[Macworld]

Post your comments for iPhoto, the secret disk space thief here

[alansky]

Possibly one of the most useful Mac tips of all time considering that almost nobody knows about iPhoto Trash, much less empties it.

[ZeroGravX]

Well, I'm almost ashamed to admit it. I too have fallen under the iPhoto disk space thief realm if you will. I wasn't running out of space on my hard drive or anything, but after reading this article, sure enough I had about 400mb of photos in there. I've always seen the trash, but have never taken the time to see exactly how full it was getting. :(

[Schneb]

iPhoto is pretty much useless to me. However, having experimented with it, perhaps I too have fallen prey! :O

[acexsace1]

Very timely and useful Mac tip. I was not aware of this and performing it cleared 1.5 gig. Thanks.

[bopperzip]

Thanks for the tip. WHat about when I edit a photo and save the changes? Does iPhoto retain a copy of the original unchanged photo as well and how do I control that from eating up extra space?

[ddd1301]

iPhoto saves the original in the originals folder for that day.

[issa]

Good tip. I remembered being surprised the first time I checked the trash can in iPhoto. Ouch.
There's another hard disk storage-space-stealer for those who select from within iPhoto's preferences to edit using an external application. IN this case, iPhoto saves to its "Modified" folder, (which resides within the "iPhoto Library"), a copy of every photo that is clicked twice for editing. So, when one edits their photos in, say, Photoshop instead of iPhoto, not only does the original file remain untouched in the "Originals" folder, but an identical copy of it is created in the "Modified" folder. It's a real surprise to find several gigabytes of duplicate original files in the Modified folder when one has no need for them. This means that Apple offers the ability to edit in an external program, but extracts a penalty for doing so. In essence, it shows that they expect users to edit within iPhoto so the modified fie is in fact the file one modifies within iPhoto.
Now, you might think the solution is easy. Simply control click on the iPhoto Library to access the folders concealed within, and then empty the contents of the Modified folder, right? Wrong. That does free up the gigabytes of HDD space. However, once you do that, it somehow messes up iPhoto's database, which goes looking for the (unedited) modified file if you try to view a photo using QuickLook (Space Bar), play a slide show, etc. All you'll get once the Modified folder has been emptied is a large exclamation point on a black background. Granted, if you select the thumbnail, which does remain because iPhoto also creates one of those, hit control click and select "Show Original", iPhoto is able to navigate to the original file. I'd love to find a way to trash all the unmodified "Modified" files without messing up iPhoto's links. (Rebuilding the database doesn't do the trick.)

[deemery]

> selecting ‘Empty Trash’a??freed up an astounding 10GB of hard disk space in a few minutes
[/quote]
So I hope you were appropriately rewarded by your girlfriend :-)

[FranceHopper]

I think I might have to go check that now.
Really good tip.

[macFanDave]

It's too bad that iPhoto Diet seems to have died (the dangers of anorexia!)
Before iPhoto 7.x (aka, iPhoto '08), this was a great, handy, FREE tool to get rid of originals if you had new modified versions. If you noticed, iPhoto has no Save command since it keeps original copies of things you've modified. iPhoto Diet let you commit to the changes by making the modified version the only one.
In earlier versions of iPhoto, the database was a lot easier to manipulate manually, so the program was easy to write and maintain. The new version has made the database more complicated and the programmer either cannot or doesn't want to upgrade his program to work now. (It's hard to complain to people who give you freeware.)

[akira34]

Since iPhoto cannot handle RAW files [properly] I've dumped it from use. I'm even thinking about completely removing it from my MacBook Pro... I have three other apps that will just as good a job (if not better) for viewing photo directories... LightRoom, Aperture, and Bridge (latest versions of course)...
I need software that won't take a CRW file and pervert it into a jpg when you use it to pull from the camera media. The current version of iPhoto (and at least one version back) does this to RAW files. Maybe apple will fix it, but I cannot bank on that.

[backslashtech]

One surprising thing that I found with iPhoto was the fact that every picture I opened in it or imported into it is duplicated.
I come from the PC world and really enjoyed Picasa (in fact, the new version is just plain awesome). There, when you added photos to the computer, they would automatically be picked up the next time you opened Picasa. And they would stay put.
But in iPhoto, by default, the new photos have to be added manually which causes a copy to be made and placed in the iPhoto Library file package. I had transferred 12GB of pics from the PC into a well organized hierarchy on the Mac. I found a duplicate 12GB in the iPhoto Library package.
I know you can turn this off, so that you can just use the folders the way I'm used to, but is there a benefit to keeping them in the iPhoto Library instead? I'm tempted to go to my old ways - right now, I have deleted all of those old folders and just use the Library by itself. I've also noticed that I can go into the package and retrieve the pics sorted by Events....
And why, oh, why can't I just use iPhoto with the same folder hierarchy as I'm used to? Instead, everything is separated into Events. I can't just drag a new pic into a specific Event - I have to go through the hoops of adding the pic as a new Event and then merging Events.
Does anyone know if Picasa will be released on the Mac any time soon???

[moose_n_squirrel]

There is a rumor that Mac Picasa has now entered beta testing.
http://www.appleinsi...08/11/26/googletestingpicasaformac_beta.html
If you want to browse image folders on the Mac on the cheap you might try GraphicConverter.
The only reason I have iPhoto on my disk is to answer questions about it. Otherwise I won't let my images near it.