Merge Two Photos Libraries Mac Os

As of OS X Yosemite, Apple is encouraging everyone to use its new Photos program for managing pictures in OS X. While Photos has a number of pros and cons, it does share a limitation of its “iPhoto” predecessor, in that while it uses a library system for managing photos and offers an option to create multiple libraries, it can only have one open at a time. This means that if you wish to consolidate libraries, you might find yourself jumping through hoops; however, there is a relatively simple way to get this done.

First, the classic way of doing this would be to use an export/import option:

Merge Two Photos Libraries Mac Os

How to Merge iPhoto Libraries in Photos for OS X? When you first time launch Photos app, it will ask you to choose which library would like to import into Photos app. Once you choose your library, you can not import another library into Photos. How to Combine Multiple Photos Libraries Into a Single Library Saturday, July 1st, 2017 Author: Tom Nelson. If you’ve been working with the Mac’s Photos app (or even the older iPhoto or Aperture apps) for any length of time, there’s a good chance you have multiple image libraries to help you organize your pictures.

  1. Open Photos while holding the Option key
  2. Select your desired Library to open
  3. Select all items and export them to a folder
  4. Quit and re-open Photos while holding the Option key
  5. Select a second library to open
  6. Import all of the items into this second library.
This approach will undoubtedly take a long time, and will require you essentially duplicate your library contents more than once to consolidate them import them all into the second library. While it may be doable for those with only a few libraries to manage, for those with a number of different libraries, the following approach may be more streamlined:
  1. Open Photos to load your current library (or open with the Option key held to choose a different or new library to use)
  2. Open the Terminal utility (in the Applications > Utilities folder)
  3. Type the following command, then hold the Option key immediately after pressing Enter to execute it:

Update (11/3/2015): PowerPhotos 1.1 now supports library merging! Unlike iPhoto Library Manager, PowerPhotos does not yet have the capability to merge libraries together. This is something I’d like to add to PowerPhotos, though I can’t make any concrete promises, since doing so partially depends on whether Photos itself adds a few necessary enhancements. Merging libraries. Select any set or all photos. Choose Export. From the Export dialog box, choose either Current or Original from the Kind pop-up menu, then click Export. Choose a destination and click OK. Drag the exported photos into the Photos library or use File Import to select and import.

When you do this, a second instance of the Photos application will open, and will request you select a library. Do this for a different library, and you will now have two Photos windows on your screen with different libraries open. Now you can select some or all the photos from one library, and drag them into the second Photos window to add them to that library. You can do this for individual photos, entire moments, or custom selections as you browse through your photos.

Note that copying in this manner may cause Photos to briefly hang and show your cursor as a spinning beachball, but do not interrupt the process. After a short while, your photos will be copied and show up in your second library. You will also see a notification that confirms the number of photos imported.

This window will pop up if you held the Option key at the appropriate time when launching an instances of Photos (if not, then quit Photos and try again). Use it to select a photo library other than the one open in your primary instance of Photos.

How do i fix my photo library on my mac. When done, close the second instance of the Photos application, and then repeat the Terminal command (press the Up arrow to quickly load the previously-entered command–be sure to hold the Option key after pressing Enter), to load a new library and copy your files into your main library.

Find imessage library mac. On the old Mac, open up the /Library/Messages folder Copy that folder on to your method of choice (or drag it to AirDrop) On the new Mac, open that same location  /Library/Messages If it’s empty, drag the older Mac’s Messages folder to that location. Jul 23, 2018  Step #3: Open “Library” from the “Go menu”. Step #4: Next, click on “Messages” and the Archive folder. There you will find two folders one is Archive and the other is Attachments and also you will see “chat.db” labeled database. The alternate method to find saved log file of iMessage conversation using Command line. Dec 20, 2018  Options to Show User Library Click on your Users folder, open it in Column view, and select View Show View Options then check the box for Show Library Folder  If Library isn’t an option, check that you’re in Column View Select your User folder, and press Command+ J. Jan 08, 2019  How to find your iMessage archive On your Mac, go to Messages and then open the Preferences. Under General, make sure that you check off the box for 'Save history when conversations are closed. Launch your Finder, click on Go in the menu bar, and click on Go to folder.

One quick warning with this approach, is that you should not load the same library in two separate instances of Photos, as this may lead to conflicts in how data in the library is handled, and could corrupt the library. Therefore, just be sure you load separate libraries in separate instances of Photos, and you should be good to go.

I'd like to merge two macOS Photos libraries into one, with the ability to weed out duplicates during the process.

I just sold an old Mac and moved its Photos library onto another Mac with its own existing Photos library. Now I want to merge these two libraries into a single one.
PowerPhotos advertises itself as being able to merge libraries, but in practice it has a non-intuitive interface, and when you dig into its spotty documentation you see misspelled caveats like 'this is sligtly tricky.'
What's a better solution? Thanks!
(I've backed up both Photos libraries to an external drive in case everything goes completely sideways.)
posted by bassomatic to Computers & Internet (5 answers total) 10 users marked this as a favorite
I just imported the second library into the first and then deduped afterwards using a (totally worth it) Duplicate Photo Fixer Pro. Is there a reason you don't want to two step this?
posted by jessamyn at 11:08 AM on November 1, 2017

Can totally two-step it and merge libraries before de-duping! But how did you import the first library into the second? (Hope it's okay to threadsit and answer specific Qs.)
posted by bassomatic at 11:19 AM on November 1, 2017

Merge Two Photos Libraries Mac Os 2017


https://www.macworld.com/article/2909654/software-photography/how-to-import-merge-and-consolidate-your-libraries-in-photos-for-os-x.html
posted by humboldt32 at 11:29 AM on November 1, 2017

Yeah I think I did this using iPhoto so my step-by-step is probably not useful but the link humboldt32 offers seems like it will work.
posted by jessamyn at 1:33 PM on November 1, 2017

Wrapping this one up: I ended up using PowerPhotos and succeeded in merging my two libraries through a bit of trial and error. It worked, but if any developers are reading this - there's a real opportunity for someone to create a better way of doing it!
posted by bassomatic at 2:29 PM on November 12, 2017

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