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Cool Tools: iPhoto Library Manager

Wednesday, May 04 2011 by chrisb OS X

Working with more than one iPhoto Library

iPhoto Library Manager <br>Click to see a larger image

iPhoto Library Manager
Click to see a larger image

By far the most common issue that brings people to Basics4Mac for the first time is dealing with an iPhoto Library that has outgrown their Mac's internal hard drive.

This tip explains in detail how to move your iPhoto Library from your full internal hard drive to an external hard drive.

If you have a desktop Mac, it's no problem to have an external drive sitting on your desk, but if you have a notebook Mac, dealing with an external hard drive is a pain. When you are away from your desk, you don't have any access to your photos in iPhoto.

Many people would like to have the bulk of their photos on an external hard drive and then keep a smaller iPhoto Library on their notebook Mac. iPhoto doesn't help at all with this organizational system, but a tool called iPhoto Library Manager can.

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iPhoto Library Manager has a free and a paid version. The free version works if what you primarily want to is just switch between two iPhoto Libraries. If you want to keep a small iPhoto Library on your notebook Mac and a larger one on your external hard drive, the paid version of iPhoto Library Manager is your tool.

The paid version lets you split and merge iPhoto Libraries while keeping all of your meta data intact. Meta data is all the information about your photos such as faces, keywords, star ratings, albums, slideshows and keepsakes. You can split and merge iPhoto Libraries from within iPhoto itself using Export and Import but you lose all the meta data associated with the photos.

The paid version of iPhoto Library Manager costs $US20 and is available here.

The iPhoto Library Manager website also describes additional features of IPLM not mentioned here as well as help and support forums.

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