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Any downside to merging two photo libraries by importing

I have organized most of my photos into albums on my System Photo Library. However I have a 2nd photo library that is quite large. A large number of the photos in this 2nd photo library are already in the System Photo Library - but may have different meta data so will be considered "new" and will still be imported. Is there any reason I wouldn't want to import all of the "new" photos in the 2nd photo library into the System Photo Library? I realize I will then have a very large System Photo Library. But I gather that all of the photos that are imported will just wind up in the "Library" of the System Photo Library - none will wind up in any Albums (unless I specifically put them in an Album) - so I won't have any of the duplicate photos showing up in Albums. So - is there any harm in essentially merging the two libraries that I am not thinking of? Thanks.

iMac 27″ 5K, macOS 11.3

Posted on Aug 3, 2022 3:04 PM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Aug 3, 2022 6:23 PM

Hey rabsab,


I can't really think of any potential harm that might occur, but if you doubt try importing a smaller number of photos first to make sure everything if ok and then the rest after. You can also copy your photo library to internal directory or external drive to have backup option.

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Any downside to merging two photo libraries by importing

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