[Koodari]

I changed machines and had lots of photos in the previous machine iPhoto library. I copied the library to "Pictures/iPhoto Library" where it was before, but iPhoto didn't "notice" it and didn't offer to pick a library to open, I think..

Now I had to get some photos off a camera quick, and created a new library and dumped the photos there.

Is there a way to combine my backup library, and this new one?
Or just set the old one as my new library, and bear the loss of the new photos?
Both my old machine and the new run the latest version '04 iPhoto so I would think the libraries are compatible.

[adam_tj]

burn the new ones to CD and change libraries to the old one. Copy over the new library and preference file. Insert CD and import photos.

[squishles]

Okay, I got a new PB, with iPhoto 5 on it. Transferred old iPhoto libraries to it, tried to import them, and iPhoto says they're incompatible. They're from iPhoto 4. How do I get it to see them? The old computer is far away now, but I could possibly access files if I need to get prefs or something off of it. I'd kind of like to keep them organized. I opened a file with Preview and tried to import that file and it worked fine.

[Koodari]

I left arranging libraries for later, and that later is now.

adam_tj, thanks for the tip, export and re-import is clearly the best solution for the new photos.

I can't, however, change library to the new one. I tried deleting iPhoto .plist file from Library->Preferences and Pictures->iPhoto Library, and thereupon it asks whether I want to create a new library or open an old one. When I point it to Pictures->Old iPhoto library, it sees 0 pictures!

A call to Applecare got me the instruction to import the old library into an empty, newly created one... so I did that. I got an error message saying 999 photos could not be imported. Around 1900 photos are now in the library. I'm not sure what is missing, but some of the imported photos are thumbnails... not good. The rolls are not preserved either. Obviously importing is not the way to go.

It's amazing how difficult it is to just open an old library on a new machine. Apple should work on this.

[scratt]

Yeah. I have to say I found this also.
I imported some pictures into my existing library for a friend then decided to create a new user for them. They exhibited signs of not being a careful user and I suddenly had nightmares of them trashing my files!!

They were travelling and using a digital camera with only a couple of cards so all their pictures were on CDs... So the import was a bit labourious. It was a 12 month round the world trip kind of stack of CD!!

I assumed it would be really easy to copy a duplicate iPhoto library accross to the new user and then delete any of my pictures from my library..

We ended spending about three hours trying to get it to work with pref files, and all kinds of crap..

In the end I just re-imported the lot into a fresh empty iPhoto library from the CDs again, on yet another new user...

I must admit I was pretty disgusted at how unreasonably hard it seemed to be to move a few files around and use them in a new user.. Something which Unix really is designed for and Apple do seem to have screwed up royally with some of their apps.

Thoughts, anyone else?

[Koodari]

Originally Posted by scratt I must admit I was pretty disgusted at how unreasonably hard it seemed to be to move a few files around and use them in a new user.. Something which Unix really is designed for and Apple do seem to have screwed up royally with some of their apps.

Agree. This is the core of the problem. The contents of user->Library should all be movable to the next machine. There should be only preferences, no data in there. (iCal calendars, for instance, go in Library->Calendars - this is stupid, but at least you can copy them. Interestingly, their colors get mixed up when you do. ) All apps, even if they only have a single unified library like iPhoto does, should have an option for picking where the library is.