Saving 500GB of iPhoto images?

[LeadFarmer]

My old MacBook which I don't use anymore has nearly 500GB of iPhoto images. I have a new MacBook running Photos app which syncs to my iPhone. I want to recover the iPhoto images from my old MacBook, but I can't put them on my new MacBook as its HD is too small. So I guess I need to copy them to an external hard drive.

Instead of just copying the iPhoto library over to the ext HD, can I create a new Photos library to migrate the images to, whilst keeping it separate from the Photos library I use on my new MacBook? I don't want it syncing to my current Photos library on my MacBook and iPhone, would want to keep it separate

Whats the best way of doing this please?

[SlidingSideways]

You can tell iPhoto which library to open when it starts:

https://www.lifewire.com/manage-photos-with-multip...

[LeadFarmer]

With iPhoto no longer supported by Apple, would I be better creating the newer Photos library to import the images into, rather than just create another iPhotos library?

If so, I would like the new Photos library on the ext HD to be completely unkinked to my current Photos library that's on my new MacBook.. Is it easy to create a new Photos library to migrate the iPhoto content to?

Edited by LeadFarmer on Friday 14th January 23:40

[Captain_Morgan]

Can help with the specific details but would ask if you have a backup plan for these photos
as storing them on a single hdd is a single failure away from losing them.

[peterperkins]

If OP copies them onto a new HD and keeps the old macbook as is he will have two copies.

[x5tuu]

Why not just:
- connect the old MacBook to the internet
- login into your current/new iCloud via the website
- go to the Photos section
- drag and drop / upload the images you want to preserve onto the iCloud Photos window

This will then have them present in your cloud space and they will cache to the new MacBook on demand?

[CoolHands]

It will take a week though

[LeadFarmer]

x5tuu said:

Why not just:
- connect the old MacBook to the internet
- login into your current/new iCloud via the website
- go to the Photos section
- drag and drop / upload the images you want to preserve onto the iCloud Photos window

This will then have them present in your cloud space and they will cache to the new MacBook on demand?

Thanks, but it would take forever to upload 500GB of photos to iCloud, plus I really would prefer them not too be linked to my Photos library and would rather keep them separate. For me they could just sit as files on the ext hard drive, but as I use a MacBook perhaps ought to keep them within an Apple product and convert them from iPhoto to Photo.

Edited by LeadFarmer on Saturday 15th January 11:08