I'd like to merge two macOS Photos libraries into one, with the ability to weed out duplicates during the process.
  1. How To Combine Iphoto Libraries
  2. Merging Two Mac Photos Libraries
  3. How To Merge Two Mac Photos Libraries

It helps you to create and manage multiple libraries, copy photos between libraries, find duplicates, and—most important for this topic—merge libraries. Because PowerPhotos is working entirely on your Mac’s drive, it’s fast and it doesn’t require huge amounts of extra disk space. Mar 18, 2020 How to export unmodified originals. In the Photos app, then select the photos and videos that you want to export. To select multiple items, press and hold the Command key while you. Choose File Export Export Unmodified Original. An export dialog appears. If your photos include IPTC metadata. Nov 11, 2015 How to quickly combine multiple Photos libraries in OS X As of OS X Yosemite, Apple is encouraging everyone to use its new Photos program for managing pictures in OS X. While Photos has a number of pros and cons, it does share a limitation of its “iPhoto” predecessor, in that while it uses a library system for managing photos and offers an. Export the current Photos library as files. Select the All Photos album, then Edit Select All, then File Export. Pick Export Unmodified Original if you’ve made no changes to photos in iPhoto; Export Photos if you have. Then import those 6,000 photos into the master Photos library.

Access Library Folder On Mac Using “Go to Folder” Option. Another way to access the Library Folder on your Mac is by using the Folder Option on your Mac. Left-click your mouse anywhere on the screen of your Mac to reveal the Go Option in the top menu bar. You can also click on the Finder Icon in the Dock of your Mac to activate the Go option. Jan 12, 2020  Apple hides the Library folder by setting a file system flag associated with the folder. Any folder on your Mac can have its visibility flag turned on or off; Apple just chose to set the Library folder's visibility flag to the off state. May 30, 2019  What is the Library folder on Mac? The Library folder In macOS is the system folder which keeps important support files, such as user account settings. Mac library folder. Sep 27, 2016  Open Finder, or just click on the desktop. Then click “Go” in the menu bar, and select “Go to Folder”. You can also skip all this clicking by pressing Command+Shift+G on your keyboard to access the Go to Folder menu. Type /Library.



I just sold an old Mac and moved its Photos library onto another Mac with its own existing Photos library. Now I want to merge these two libraries into a single one.
PowerPhotos advertises itself as being able to merge libraries, but in practice it has a non-intuitive interface, and when you dig into its spotty documentation you see misspelled caveats like 'this is sligtly tricky.'
What's a better solution? Thanks!
(I've backed up both Photos libraries to an external drive in case everything goes completely sideways.)
posted by bassomatic to Computers & Internet (5 answers total) 10 users marked this as a favorite
I just imported the second library into the first and then deduped afterwards using a (totally worth it) Duplicate Photo Fixer Pro. Is there a reason you don't want to two step this?
posted by jessamyn at 11:08 AM on November 1, 2017

Merge Two Mac Photos Libraries
Can totally two-step it and merge libraries before de-duping! But how did you import the first library into the second? (Hope it's okay to threadsit and answer specific Qs.)
posted by bassomatic at 11:19 AM on November 1, 2017

https://www.macworld.com/article/2909654/software-photography/how-to-import-merge-and-consolidate-your-libraries-in-photos-for-os-x.html
posted by humboldt32 at 11:29 AM on November 1, 2017

Yeah I think I did this using iPhoto so my step-by-step is probably not useful but the link humboldt32 offers seems like it will work.
posted by jessamyn at 1:33 PM on November 1, 2017

Wrapping this one up: I ended up using PowerPhotos and succeeded in merging my two libraries through a bit of trial and error. It worked, but if any developers are reading this - there's a real opportunity for someone to create a better way of doing it!
posted by bassomatic at 2:29 PM on November 12, 2017

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Photos

This user tip has been moved to: Notes on Merging Photos Libraries, 2019 Version


The older version can no longer be edited without destroying the formatting.


Not Select the Photos menu in the upper left corner of your screen. Launch the Photos app on your Mac. If you're willing to pay for the extra iCloud storage space, you can store an incredible amount of photos and videos, all accessible at the touch of a button or multi-touch screen.Here's how to set it up on your Mac and get everything configured to your liking!.How to set up iCloud Photo Library on your Mac.

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When merging two photo libraries we usually want a lossless merge:The original photos and the edited versions should be merged into the merged library as master-version pairs, so it will be possible to revert edited photos to the original.The library structure with albums, smart albums should be preserved in the merged library.All metadata, including the faces labels should be migrated.The products (books, cards, calendars, slideshows) should be migrated.

Written for Photos 2.0 on macOS 10.12.4 or older:There is currently no completely lossless way to merge Photos Libraries, because Photos does not support importing one Photos Library into another library. All work-around methods are compromises. There is no lossless merging of Photos Libraries other than iCloud Photo Library, and even the merging in iCloud will not include the faces albums and the print products.

How To Combine Iphoto Libraries

If you are planning to migrate your photo libraries from Aperture or iPhoto to Photos and own Aperture 3.6, merge your libraries in Aperture before the migration while you still can use Aperture as described here: Aperture 3.3: How to use Aperture to merge iPhoto libraries - Apple SupportMake backup copies of the libraries before you try that.

Merging Two Mac Photos Libraries

  1. The options in Photos are:Merge the libraries in iCloud by uploading them to the same iCloud Photo Library: Merging in iCloud is the only way to preserve the master-version pairs, so you can revert edited photos to the original versions. Your albums and folders will migrate, keywords, titles, and other metadata. All edited images will be paired with their originals, so you can undo the edits and revert to the original. The searchable faces names will upload (only on Photos 1.5 or older, not on Photos 2.0), but not the faces thumbnails and albums. Photos will scan for duplicates while merging. It is the best way to migrate libraries you invested much work into, but uploading large libraries to iCloud requires a paid subscription for more storage than the free 5GB - for at least a month, and it is slow. My library with 40000 photos took a full week to upload. To merge in iCloud enable the smaller of the two libraries as your iCloud Photo Library.Wait for all photos to upload; that can take a very long time, a week ore more, depending on the size of the library. Photos will merge the the library into the library that is already in iCloud.Now enable the larger library as your iCloud Photo Library. This library will be merged into the library in iCloud too, creating a merged library in iCloud. The merged library will sync back to your larger Photos Library. The merge will not include the Faces albums and projects from the first library you uploaded. That is why I recommend to start with the smaller library. The download will be like to a different Mac, see: Use Photos and iCloud Photo Library on multiple Mac computers - Apple SupportTo sync the faces names with iCloud Photo Library, I apply keywords with the names of the persons to all photos in a people album.Merge the libraries by exporting the photos (edited versions and originals) from one library and reimporting them into the other library. This is the most tedious way and only feasible for very small libraries. You would have to export the edited versions and the originals separately and they would no longer be paired. On Yosemite or El Capitan - even if you export the originals with XMP sidecar files to preserve the IPTC metadata, the metadata from the sidecar file will not be applied to the originals when reimporting. Your metadata will be gone, unless you export the edited versions as JPEGS. So there is no help for it but to export both, the originals and the edited versions, and to deal with the duplicates. Photos 2.0 on Sierra can read the sidecar files on import - so exporting with XMP files will transfer the metadata to the new library.

How To Merge Two Mac Photos Libraries

You will have to recreate the albums as well.Merge the libraries with PowerPhotos: PowerPhotos is a tool to manage Photos Libraries. You can easily browse libraries in turn and move photos between libraries. Merging with PowerPhotos is fast (https://www.fatcatsoftware.com/powerphotos/. It will migrate the metadata and the albums, but you have to decide, if you want to use the originals or the edited versions. So you will either lose the editing work or the high quality originals or create redundancy by merging twice in two passes, once to transfer the originals, and then the edited versions. You will have to add a pass to remove duplicates afterward. See chapter six in the PowerPhotos manual: : https://www.fatcatsoftware.com/powerphotos/Help/merging%20libraries.htmlAnother option would by to keep both libraries separate and use PowerPhotos to browse the libraries and to transfer selected albums as you go.iCloud Photo Library would be the best option. Merging with PowerPhotos the second best.Update for Photos 3.0 on macOS 10.13:Photos 3.0 will also sync the recognized faces when you merge two Photos 3.0 libraries in iCloud. projects do still not sync to iCloud.