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I am trying to view iphotos from an external hard drive. I am using a Macbook running Big Sur 11.1.
It won't open the photos. What do I need to do to access the photos?
MacBook Pro 15″, macOS 10.15
You cannot open anything in a Time Machine back up without first restoring it. Have a read of this:
https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/photos/pht6d60348f/mac
And yes, it only mentions Photos, but recovering the iPhoto Library is the same.
You cannot open anything in a Time Machine back up without first restoring it. Have a read of this:
https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/photos/pht6d60348f/mac
And yes, it only mentions Photos, but recovering the iPhoto Library is the same.
Can you tell us marabout your external hard drive? Has it been used for Time Machine backups? Or is the file system format not MacOS Extended or APFS? In either case will Photos not be able to open a library on that volume.
Do you remember which version of iPhoto you used on the old machine? Photos can only open iPhoto Libraries from iPhoto version 8 or 9.
When you browse the old drive look for an icon with a fan of three pictures. An iPhoto Library will have an icon like this:
For older versions it will have sunset colours.
iPhoto was discontinued 6 years ago. It is no longer developed or sold. It was replaced by the more powerful (and free) Photos.app that comes with the OS. You can migrate to that app very simply:
Hold down the option (or alt) key and launch Photos. From the resulting menu select 'Choose Library' and point at your iPhoto Library. It will do the rest.
If you prefer not to use Photos there are several 3rd party apps that you can use. Which to choose depends on the kind of photographer you are and your budget.
I use Photos for my pictures on my computer, but I am trying to get family photos off an external hard drive which was from an old computer still using iphotos and put them in my Photosapp. The original computer is no longer working and my computer won't open the photos....hope this makes sense. Is there a solution?
When I go to the external hard drive the circle with the line through it is over the iphoto choice in applications. So it won't let me choose that application to open. That what I mean by "won't open the photos".
iphoto choice in applications
You're trying to open the application. That's not where the photos are. An iPhoto installation has two parts: the application and the Library. You need to find the iPhoto Library, that would (normally) have been in the Pictures Folder of the old machine
I've been looking for that but as of yet cannot find it. I'll have to keep hunting. Thanks for your help. If you've suggestions how to find the iphoto library, I'm open. I tried a search from the search icon but came up empty. I'll have to retackle this tomorrow. Any other suggestions are always appreciated. Thanks for trying to help!
The external hard drive is "my passport for mac". It has been used for time machine. Its my mom's old machine and I cannot open any application on it (I get the eternal "spinning wheel of death" . ) My mom is deceased so there is no way to find out which iphoto version she had. Her machine is probably a 2012 and she was not good about keeping it updated. I think I will need to take both the external hard drive and the computer to an apple store to see what they suggest. In the meantime, I will look for the "migratedphotolibrary picture." That is helpful...thanks
I do have an older macbook that I may be able to find a way to access it's iphoto library and restore the pictures to it and then transfer them to a thumb drive.
Thanks you for your suggestions. Fingers crossed something will work.
Yes. The solution is in the middle paragraph of what I wrote. What does "my computer won't open the photos" mean?
I appreciate your help, but "iphotos library" is not an option in my "Choose Library".
Well that's a concrete step. You may have to navigate to the iPhoto library from that window. Note the button lower left called 'Other Library'
I tried that but when I went to "other library" my only option is "Photo Library".
I have am running Big Sur on my macbook. I have an external hard drive with iphotos. How do I retrieve them?
