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iPhoto to Photo in ONE library

How do I get the pictures from iPhoto into Photo and in ONE photo library? I was using iPhoto then switched to Photo. When I was connecting my iPhone to iTunes it was seemingly still adding some images to iPhoto. So Photo has images that iPhoto doesn't have, and vice versa. I tried the import from iPhoto to Photo as instructed, and that just created a second Photo library of ONLY the iPhoto images.


Is there a way to get one Photo library of all of the images in iPhoto and Photo (and without creating dupes?


Thanks!

Tree

MacBook Pro 13″, OS X 10.11

Posted on Dec 2, 2021 1:55 PM

Reply
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Dec 3, 2021 9:34 AM

Is there any chance you can upgrade your Mac to a more recent system version? On El Capitan or options to merge two Photos Libraries are limited and lossy. Basically, you can do no better than to export the photos from one library and import them into the other library, as suggested by Apple: Import photos from another library in Photos on Mac – Apple Support (UK)


This will transfer the photos, but not the albums and folders and the detected faces, and the edited versions of your photos will no longer be paired with the originals as one photo. You can do better, if you have iCloud photos enabled. Then you can merge the two libraries by uploading them one after the other to iCloud. This will preserve the the adjusted photos as a pair, so you can revert adjustments to the original version, and also the albums and folders. See: Notes on Merging Photos Libraries, 2019 V… - Apple Community


PowerPhotos 1.7.7 or newer on macOS 10.15 Catalina or later can give you a nearly lossless merge. It will migrate the metadata (but not the faces) and the albums. Fully supported:  photos and videos, keeping keywords, descriptions, titles, dates, favorites, locations, bursts, and Live Photos intact; albums, folders, and moments. On older system versions (up to Photos 4 on Mojave) you have to decide, if you want to use the originals or the edited versions. So you will either lose the editing work or the high quality originals or create redundancy by merging twice in two passes, once to transfer the originals, and then the edited versions. You will have to add a pass to remove duplicates afterward.


If you are cannot upgrade to a newer system version, I would keep the two libraries separate for the time being and simply switch between the libraries. Sooner or later you will need a new Mac anyway and that will come with a new system version, that supports better tools for merging your libraries.


6 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Dec 3, 2021 9:34 AM in response to TreeInSomerville

Is there any chance you can upgrade your Mac to a more recent system version? On El Capitan or options to merge two Photos Libraries are limited and lossy. Basically, you can do no better than to export the photos from one library and import them into the other library, as suggested by Apple: Import photos from another library in Photos on Mac – Apple Support (UK)


This will transfer the photos, but not the albums and folders and the detected faces, and the edited versions of your photos will no longer be paired with the originals as one photo. You can do better, if you have iCloud photos enabled. Then you can merge the two libraries by uploading them one after the other to iCloud. This will preserve the the adjusted photos as a pair, so you can revert adjustments to the original version, and also the albums and folders. See: Notes on Merging Photos Libraries, 2019 V… - Apple Community


PowerPhotos 1.7.7 or newer on macOS 10.15 Catalina or later can give you a nearly lossless merge. It will migrate the metadata (but not the faces) and the albums. Fully supported:  photos and videos, keeping keywords, descriptions, titles, dates, favorites, locations, bursts, and Live Photos intact; albums, folders, and moments. On older system versions (up to Photos 4 on Mojave) you have to decide, if you want to use the originals or the edited versions. So you will either lose the editing work or the high quality originals or create redundancy by merging twice in two passes, once to transfer the originals, and then the edited versions. You will have to add a pass to remove duplicates afterward.


If you are cannot upgrade to a newer system version, I would keep the two libraries separate for the time being and simply switch between the libraries. Sooner or later you will need a new Mac anyway and that will come with a new system version, that supports better tools for merging your libraries.


Dec 3, 2021 9:06 AM in response to TreeInSomerville

The import option in every other version of Photos is for... importing images to the database. There are no images in iTunes and so you cannot import from iTunes to Photos. So I'm not sure what you're referring to here.


You can merge with the current version (that comes with Monterey) or if you have an earlier version you may be able to do so by purchasing PowerPhotos


https://www.fatcatsoftware.com/powerphotos/


iPhoto to Photo in ONE library

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