Transfer photos from MacIntosh HD

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Dear helpers,

In the near future, in order to free space on the internal harddisk it migh be necessary to transfer the oldest photo's from the 'holy grail' Photos Library.photoslibrary to an external disk and erase them from the Macintosh HD. What is the best way to do it not causing havoc? I see no possibility to represent the photoslibrary as a list. Or do I have to go to Photos and start exporting the oldies from there? Would there be (by me) unexpected consequences?

Thanks for your reply! Dirk
MacBook Pro, macOS Catalina 10.15.1
 
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Or do I have to go to Photos and start exporting the oldies from there?
Yes, that's the best way. Just drag them out of the main Photos window. Once you've done that and happy that they are on the external drive, you can delete them from Photos.

Going into the photoslibrary file with Finder can cause problems with Photos afterwards and is not recommended.

Would there be (by me) unexpected consequences?
No.

You could always put the complete Photos Library file on to the external disc and run Photos from there.
 
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Many thanks MightyGem!
Only: what do yo mean by:
'Going into the photoslibrary file with Finder can cause problems with Photos afterwards and is not recommended.'
What kind of problems? Dirk, France
 
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'Going into the photoslibrary file with Finder can cause problems with Photos afterwards and is not recommended.'
What kind of problems?
Photos store all the pictures that you import in the Photos Library file. When you look at them in Photos, that's where it refers to.

If you dig into the Photo Library file and move/delete/edit/copy your pictures, when you next try and look at them in Photos it won't work properly(to put it simply). So, the general advice is to leave the Library file alone.
 

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