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Merge old iPhoto libraries on CD with iPhoto 5 libraries
Authored by: kenferry on Mar 18, '05 02:33:34PM

You can make iPhoto recognize the disk as containing a library by including a simple XML file at the top level. It's a hidden file when you burn the CD from within iPhoto.

John Faughan gives detailed instructions.



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Merge old iPhoto libraries on CD with iPhoto 5 libraries
Authored by: jfaughnan on Mar 19, '05 11:49:14AM

Thanks for the plug!

BTW, Ken is the author of a great iPhoto app: Keyword Assistant: http://homepage.mac.com/kenferry/software.html. I use it all the time.

The original hint, while helpful, underscores the usability issues with iPhoto and its impressively incomplete documentation. The discussions, including Old Toad (he and I have corresponded on the Apple Forums, the Toad knows I'm a curmudgeon) illustrate the ongoing problems with library merges.

I haven't found a way to preserve all the data structures during a library merge. It's not that complex a data model, but Apple doesn't support a proper merge process. The usual result is either missing album information or duplicate photos.

The web page Ken referenced claims one can pass keywords successfully. Ken tells me that in fact that doesn't work -- that incoming photos are assigned keywords in the host album based on a hidden numeric identifier. I haven't been able to verify that but I'd be curious to hear more. I trust Ken is correct.

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John Faughnan
jfaughnan@spamcop.net
www.faughnan.com



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Merge old iPhoto libraries on CD with iPhoto 5 libraries
Authored by: momerath on May 12, '06 04:11:43PM

Wow, thanks! I'd always wondered what made iPhoto discs special (I hit myself for being too stupid to look for invisible files). I wish I'd had this hint a few months ago when I needed to combine another iPhoto library (I ended up just burning an iphoto DVD).



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