TMO Quick Tip - Move Your iPhoto Library

by , 7:30 AM EST, November 29th, 2006

After explaining how you can move your iTunes library to another disk to save space on your primary hard drive, I was asked if you can do the same thing with iPhoto. The answer is yes. Here's how:

• Be sure to quit iPhoto if it is running.
• Move your iPhoto Library folder to its new home. You can find the iPhoto Library folder in /Users/your home directory/Pictures.

You iPhoto Library folder is inside your Pictures folder.

• If you copied your iPhoto Library folder to a different drive, be sure to delete the original.
• Relaunch iPhoto.
• An alert dialog opens letting you know that iPhoto can't find your photo library. Click the Choose Library button.

Navigate to your new photo library after clicking the Choose Library button.

• Select your freshly moved iPhoto Library folder.

In the iTunes Quick Tip, we moved only the folder that your music is stored in instead of the entire iTunes folder. That let us continue to use iTunes even if the drive with our music and video files was unavailable. iPhoto works a little differently, so be sure you don't launch iPhoto when the drive with your photo library is unavailable.

Thanks to TMO reader Mike Haase for posing this great question.

Jeff Gamet is TMO's Morning Editor and Reviews Editor. He lectures, teaches and speaks on Mac OS X and design-related topics, and is the author of The Designer's Guide to Mac OS X from Peachpit Press.

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