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General discussion

Iphoto: Do contents of libraries override each otehr

by asdore Nov 23, 2010 6:26PM PST

Hello,
I have way too many GB of photos on my MacBookPro and I have been making backups of my iphoto libraries onto an external hard drive. Because I dont really know how iphoto library backups work, for saftey's sake I have been making a new (renamed with date of backup) iphoto library backup onto my external Terrabyte HD. Not surprisingly, the drive is now full.

Can I combine these multiple iphoto libraries into one library, with only one copy of each photo? Right now I'm sure I have multiple copies of the same photo since i have made multiple backups of libraries.

I have used Time Machine but filled up drives quickly. I'm a graphic designer so my work files are huge as well as having thousands of high res photos.

Thanks in advance for any help!

A

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Backing up iPhoto

by mrmacfixit Forum moderator Nov 24, 2010 5:32AM PST

best way, in my opinion, to back this up is to copy the iPhoto library, replacing the previous iPhoto library each time.

I doubt you can combine your multiple libraries into one, but even if you could, you would have so many duplicates of your pictures that it would be a real pain trying to sort it all out.

Even with Gigs of data, Time Machine should take a fair while to fill a Terrabyte drive as the backups that it does are incremental, after the first full one.

P

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