iPhoto / iTunes external

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I have a 2011 Mac Pro laptop.
I want to get an external hard drive to transfer iPhoto and iTunes. How difficult is this?
I am backing up time machine to a 1tb. Could I use that one also or should I have a separate one?
 

Cory Cooper

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Hello and welcome.

You could use the Time Machine drive, but then your iPhoto and iTunes libraries would not have the benefit of the Time Machine backup, should that drive fail.

You can buy an external drive, copy the iPhoto and iTunes libraries to it, then hold the Option key down when launching iPhoto and iTunes. You would then navigate to and select the library on the external drive. The drive would then always need to be connected to use those apps.

C
 
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There is no way to back them up to the time machine at all?
And my computer is very slow.
I feel like it's my iPhoto. I read it's a memory hog. And I have 10,000 photos. Do you think that's a lot?
 

Cory Cooper

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If the libraries are only located on the same drive as the Time Machine backup, it would make no sense to backup to Time Machine, since they would be on the same drive. That would only have two copies on the same drive, taking up double the space. The benefit of TM is that you have two drives with a copy of your data, in case of hard drive failure.

10K photos is a large iPhoto Library, but more common than you think. There is an undocumented limit of around 25K photos for iPhoto, but that is not an official Apple statement.

Your Mac is probably slower because of other issues:
-What version of OS X?
-How much free space do you have on the internal OS X hard drive?
-Do you have an anti-virus or other third-party apps like MacKeeper or CleanMyMac installed?

C
 
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mac OS X 10.7.5
8gb
mac HD 379.7 mb free out of 249.2 gb
I've had clean my mac in the past, but ill check again.
i really need to clean my computer up.
I've tried, but nothing is working
 

Cory Cooper

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mac HD 379.7 mb free out of 249.2 gb
That is the cause of your slowness. You need to keep at least 20 GB of free hard drive space to ensure OS X has enough breathing room to run well. You definitely need to delete some files/move file to an external to get some free space cleared up.

You can get a second external hard drive, then move the iPhoto and iTunes Libraries to it. You would then have enough free space on the internal OS X hard drive to speed things back up. Time Machine can back that drive up as well, which would give you the benefit of multiple copies of your data on multiple drives.

C
 
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thank you. another question…
I have 192.7 GB of Other memory taken up on my MAC HD….
Ive tried to find help with this but I dont know what It is. the only thing I've read is that iPhoto is a memory hog.

can i take my computer somewhere and have someone clean it up? BestBuy?
I would love to do it myself, but I just can't figure it out.

and should i install mackeeper or clean my mac?
 

Cory Cooper

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No worries.

Do not install MacKeeper or CleanMyMac. They cause more problems than they are worth. I wouldn't advise having Best Buy work on it. They will charge you a lot of money, and I don't think they offer file cleanup anyway.

Movies take up the most space. If you have movies that you have purchased from iTunes, delete them, as they can be re-downloaded at any time. Once you have some free space, you can use an app like OmniDiskSweeper to see what is taking up all of the space, and we can work from there.

Do you have a Gmail account setup in Apple Mail by any chance?

C
 
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I just checked with omni disk sweeper.
I have 145 GB of pictures. I need to get them off my computer.
I have problems with my iPhotos sometimes. It tells me that it has to repair itself sometimes. Is that common?

And I did delete my gmail off the mail server… I dont know if just deleting it off the mail server will do , or is there more i can do?
 

Cory Cooper

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You can move your iPhoto Library to an external HD. You would then have to have it connected when you launch iPhoto. Also, you would want a second external HD, so you can ensure you have a Time Machine or other backup of those precious photos.

Depending on how you have Gmail setup, this may help reclaim some space: Tip: Change Mail settings to save hard drive space

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thank you.
I uploaded about ten photos to my computer on iPhoto and it said it needed to repair itself. it did that and now i can't find the pictures. any way to recover these?

alos, when i put my iPhoto to an external drive should i delete and install a new iPhoto? i have the repair problems often
 

Cory Cooper

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If you move the iPhoto Library to an external, you won't have to reinstall iPhoto.

You should be able to find the photos. Do you still have another copy of them from where you were adding them to iPhoto from? If you are still low on hard drive space, that could cause the constant repair issue in iPhoto and also cause issues when trying to import new photos.

There may be other issues at play here, since you have to repair the library often. Are you close to an Apple Store? They would be able to take a look, diagnose any issues, and get thins working properly.

C
 
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I think a city Mac is near me. I'll try that. And I'm debating between these two ... Wd passport and wd book. Both 2tb. Suggestion?
 

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