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transfer iphoto's from old mac to icloud

Hi - have just realised that we have 5000+ family photos on old 2x old macs stored on iphotos and not icloud. They are old computers and won't update to new versions of anything.

The latest is Mac OS X 10.7.5, iphotos '11. The oldest one I haven't booted up yet so it will be even worse.

None of the icloud tabs are coming up in iphoto preferences and none of the tips I can find online seem fit my situation. I am desperate to get them onto icloud.


Any ideas/help ? I am bit of a hack.


Thanks in advance..


Posted on Jun 27, 2020 1:35 AM

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Posted on Jun 29, 2020 10:27 AM

You should be able to connect the older Macs to your MB via Target Disk Mode  


If you don't have enough free space on the MB you may need to get an external HD, formatted as OS X Extended (journaled) with Ownership set to be ignored. Connect it to your MB, copy the iPhoto libraries to it and merge and run from the EHD.


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Jun 29, 2020 10:27 AM in response to sammas101

You should be able to connect the older Macs to your MB via Target Disk Mode  


If you don't have enough free space on the MB you may need to get an external HD, formatted as OS X Extended (journaled) with Ownership set to be ignored. Connect it to your MB, copy the iPhoto libraries to it and merge and run from the EHD.


Jun 27, 2020 1:46 AM in response to sammas101

The simple formula is:


Copy the libraries to a machine running Photos.app instead of iPhoto

Open the libraries with Photos. This will create a Photos library for each one

Merge those libraries with your main one using an app like PowerPhotos: https://www.fatcatsoftware.com/powerphotos/


The catches may occur in several places. The libraries may be so old that Photos cannot convert them. You won't know until you try. If all else fails you can at least recover the original files from the Library package.


iPhoto never had any connection with iCloud. It predates it. That's why there's nothing there about iCloud.


Also, I note you're determined to get them to iCloud. Remember iCloud is a sharing service, not an alternative storage.

Jul 6, 2020 7:19 PM in response to Old Toad

Hi - apologies for slow reply.. been offline. I did all the above on newer Mac and all good. For some reason, the older Mac is stopping at a certain (differing) number of photos transfer and won't go past it. External drive is massive so no issues on size. It's a bit random where the number stops each time and getting the spinning wheel of death a lot. Not quite there yet but will keep plugging away. Thanks again

transfer iphoto's from old mac to icloud

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