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Photoslibrary Export to Iphone

Hi Forum: (New User)

Is it possible to export a large Photoslibrary App file (95gb) off an old iMac to an iPad, retaining its folder structure.

I am helping an aged friend who can no longer use his iMac, has never accessed iCloud but wants to move his existing Photoslibrary to an iPad he now uses. He wants to use it to access his photo memories.

Could you copy the file to a portable drive or 128GB SD with SD card reader with lightning cable to do the transfer?

Have not come across this challenge before!

iPhone 8

Posted on Mar 21, 2023 11:54 PM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Mar 22, 2023 8:37 AM

Unlikely. There is no reason to believe that an iPad could make sense of a Mac-format Photos library on an external drive.


There is a plausible path through iCloud even if he has never used it before. He would have to rent enough storage to hold the library long enough to upload it from the iMac and download it to the iPad, but it might be for only a month or two depending on his network speeds. (I'm assuming the iMac is still functional, since you mention copying its library.)

2 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Mar 22, 2023 8:37 AM in response to TonyASA

Unlikely. There is no reason to believe that an iPad could make sense of a Mac-format Photos library on an external drive.


There is a plausible path through iCloud even if he has never used it before. He would have to rent enough storage to hold the library long enough to upload it from the iMac and download it to the iPad, but it might be for only a month or two depending on his network speeds. (I'm assuming the iMac is still functional, since you mention copying its library.)

Photoslibrary Export to Iphone

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