How to Move Your Mac's iPhoto Library onto an External Drive?

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If you want to free up precious space on your Mac computer, then you can move your Mac's iPhoto Library on to an external hard drive. You can also move iPhoto Library to cloud storage service such as Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive, iCloud Drive, Box and more. You need to have an account on these cloud storage services. If you are looking for a step by step process to move iPhoto Library onto an external hard drive, read below.

Here are the steps to Move Your Mac's iPhoto Library onto an External Drive:

  1. Open "iPhoto" on your Mac.
  2. Click "File" located in the Menu Bar.
  3. Select "Switch to Library..." option.
  4. A new window opens up. You will see all iPhoto libraries located on your computer.
  5. Quit iPhoto by clicking on "Quit iPhoto" located in the iPhoto Menu bar.
  6. Connect an external hard dive to move your iPhoto Library.
  7. Open a new Finder window and click "Pictures" located in the left sidebar.
  8. Drag and drop iPhoto Library file onto the external hard drive.
  9. Once you moved iPhoto Library to an external hard drive, hold the "Option"  key on your keyboard.
  10. Open "iPhoto" from the Dock or Application folder.
  11. A new window opens up. It will ask you to "Create a New Library".
  12. Choose the "Selected Library" or "Other Library".
  13. Click "Other Library".
  14. Navigate to your external hard drive and click "iPhoto Library" file that you have copied and click "Choose" button.
  15. Quit "iPhoto" once again and eject the external hard drive.
  16. Open a new "Finder" window and navigate to the "Picture" folder.
  17. Right-click on the iPhoto file and move it to the "Trash".
  18. Open "Trash" from the "Finder" window and click "Empty Trash" located at the top right corner.
  19. Your iPhoto Library has officially been removed from the internal drive.

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