RELATED: How to move Photos library to a separate drive How to migrate photo libraries from iPhoto to Photos Tip: iPhoto libraries have the “.photolibrary” extension, while libraries in the new format tailored to the Photos app have the “.photoslibrary” extension.Ĥ) As a final step, trash iPhoto (it’s in your Applications folder) if you don’t envision using the app going forward. Navigate to your user account’s Pictures folder, or click Pictures in the lefthand column in the Finder window.ģ) Locate an old iPhoto library you wish to remove, right-click the file and select Move to Trash in a contextual menu. How to remove your old iPhoto libraryġ) Click the desktop and in the Finder menu choose Go → Home.Ģ) A new Finder window will open. In order to free up a significant amount of storage space on your Mac, you can safely delete any iPhoto library that has been migrated to the new Photos app.īefore we get to it, keep in mind that even though iPhoto and Photos libraries are compatible, any changes you make to your images in Photos post-migration won’t appear in iPhoto, and vice versa. Upon completing migration, you’ll have two sets of photo libraries on your machine: the original iPhoto libraries and their Photos counterpart. People with multiple iPhoto libraries must manually convert them to the new format by holding the Option (⌥) key when clicking the Photos icon in the Dock. On first launch, Photos will auto-upgrade your default iPhoto library to its new library format.

After upgrading your Mac to OS X Yosemite or later, the new Photos app gets installed automatically.

Clean up iphoto library