David Esp Video Technical Blog

Given an iPhoto library on a Mac, how could/should it be used in combination with external storage such as a NAS?

• How copy files between them, e.g. where does iPhoto store / reference its content?
• Is there any way to set up iPhoto to automate/simplify backups or synchronisations?

Answers (I found / discovered by experiment):

• iPhoto stores photos in a specialised iPhoto Library object, kind of like a zipfile you can’t open or expand.
  • The full path is [/Users/xxxxxx/Pictures/iPhoto Library]
  • But the only practical use of that knowledge is that, via [Finder > Get Info], you can see the iPhoto Library object size change as you import etc. photos.
    • e.g. I tried it and initial size was “4.5 GB on disk (4,493,054,358 bytes)”, then after adding a few photos it increased to “4.51 GB on disk (5,501,769,018 bytes)”
• To import photos to iPhoto library:
  • iPhoto: [File > Import to Library]
    • It’s OK to select a folder
      • e.g. NAS had folder [20017_01_27], among others, under a[photos] folder.
  • But the imported photos were not grouped into Events.
  • Tried importing again and it highlighted that some were already in the library, gave option to skip them.
• backing-up the iPhoto library:
  • iPhoto Help
    • Use Time Machine
    • Use an iDisk
      • A “virtual disk” that is part of a MobileMe account.
    • Burn to DVD etc.
    • {Nothing about external drives}
    • {I guess then there is nothing in iPhoto specially suited to my wishes, so I just backup as I would any other stuff}

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 29th, 2012 at 19:13 and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.