I have 2009 imac running El Capitan. A few years ago, I migrated my iphoto library to photos. Everything fine. Can I now delete both the iphoto library (about 23 GB) and the iphoto app (about 2 GB)? I spoke to Apple rep, and he said it’s OK to delete. But, I’ve seen on some forums that the photos aren’t really duplicated, and they’re “pointing” to the same file. Just trying to clean up, so that when apple releases new imac (hopefully in 2019), and I need to transfer everything over, I don’t transfer stuff I really don’t need anymore.
Thanks for your advice.
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bob
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Can I Delete iPhoto App and iPhoto Library?
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Where did you see that the photos are "pointing" to the same file? That's just not true and never has been. If you have a standard iPhoto library and converted it to a standard Photos library, then the photos are copied to the new library. There is some weird information floating around in forums.
There is some worry of user error here, like not paying attention during the conversion process and missing an error message or something. Though if you did this a few years ago, you are long past that point. What I suggested that people do, way back when Photos came out, was to archive the iPhoto library to an external drive. You should do that on a regular basis anyway, right? So the point of conversion is a good time. So do that: copy your old iPhoto library to an external drive. Put a copy of your current Photos library on the drive too. Maybe play to add one every year to that drive.
Then you can delete the old iPhoto library without worry. External drives are cheap. Your photos are priceless. It doesn't hurt to have another archive/backup. Heck, store this drive in a storage unit, vacation home, safety deposit box or relative's house so it also becomes an off-site backup of your photos in case of fire.