 

zorinlynx

macrumors G3
Original poster
May 31, 2007
8,351
18,577
Florida, USA
I may just archive my current TM backups and start a fresh one once I upgrade my iMac. Things have changed so vastly it'll likely be more reliable in the long run.
 

flyguy5

macrumors member
Jul 12, 2018
31
74
I have the folder for my Photo library on my external HD. It is about 1.3 TB out of a 2 TB drive. How is Catalina going to affect that?
 

alazhaarp

macrumors member
Sep 17, 2014
50
38
Halle, Germany
I don't know if it has anything to do with this, but my Time Machine has been freeing up space for a couple of hours now (I'm using a full external HDD), I think it's going to make a huge backup. So maybe Time Machine is backing up the whole library all over again. We'll see.

I need to get some sleep, so I'm going to let it work.
94,80.. it's making 94,80 GB worth of backup lol
(my photo library is around 72 GB)
 
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