While traveling in China with my wife's MacBook I attempted to keep on top of my photo editing. This involved naming and commenting close to 300 photos in Apple's iPhoto. But when I dragged these into the iPhoto library on my own computer, such data were lost. Searching Google suggested the only easy way to avoid this was to purchase the $US20 shareware program iPhoto Library Manager. Other more messy library merger procedures involved the use of the command line and disk images. But this is functionality that really should be included with iPhoto, especially given the progressive increases in "allowed" library size with each release. Can you say "Hello" in French?
iPhoto 6 includes the ability to share your iPhoto library across a network using Bonjour (formerly Rendezvous). It turns out this technology allows you to import photos from a shared album, preserving titles and comments along with date, time, and other EXIF data.
On the donor Mac
- Open System Preferences > Sharing > Firewall and enable iPhoto Bonjour Sharing on port 8770;
- Create an album in iPhoto for the photos you want to merge (important, since only albums can be shared, not photos in the root library);
- Open iPhoto Preferences > Sharing and enable Share my photos.
On the destination Mac
- Open iPhoto Preferences > Sharing and enable Look for shared photos (you may need to restart iPhoto for the shared album to appear, and perhaps temporarily disable your firewall);
- In the shared album select the photos you want to transfer and drag them to an appropriate album in the donor Mac's iPhoto library (make sure you have enough free drive space!).
Beware that although this method works for JPEG files, NEF files will not be transfered. Personally I only title and comment the edited image (saved as JPEG), so this isn't a problem—as long as you remember to import the unprocessed NEF files separately (drag out of one library and drop into the other).
![[Photo of Bruce McKenzie]](data:image/jpeg;base64,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)
Do you use a Smart Album for finding and merging NEF?
Yes, in the form of File name : ends with : nef
But of the mixed JPEG and NEF files I copied over from the shared library, only the JPEGs made it as far as I could tell. Incidentally iPhoto does seem to handle NEF inconsistently; several times I dragged a NEF file onto Photoshop in the dock to open it, but the JPEG was opened instead; if you right-click on the image in iPhoto to "Show file", you can find the original NEF.
Bruce, great tip! Merging is on my extended computer honey-do's. Got the wife's photos imported from her PC into a separate account on the Mac, but then she decided that she just wants us to use one Mac account.
Hence, needing to merge those two photo libraries. But will this tip of yours work on one machine?
Actually Rob it does! How cool is that?
On the laptop I shared my album as above, then without logging out of my account logged in as my wife on the same machine. I opened her iPhoto library, and there was my shared album. I could simply select and drag images from my library into hers.
Do confirm it works for you too OK?
Sorry it took so long to respond, Bruce.
But yes, the above does work between two user accounts on the same Mac. And dragging/dropping the photos worked fairly well, keeping intact all the EDIF info. My process was dragging her photos into a new album called "Sar's merged photos". That way, I could keep track of the number of imported photos (more on this later).
For some reason, iPhoto choked on the initial run of dragging all 3,500 photos from Sar's shared library into our combined library. Just too much for my humble dual G4 I guess.
Had to force quit the app, but thankfully iPhoto recognized where it left of and recovered the first 900 or so. So from there on, it was a goofy process of grabbing every 1,000 or so photos from hers and dragging into the combo library. iPhoto hung up about 4 or 5 times or so. Also thankfully, iPhoto recognizes duplicate photos! Very nice feature, so you can choose to ignore all future importing dupes.
And yet, after all was done, we ended up with about 200 more photos in the combined library album than there were on the source library. I can't explain this, other that iPhoto missing a few dupes. And with 3,500 total photos, I figure that's only 6% error, so screw it. We'll sort through the mess later! :)
Wow Rob!
What you did is EXACTLY what I want to do. I just got a 20" Core 2 Duo with a 500GB drive and I have close to 2000 pics on my Powerbook that I want to get off 'cause I'm in serious need of a wipe/rebuild. Glad I kinda know what to expect. LOL!
And Bruce dude? Thanks so much for this tip! People that share tips like this are GODS! :-)
This is very cool. Thanks for sharing the tip.
However, one hitch pevents it from being a perfect merge -- namely, keywords don't import along with all the other info (date, name, rating, etc).
Is there a way to bring along keywords, or a technique to restore them after the fact?
Sorry to hear that keywords don't transfer Rick (I don't use them, so hadn't noticed). But it makes sense, since these would be attached by iPhoto and not part of the EXIF data like date etc. According to the online docs for iPhoto Library Manager registered uses preserve keywords when merging libraries using this tool. If keywords are important to you this tool may be the only (cost) option.
I did this and it worked as advertised except for one minor [cough] hitch. I have all of my photos stored on an external hard drive connected to a Mac G5. I went on summer vacation. In order to re-use the memory card in my camera I had brought along my Powerbook G4 laptop. I created a new iPhoto library on the G4 and imported all the vacation photos from my camera into that library over the course of the vacation. When I got home I had about 1,000 photos on my laptop in one library and want to merge them into the library on the external HD of my G5 so I folowed the process above.
The hitch is that even though I dragged the photos into a special-purpose album ("my merged vacation photos"), the photos did not end up on the External HD. They are on the internal HD of the G5 so all I have accomplished is to move one library from point A to point B without actually merging the two libraries into one. I can VIEW all of the photos from iPhoto on the destination mac but they are not, as I intended, all in a single iPhoto library.
I am hoping you will tell me I made some simple, easy corrected error :-)
As I understand you Bob (I had to draw myself a diagram!) you moved the photos on your PowerBook to a new album/ library on your G5's intrnal drive that you created by mistake; you had meant to move them to an existing library on your external HD. Correct?
I guess what I would try first is to turn on photo sharing on your G5, drag the photos back to the library on your G4, then on the G5 quit iPhoto, then re-open iPhoto while holding down the option key to choose the library on your HD, and then share that library. Then copy the photos from the G4 into the library on your HD. If successful you can then delete the redundant library on your G5.
If that doesn't work, you may need to resort to iPhoto Library Manager. Good luck!
Bruce,
Your method does work (you know that already!) for iPhoto '06.
The problem was the way I had sharing set up on the network. Once I opened up all the shares correctly the files moved correctly and I was able to merge the photos. So, thanks very much for these instructions.
This week I purchased iLife '08 and upgraded to iPhoto 7. The new iPhoto has yet another directory structure (iPhoto 5 had folders for each year, iPhoto 6 had an originals and modified folder with folders by year within the original folder). It's not really "new" but Apple is now using "packages" so for those like me who do not know much about "packages" and freaked out when you could not find your image folders after upgrading to iPhoto 7, I offer this tip - you can view all the directories in iPhoto 7 by clicking on the context-sensative menu (right-click on the package file) and select "show package contents" and you will see all the folders and can then apply this same method above.
You would think that maybe Apple would want to give a clear heads up to users of iPhoto 6 that upgrading will change this - or that iPhoto 7 does not allow creating "photocasts" because they have the new "mac web gallery" option instead. I guess long time Apple users know this already that when Apple "moves on" to a new product they often act this way.
Thanks for the update Bob. I too now have iLife '08 but haven't had time to explore it yet. I'm not surprised to hear more features are .Mac-only, because .Mac is so weak they need to incentivise membership. iPhoto is not as much of a re-think as iMovie, that's for sure.
"Show Package Contents" works for applications too, by-the-way.
What a time saver- thanks so much for the post. It worked perfectly even 2 yours after your post!
Glad it worked for you Serena. I'm sorry I don't know what you mean by "even 2 yours after your post".
This is pure gold!
I too looked at iPhoto Library Manager but thought there must be a better way. I bought my partner a 20' iMac and wanted to copy photos from her user profile on my MBP to her new puter. The fact that this works between users as well is freakin awesome. My partner takes her photos and I take mine. We've been looking for the best way to share the bits we want between our user profiles/puters for e-mailing and posting without having to thumb drive them or otherwise. I'm also migrating from iPhoto 6 to iPhoto 7 so this is beautiful.
This is a great solution, many thanks.
Hey Dan, glad it worked for you too :-)
hi there,
i even managed to get into iphoto in my old imac ( iphoto v 6). I couldn't manage my photos as my collection was too large.
I've just got a new macbook with ilife 08 on. Im planning on networking the two and was wandering if I could organize the photo collection with iphoto seven on my macbook pro, and then pop it onto the imacs shared folder. Would I be able to open the albums with v 6 on the imac?
cheers
If you mean too large to move over the network, just break it up into albums and try accessing smaller chunks.
[quote post="576"]I could organize the photo collection with iphoto seven on my macbook pro, and then pop it onto the imacs shared folder.
I haven't tested it (lacking a MacBook Pro ;-)) but I see no reason why you couldn't do this. Create a test album in iPhoto 7, share it, and see if you can pull the photos across from iPhoto 6 on the iMac. I bet you can; could you report back?
Well, I wasn't so lucky. I have iPhoto ver 7 (aka iLife '08) and followed these steps to merge the library from my iMac to my Powerbook. Both were running the same version of iPhoto - exactly.
The MB is choc full of 'empty' events and 'blank' photos in the library. I don't understand it. Nothing interfered with the process, but the long and short of it is that it didn't work for me.
The MB is running 10.5.3 and the iMac is on 10.4.11, but I don't think that would matter.
This post is a couple of years old now Jodeo and was written with reference to iPhoto 6. Both iPhoto and the OS have been updated since then, so I have just tested this between two Macs, both running iPhoto 7.1.3 and Leopard 10.5.3.
On the donor Mac (1) the Firewall was set to "Set access for specific services and applications", (2) created a new album containing 10 photos divided between 2 named events and (3) confirmed sharing was enabled in iPhoto Preferences.
On the destination Mac I (1) confirmed "Look for shared photos" was checked in iPhoto Preferences, (2) selected the photos from the donor Mac's shared album, and dragged them into the Library (Photos) of the destination Mac.
I successfully merged all 10 donated photos into the destination Library. However, the Event grouping was lost, with the entire import being treated as a single Event. If event preservation is important to you, I suggest creating an album for each event on the donor Mac and importing each event individually to recreate the same groupings on the destination Mac.
I don't know why you ended up with "blanks", since this technique clearly does still work in principle using the current versions of iPhoto and OS X.
I am just glad this library merge worked! I have been pulling images from three computers to one and then putting in place back up process (Retrspect for local backup and Mozy for remote site backup).
* Retrospect is being used to backup one library to a primary external drive backup and then to a secondary (different) external drive.
* Mozy will provide a paid for off site backup. Inexpensive but speed of backup is determined by connection to Mozy servers. mozy.com
Interestingly, both Mozy and Retrospect software are owned by divisions of EMC, a large IT company. http://www.emc.com/
On the laptop I shared my album as above, then without logging out of my account logged in as my wife on the same machine. I opened her iPhoto library, and there was my shared album. I could simply select and drag images from my library into hers.
Do confirm it works for you too OK?
I just tried this (improting photos from one user to another user on the same machine) and it worked. However, all the folders and organization was lost.
@Scott: Do note that this post is a couple of years old now, and iPhoto has moved on. Even Library Manager can't merge everything, and some things are version-dependent. If preserving organization is essential the only thing I can suggest is to do the merge in small batches (e.g. event by event) in order to replicate albums etc.
Thanks, good hint to solve my exact same problem...
sweet... just saved me $20
The recommendation that keeps on working!
Thanks Bruce, it worked for me EXCEPT that it didn't move across any of the .mov and .avi files. Those I had to manually pile into a folder and tell iPhoto to import them.
It's truly extraordinary that Apple doesn't help people easily synch iPhoto (and iTunes) libraries across computers. You'd think this would be a must in an age where people own multiple Apple "computers".
All the best.
This also works between two User accounts on the same Mac.
I had lots of problems reading a Shared Library across the network, but locally worked well (and was fast)
It sure does (see comment no. 4)