Moving iPhoto library

[Big Stevie]

Any advice for how to preserve a 400GB iPhoto library that I have on an old 2012 MacBook that I don't use any more please?

All the photos are in different 'Events' (as Apple used to call them), but I now use a newer 256GB MacBook with the newer Photos app, but its hard drive isn't big enough to take the old iPhoto library.

Wondering what my options are to back up the old iPhotos library? I guess I could move the whole iPhoto library onto an external hard drive, but I think I'd like to take them out of iPhotos and either convert into a separate Photos library, or move them away from Apple altogether and simply have the images stored in different folders - Family, Holidays etc on an ext HD.

Is there a way I can locate the individual images in each iPhoto 'Event' so I can move them into a folder, going through each Event one at a time? That way I can keep the images organised.

[CorradoTDI]

iCloud+ maybe the most obvious solution...

[Big Stevie]

CorradoTDI said:

iCloud+ maybe the most obvious solution...

I just see iCloud as mostly just a sync facility. If I used my iCloud account then won't that try to sync both MacBooks and copy content from my old MacBook to my current one, which has a smaller HD (and vice versa)? Plus we're dealing with two library types - iPhoto and Photos.

Edited by Big Stevie on Friday 10th March 22:07

[megaphone]

I'm running mine on an external HDD which I USB into my MB Air which only has 256GB SSD. https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT201517

You should be able to import any photos to merge them all. Do a back up on another external drive first.

[colin79666]

At least in the new photos app it has an option to optimise storage with iCloud Photos. That means it only stores thumbnails locally and downloads the full photos as needed. Doing this you should be good to use iCloud. New photos also has de duplicate feature to help sort that out after.