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macarthurdent

macrumors member
Original poster
Mar 28, 2019
39
2
I have MacOS Mojave 10.14.1 and have no plans to upgrade to Catalina. I have an urgent problem in that I'm running out of storage space on my MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2014). I need to offload a lot of files urgently. I'm moving most of my Documents to an external Seagate 4T HDD but the main problem is my photos. I'd like to delete all my photos from my iPhone but I think that would delete them on the Mac as well. I hate the Photos app and have been using iPhoto and Image Capture. I pay for iCloud storage but I want to stop using iCloud as soon as possible as I find it very confusing and hard to understand how to use it. So my question is...how can I delete all my photos from my iPhone and not delete them on my Mac? I want to spend some time removing them from Photos and copying them from the Mac to an external drive and continuing to use iPhoto and Image capture rather than Photos.
 

tekfranz

macrumors regular
Mar 16, 2017
187
49
Apple’s out of storage messages are annoying. The good thing is all your content is on your phone and accessible without internet connection. So you basically have a little computer on your phone.

However, both iPhone and Mac have an optimize storage option to free up space, but it will remove full quality pictures from your device and put them in the cloud.

Check out Adobe Lightroom with Cloud Storage. It was one of the best alternatives I found. You can put an app on your phone and on your Mac.

All the other cloud providers like OneDrive Google Drive and DropBox will upload your pictures. Google Photos even offers to free up space once it has uploaded the pictures. They all have Mac IOS and Windows Programs.

If you truly want no cloud connection you can backup all your photos to an external drive. You would export unmodified originals from Photos to the external drive. You would then need to connect your phone and import the photos to the Photos App and export unmodified originals as well.

Not sure how iPhoto and Image Capture works but hopefully you can select all and export the photos to an external Hard Drive as well.
 

macarthurdent

macrumors member
Original poster
Mar 28, 2019
39
2
"The good thing is all your content is on your phone and accessible without internet connection."

Thanks tekfranz but I don't want to keep any photos on my phone -I want them on my Mac but not in the Photos app and not in the cloud. I want them in iPhoto. So, if I delete them on the iPhone will that delete them from iPhoto the way it would delete them from Photos?

"If you truly want no cloud connection you can backup all your photos to an external drive. You would export unmodified originals from Photos to the external drive. You would then need to connect your phone and import the photos to the Photos App and export unmodified originals as well."

I haven't been using Photos -I've got it set up that my photos from the iPhone go straight to iPhoto. I can export some or all of them from there to an external HDD.
 

MIKX

macrumors 68000
Dec 16, 2004
1,815
690
Japan
I use iPhoto 9.6.1 in Mojave 10.14.6. ( build 18G1012 )

No problems at all. Works with my iPhone without fail.

Seeing that I never use iCloud I'll stick with iPhoto.
 

tekfranz

macrumors regular
Mar 16, 2017
187
49
I use iPhoto 9.6.1 in Mojave 10.14.6. ( build 18G1012 )

No problems at all. Works with my iPhone without fail.

Seeing that I never use iCloud I'll stick with iPhoto.

Does iPhoto pull photos from an iPhone? Also can it then back them up to an external drive?
 

macarthurdent

macrumors member
Original poster
Mar 28, 2019
39
2
Does iPhoto pull photos from an iPhone? Also can it then back them up to an external drive?
Yes, it pulls them from my iPhone just the same as Photos did. So now I need to back them up to an external drive which I have formatted ready to go.
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If you truly want no cloud connection you can backup all your photos to an external drive. You would export unmodified originals from Photos to the external drive. You would then need to connect your phone and import the photos to the Photos App and export unmodified originals as well.
Thanks tekfranz -I wondered about how to export unmodified originals.
 

Rodan52

macrumors 6502
What you seem to be asking for is how I and many other Mac users managed our photo libraries before the introduction of iCloud Photo Library, My Photo Stream etc.
When you launch iPhoto (or Photos) and hold down the option key you will be presented with a dialogue box displaying your current default iPhoto library and the option to create a new library. If you create a new library you can drag and drop your original library onto your external HD And after checking all is well you can delete it from your computer.
Now you can open the original library from your EHD on your computer and you will have a second empty library on your computer. You can have as many of these libraries as you like but iTunes will only allow you to open one at a time via the method I mentioned using the option key. You will need to ensure the EHD is connected and the right library selected any time you connect your iPhone to download and there is a very handy app called Power Photos that will, if you get the paid version, enable you to open multiple libraries and move images between libraries.
As soon as photos have been loaded into a library you can delete them from your iPhone.
if you have opened Photos at some point then it’s quite possible your iPhoto library has been converted (which it must be) for use in Photos effectively doubling the size of your photo media on your computer. You might like to check in the Pictures Folder to see if you have two Libraries, an iPhoto and Photo library. Get Info on each and check the sizes. If you don’t want the Photos Library you can delete it or better yet delete its contents.
as always before attempting any modification of media libraries you should ensure you have a full backup with Time Machine or similar.
 

Honza1

macrumors 6502a
Nov 30, 2013
933
433
US
Yes, it pulls them from my iPhone just the same as Photos did. So now I need to back them up to an external drive which I have formatted ready to go.

Something which may be obvious, but if not is useful to know: If you right click (or option-click) on the iPhoto (or Photos) library in Finder and select "Show package contents", you can browse inside of the library in Finder. These libraries are really just folders with stuff in it which are masked by OS to look like a file. It is trivial to locate your originals inside there in folders - in Photos library they are in folder "Masters" - usually the largest one... You can simply drag and drop the whole folder (or part of it) onto a new drive in suitable location. These should be original photos your iPhoto (or Photos) as imported from the phone.
Now you have the best backup you can - original stuff. You can drop that in any photos management software (including in Photos with new empty library) and do with it what you want.
But you loose any custom modifications/enhancement to all photos, these are originals.

Question: I am also staying on 10.14 for now, there are many good reasons for that. But why not update all the way to the last release = 10.14.6? There were many bugs fixed over Mojave revisions, so staying on 10.14.1 is - usually - less than ideal. What reason you have to keep this specific version? 10.14.1 was, if I recall, kind of buggy on my MBP, the first really problem free for me was 10.14.5.
 

macarthurdent

macrumors member
Original poster
Mar 28, 2019
39
2
Something which may be obvious, but if not is useful to know: If you right click (or option-click) on the iPhoto (or Photos) library in Finder and select "Show package contents", you can browse inside of the library in Finder. These libraries are really just folders with stuff in it which are masked by OS to look like a file. It is trivial to locate your originals inside there in folders - in Photos library they are in folder "Masters" - usually the largest one... You can simply drag and drop the whole folder (or part of it) onto a new drive in suitable location. These should be original photos your iPhoto (or Photos) as imported from the phone.
Now you have the best backup you can - original stuff. You can drop that in any photos management software (including in Photos with new empty library) and do with it what you want.
But you loose any custom modifications/enhancement to all photos, these are originals.

Question: I am also staying on 10.14 for now, there are many good reasons for that. But why not update all the way to the last release = 10.14.6? There were many bugs fixed over Mojave revisions, so staying on 10.14.1 is - usually - less than ideal. What reason you have to keep this specific version? 10.14.1 was, if I recall, kind of buggy on my MBP, the first really problem free for me was 10.14.5.
This is all extremely helpful thank you Honza1 and sorry for the late reply.
 

macarthurdent

macrumors member
Original poster
Mar 28, 2019
39
2
What you seem to be asking for is how I and many other Mac users managed our photo libraries before the introduction of iCloud Photo Library, My Photo Stream etc.
When you launch iPhoto (or Photos) and hold down the option key you will be presented with a dialogue box displaying your current default iPhoto library and the option to create a new library. If you create a new library you can drag and drop your original library onto your external HD And after checking all is well you can delete it from your computer.
Now you can open the original library from your EHD on your computer and you will have a second empty library on your computer. You can have as many of these libraries as you like but iTunes will only allow you to open one at a time via the method I mentioned using the option key. You will need to ensure the EHD is connected and the right library selected any time you connect your iPhone to download and there is a very handy app called Power Photos that will, if you get the paid version, enable you to open multiple libraries and move images between libraries.
As soon as photos have been loaded into a library you can delete them from your iPhone.
if you have opened Photos at some point then it’s quite possible your iPhoto library has been converted (which it must be) for use in Photos effectively doubling the size of your photo media on your computer. You might like to check in the Pictures Folder to see if you have two Libraries, an iPhoto and Photo library. Get Info on each and check the sizes. If you don’t want the Photos Library you can delete it or better yet delete its contents.
as always before attempting any modification of media libraries you should ensure you have a full backup with Time Machine or similar.
Thanks for this, Rodan52. Extremely helpful and sorry for the late reply.
 
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