merging photo libraries, keeping albums

[RFRF123]

I had an old iMac (2007). Because of the size of the iphoto library (about 300GB), I created two folders ("Pre-2014" - 200 GB) and ("2014 and after" - 100GB). The idea was that because the size was causing performance issues (it froze repeatedly) - new photos would be added to the new, smaller folder. I bought a new iMac in January. I imported (I thought) all my photos into the new Mac.

Multiple problems have arisen. The way I organized photos was to put them into albums - "Summer vacation -2013," "Holidays - 2012," etc. I also scanned a bunch of photos and put them into albums.

When the photos were separated into the two folders, many of the photos that were in the albums disappeared. Photos from 2014 and after were gone from the albums in the old iphoto/pictures folder and photos earlier than 2014 were no longer in the new folder (2014 and after). Also, the scanned photos were treated as if they were after 2014 so they were not in the albums in the old folder.

To top it off, I opened the old folder to look for something back in March and since then, whenever Photos is open, it opens the old folder (“Pre-2014”). New photos, from March of 2016 to the present, are all in the old folder.

Also, I’m still finding photos on the old computer I thought had migrated over when I set up the new mac. Lastly, my iphone (through icloud, I think) adds photos to the Pre-2014 Photo library, even when not connected to the computer. They just show up on the computer.

Do you have any suggestions as to how to resolve this? Ideally, we’d like all the pictures in one Photo library/folder. Is this possible? Then we’d like the photos back in their original albums. Is this possible? Lastly, I want to make sure that every photo from the old mac are in the new mac (but I don’t want duplicates, which would make things even more confusing).
Thanks very much!

 

[Cory Cooper]

Hello and welcome.

This could end up being quite a large project, which could make it difficult to do via forum posts. Because of the multiple issues, it may take a very large amount if hours to combine, sort, and verify that all photos are accounted for and consolidated into a single, organized library. There just isn't an easy, straightforward way to accomplish this.

That said, there are third-party utilities from companies like Fat Cat Software that will combine/manage multiple iPhoto/Photos libraries, but I have never used any of them, so I can't really comment on/recommend them. They may be able to help with combining the libraries together, and possibly eliminate some of the duplicates, but you would still need to manually search for any photos that are missing or weren't imported previously. It may be tough to get all of the photos back in their original albums as well, unless most of them are already in the correct place when the libraries are either combined or exported/imported from one library to another.

-Do you have any form of Time Machine or other backup of either/both of your Macs?
-Do you know anyone that is very Mac-savvy that could lend a hand in person?
-There may be a Mac support company in your area that would be willing to help you out for a fee.

I hope that helps a little and let us know if you have additional questions.

C