1.0. Introduction

iPhoto Library Manager's job is to enable people to use iPhoto with multiple photo libraries in any location they want on their hard drive, rather than being limited to the default library location. iPhoto Library Manager allows you to set up multiple photo libraries, switch between them easily, and copy photos from one library to another.

There are three main parts to the main iPhoto Library Manager window:

2.0. About iPhoto libraries

iPhoto stores all of the photos and information about your library in an iPhoto library. In iPhoto 6 and earlier, the iPhoto library was stored as just a plain folder, containing all the library's photos and iPhoto's data files. Starting in iPhoto 7, the iPhoto library is stored in what's known as a package, which you cannot see the contents of in the Finder like you can with a plain folder. However, if you want to delve into its contents to find individual photos, you can still do so by control-clicking on it and selecting "Show Package Contents" from the contextual menu. It is highly recommended that you do not move, rename, or delete any files inside the iPhoto library folder/package. Doing so can cause iPhoto to become very confused and either be unable to find some of your photos, or even be unable to open the library at all.

When you import photos into iPhoto, they are copied by iPhoto into the library, and iPhoto takes care of organizing them within the library and keeping track of where they are. iPhoto also creates a handful of its own data files in the library folder along with the photos themselves. These files contain information such as how you have your photos organized into albums, the title, ratings, keywords, and other information you assign to your photos, and much more.

Typically, while working with iPhoto, it keeps all the details of this folder hidden from you. You can just use iPhoto's interface to manage your photos, and you never even need to look inside the iPhoto library folder itself. However, in some cases, especially if you encounter problems with your iPhoto library, in can be useful to know a little bit more about what goes on inside the library folder. Following is a brief description of some of the stuff you'll find inside the library folder. Note that there are some small and some large differences in the folder structure depending on what version of iPhoto you're using.

2006, 2005, 2004, etc.

When running iPhoto 5 or earlier, these folders are where iPhoto stores the actual photos that are in your library. If you are running iPhoto 6 or later and still see some of these folders hanging around, they are likely just leftover from the library having been upgraded from an older version. The photos are organized in a hierarchy of subfolders based on their dates. For example, a photo dated February 24, 2004 would be found by looking in the "2004" folder (year), then the "02" folder (February, month #2), then the "24" folder (the day). Inside each "day" folder are the photos themselves, along with a folder named "Thumbs", which contains scaled down copies of the original photos. There may also be a folder named "Originals". If you edit a photo in iPhoto, it will make a copy of the original photo inside this folder before making any changes. That way, you can later revert to the original version within iPhoto if you want to discard the changes. You may also see files in these folders ending with ".attr" or ".roll". These files are created by iPhoto 2 and earlier only, and are unused by iPhoto 4 and later. 

Albums

In iPhoto 4 and earlier, iPhoto stores some album data inside this folder and also creates a subfolder for each album in your library. Each subfolder is populated with aliases pointing to the actual photos contained by that album. The Albums folder is not created by iPhoto 5 or later. If you have iPhoto 5 or later and still see an Albums folder, it is probably just leftover after having upgraded from a previous version, and is no longer being updated as you make changes.

AlbumData.xml

3.0. Installation

iPhoto Library Manager can be run from anywhere on your hard drive. To install it, simply drag the iPhoto Library Manager icon from the disk image to somewhere on your hard drive, e.g. your Applications folder. To uninstall, drag iPhoto Library Manager from your hard drive to the trash. If you are upgrading a previous version of iPhoto Library Manager, you can simply replace the old version with the new one, and your list of libraries and all your settings will be retained automatically. You can also use the "Check for updates" menu item from within iPhoto LIbrary Manager to automatically check for, download, and install new updates.

4.0. A note about iPhoto version numbers

Apple has created some confusion with the versioning scheme it has used for iPhoto through the years.  The first version iPhoto was released in January of 2002. The first two versions of iPhoto, versions 1 and 2, were offered for free, and were available as individual downloads.  Starting with the next version, Apple started bundling iPhoto with their new iLife suite, which also included other applications such as iMovie and iDVD. That release was called iLife '04, since it was released in January of 2004. However, since iPhoto was only at version 2, they decided to skip a version number, so the version of iPhoto that came with iLife '04 was iPhoto 4.0. There was never any such thing as iPhoto 3.

Apple continued this naming scheme in 2005 and 2006, releasing iLife '05 and iLife '06 at the Macworld show in January, which included iPhoto 5.0 and iPhoto 6.0, respectively. However, in 2007, iLife was not ready in time for the usual January release, and was instead released in September of 2007. Since the year was already nearly over by the time they were able to release it, Apple decided to name this release iLife '08.  Unlike in 2004, they did not skip a version number with iPhoto, so iLife '08 actually included iPhoto version 7.0.  This version of iPhoto can be referred to as either iPhoto '08 or iPhoto 7, depending on where you look.

The next release of iLife was in January 2009. The bundle was named iLife '09, and again, the actual version number of iPhoto only advanced by one, so iPhoto '09 is actually iPhoto version 8.0. The next release was iPhoto '11, which came out in October of 2010, and contained iPhoto version 9.0. To summarize:

This documentation attempts to be consistent in using the actual version rather than the "marketing" nomenclature, calling them iPhoto 7.0, 8.0, etc.  This is consistent with Apple own documentation, which usually (but not always!) uses the iPhoto version number rather than the iLife release name. This is also the version number you will see in iPhoto Library Manager when looking at the version of a library or the installed version of iPhoto.

5.1. Creating a new library

5.2. Adding an existing library

If you have an iPhoto library already on your disk, you can add it to your list by clicking the "Add Library" button and selecting the library on your hard drive. You can also add a library by dragging it from the Finder into the list of libraries. If you want to know where one of the libraries in your list is located, click the Reveal in Finder button to show the selected library in the Finder.

The item you choose to add must be a library that iPhoto has worked with already. You cannot treat a simple folder full of pictures as a photo library and have them show up in iPhoto. If you have pictures already in a folder that you want to work with in iPhoto, you must first either create a new library or open up an existing one, and then import those pictures from that folder into iPhoto.

5.3. Removing a library

To remove a library from your list, select it and click the "Remove Library" button in the main window's toolbar. Note that this will only remove the entry for the library in the list and will not delete any of your files from the disk. If you wish to delete the library's files permanently, go to the Finder and drag the library folder to the trash. Alternately, you can hold down the option key while clicking "Remove Library", and that will both remove the library from iPLM and move the library itself to the trash.

5.4. Duplicating a library

5.5. Moving a library

If you wish to move one of your libraries to a new location on a single drive, iPhoto Library Manager will automatically track the library when you do so. Select the library you want to move in iPhoto Library Manager and click the "Reveal In Finder" button to reveal the library. Then, use the Finder and move (not copy) the library to the new location on the drive. You will see iPhoto Library Manager update the path for that library as soon as you bring its main window to the front.

If you wish to move your library from one drive to another, you will need to copy the library to the new drive and then add the copied library to iPhoto Library Manager's list. After you have opened up the newly copied library with iPhoto and confirmed that it displays correctly, you can go ahead and delete the original copy of the library. Another way to do this is to use iPhoto Library Manager's "Duplicate Library" command in the File menu to make a copy of the selected library on another drive.

While iPhoto Library Manager will track libraries that are moved, iPhoto is not quite as smart. If you move a library, make sure to bring iPhoto Library Manager to the front and verify that it has tracked the library to its new location before launching iPhoto. Moving the library that iPhoto is currently using while iPhoto is still running is a very very very bad idea - don't do it. Quit iPhoto first if you are planning to move the currently active library.

5.6. Renaming a library

You can assign any name you wish to each of your libraries in the list by first selecting the library, and then clicking on its name to begin editing it (just like renaming a file in the Finder).

6.1. Opening a library

iPhoto Library Manager lets you manage multiple iPhoto libraries, but only one of your libraries can be open in iPhoto at any given time. In your list of libraries, whichever library has the button to the left of its name selected (i.e. colored in blue) is the currently active iPhoto library. Opening iPhoto, either by using the "Launch iPhoto" button in iPhoto Library Manager, or by clicking on iPhoto in the Finder or on the dock, will display that library in iPhoto.

To switch to another library, just double click on the library's name in iPhoto Library Manager, and it will open the library in iPhoto so you can view its contents (if another library is currently open in iPhoto, that library will be closed automatically first). Alternately, you can click the button next to that library in iPhoto Library Manager to make it the active iPhoto library, then click the "Launch iPhoto" button (or "Relaunch iPhoto", if iPhoto is already open).

6.2. Using library shortcuts

iPhoto Library Manager provides a feature called library shortcuts which let you easily open any iPhoto library by just double clicking a file.  To create a library shortcut, either use the "Create Shortcut" command in the File menu, or just drag a library from your library list and drop it into the folder where you'd like to create the shortcut.  A file will be created there that, when double clicked, will open up iPhoto Library Manager, switch to the library you created the shortcut for, and open up that library in iPhoto.  You can use a shortcut if you open up a particular library frequently, and don't want to bother with opening up iPhoto Library Manager and switching to that library manually every time you want to use it.  You can even drag a shortcut file onto your dock, which will give you one click access to an iPhoto library.

6.3. Using a digital camera with multiple libraries

One of the primary uses of iPhoto is to import and organize photos you have taken with your digital camera. There are a couple things you should know about how this works when you have multiple iPhoto libraries.

If you have iPhoto set up to launch automatically as soon as your plug your camera in, this will cause iPhoto to open whichever library you had last chosen to work with in iPhoto. If you typically only import photos into a single one of your libraries, this can sometimes cause the wrong library to be opened up, at which point you have to quit iPhoto, go open up iPhoto Library Manager, switch to the correct library, and then open up iPhoto again. If this happens to you a lot, you might want to instead set iPhoto Library Manager to open up when you attach your camera rather than iPhoto. This way, you can be sure that you have the right library selected before opening up iPhoto, and avoid importing photos into the wrong library.

To set this up, open up the Image Capture applications located in your main Applications folder on your hard drive.  If you're running OS X 10.6 or later, connect your camera to your computer, and it should appear in the "Devices" list on the left. In the lower left corner of the window, click the pop-up button and select "Other…" menu item. Find iPhoto Library Manager on your hard drive and select it to tell Image Capture to open it whenever you plug in that particular camera.

6.4. Using MobileMe galleries with multiple libraries

If you publish some of your photos to galleries using Apple's MobileMe service, there are a few things that are good to know for dealing with these galleries when you have multiple iPhoto libraries.

You can publish MobileMe galleries from any of your iPhoto libraries. Any galleries you publish will all show up on MobileMe together, no matter what library they originally came from. If you publish a gallery from one library, then open up another library and sync your galleries, iPhoto will automatically download the contents of all your galleries into that library as well. Note that if you add a photo to an existing MobileMe gallery from one library, the next time that gallery is synced with another library, that photo will be downloaded into the gallery in that second library as well.

If you don't want your galleries to appear in a particular library, then:

- If you're using iPhoto 9, open iPhoto's preferences, go to the "Accounts" section, select your MobileMe account in the list on the left, and click the "-" button below the account list to remove the MobileMe account. This will cause your MobileMe galleries to no longer be synced with that library, though the galleries and their photos will remain as-is on the MobileMe server.

- For earlier versions of iPhoto, open up the library, open iPhoto's preferences, go to the "Web" or "MobileMe" section (the label depends on what verson of iPhoto you have), and select to check for updates "Manually". If some galleries have already been synced with the library, there is no way to remove those galleries from the library without also deleting them from the MobileMe server, but any additional changes and galleries will not be synced to that library.

In the library you originally published a particular gallery from, iPhoto shares a single copy of each photo between the original album you created and the MobileMe gallery itself. As a result, these photos will appear both in your gallery and in your main Photos/Events lists. In other libraries, however, when iPhoto downloads photos from MobileMe, those photos will only appear when you select the gallery, and will not appear in your Photos/Events lists. If you want those photos to appear there, you will need to drag the photos from your MobileMe gallery and drop them on either the Photos or Events item at the top of the album list on the left.

By default, when you upload photos to a MobileMe gallery, iPhoto creates reduced size versions of the photos to make the uploading process faster. This means that if you later download those photos into another library from MobileMe, you will not receive the same full resolution photos that you had in the original library. To avoid this, when you publish your gallery, click the "Show Advanced" button and use the pop-up menu that is revealed to choose to publish full sized versions of your photos instead of reduced size versions.

If you delete a MobileMe gallery from one library, that will entirely delete the gallery from the MobileMe website, and the next time you open any of your other iPhoto libraries that have copies of those galleries, iPhoto will automatically remove the gallery from those libraries as well.  It will give you a chance to import the photos into your library before it gets rid of the gallery, but there is no way to keep the gallery in the library once it's been deleted from the MobileMe server.  There is no way to keep only some galleries in one library, and only other galleries in another library - it's all or nothing, so if you want to have some galleries appear in a library, you will need to have all of them appear in that library.

6.5. Using Photo Stream with multiple libraries

Starting in iPhoto 9.2, Apple introduced a new feature called Photo Stream, which lets you automatically transfer photos via their iCloud service between your iPhoto library and your other devices such as an iPhone, iPad, or another Mac. This feature works when you have multiple iPhoto libraries set up, but there are a couple things to be aware of.

First, iPhoto will only allow Photo Stream to be active in one iPhoto library at any given time. If you've already enabled Photo Stream in one library, but then open a second library and enable Photo Stream there, this will cause Photo Stream to be turned off in the first library.

Any photos downloaded by Photo Stream are actually stored in an entirely separate location from any of your iPhoto libraries. This means that, even if you do switch Photo Stream from one library to another, you will not need to go through redownloading all the photos you already have in Photo Stream back from the iCloud servers. So, switching Photo Stream from one library to another is a relatively inexpensive operation, so you can do it as often as needed without it being much of a hassle.

7.0. Copying between iPhoto libraries

After having set up and used your libraries for a while, you may find yourself wanting to reorganize your photos among your various libraries. iPhoto Library Manager provides ways to copy your photos from one library to another without losing all the iPhoto specific information you would normally lose by simply exporting the photos from one library and importing them into another one.

7.1. Copying albums and events

When keeping your photos separated in multiple libraries, you sometimes have the need to move a set of photos from one library to another. With iPhoto, the only way to do this is to export the photos from one library and then import them into another. However, in the process of doing this, you lose all the data you've worked to assign to your photos, such as titles, dates, keywords, faces, places, and ratings. iPhoto Library Manager provides a way to copy photos from one library to another without losing this valuable information.

An album of photos can be copied from one library to another by dragging the album(s) you want to copy from the albums list in the main iPhoto Library Manager window and dropping them onto the library you would like to copy them to. iPhoto Library Manager will first collect the information about those photos from the source library, and then import those photos into the destination library and restore all the photo information as it was before. If a photo has been modified in the original library, then the original version of the photo will also be transferred to the destination library, so that the "Revert to original" command in iPhoto will work as expected. If you drag more than one album at once, and a photo belongs to more than one of those albums, the photo will only be imported once, but will be added to all the appropriate newly created albums in the destination library.

Note that you cannot drag albums from iPhoto itself into iPhoto Library Manager - you must drag the albums from iPhoto Library Manager's own window in order to perform a copy.

If you are running iPhoto 6 or later, you can also copy rolls/events betweeen libraries just like you can with albums. The small pop-up menu just above the album list will let you switch between viewing a library's albums and its rolls/events.  After switching, you can select and drag the rolls/events you want to copy over to another library to copy them.

7.2. Copying individual photos

If you have photos you wish to copy to another library, but they are not organized into albums in a way that makes it convenient to copy, you can also select photos in iPhoto and drag them directly to a library in the iPhoto Library Manager window to copy them to another library. All their keywords, ratings, etc. will be copied along with the photos, just like when you copy albums/events from within iPhoto Library Manager.  

In order to be sure that this extra information will come over, you should drag the photos from iPhoto's window, and not from a Finder window or some other program that lets you drag files. If you drag from somewhere else, iPhoto Library Manager will not necessarily know that the photos belong to an iPhoto library, and so they will be treated as regular photos, the extra information associated with them will not be brought into the destination library.

7.3. Merging libraries

iPhoto Library Manager allows you to merge the contents of multiple libraries together into one, while preserving all your albums, events, and photo metadata.

To begin a merge, select "Merge Libraries" from the File menu. You will be presented with a sheet with two panes. On the left is the list of libraries available to copy photos from. You can choose one or more libraries to merge together here. On the right, you can choose the destination for the photos you want to merge. If you want to keep your original libraries intact, choose the "New Library" item. After clicking the "Merge" button, you will be prompted to choose a location in which to create a new library that will be the destination for the merge. You can also choose an existing library into which all the photos from the chosen source libraries will be imported.

In the example merge setup shown below, a new library will be created, then the contents from the libraries "Default", "Photo shoot", and "Powerbook" will all be copied into the new library

When one library (which we'll call the "source library") is merged into another library (the "destination library"), the following steps take place.

7.4. Importing new photos into a library

In addition to copying photos that are already in one of your iPhoto libraries, you can also use iPhoto Library Manager to import new photos from your hard drive into one of your iPhoto libraries. To do so, just drag one or more photos or folders full of photos from the Finder and drop them onto a library or album in the iPhoto Library Manager window. The photos will be imported into the library they were dropped on, and if dropped on an album, they will also be added to the album that they were dropped on.

7.5. Customizing your photo copying

7.51. Preserving photo attributes

When you use iPhoto Library Manager to copy photos between libraries, it will preserve a number of associated pieces of data that go along with those photos. This metadata is stored inside the iPhoto library's database, and thus is normally lost when moving photos between libraries by exporting from one library and reimporting into another. The photo attributes that are preserved by iPhoto Library Manager are:

• Title
• Date
• Rating
• Comment/Description (iPhoto 6 and earlier calls it "comments", later versions call it "description")
• Keywords

In iPhoto '08 or later, if a photo has been marked as "hidden" in the library it's being copied from, iPhoto Library Manager will mark the photo as "hidden" in the library it's being copied to as well

In iPhoto '09 or later, iPhoto Library Manager will also copy any Places or Faces data that you have assigned to your photos.

When copying photos that have been assigned a geographical location in iPhoto, iPLM will transfer that same data over to the destination iPhoto library. If you have created a custom place in the "My Places" window in iPhoto, and you copy a photo that has been assigned that place, it will be copied over to the destination library as well. There is no way to just copy a custom defined place - you must copy a photo that has that place assigned to it in order to transfer the place to a different library.

iPhoto Library Manager will also bring over any faces that you have tagged in your photos when you copy them between libraries. Faces are identified by the name assigned to them in the "Faces" view in iPhoto, and iPhoto only allows one person to be identified with a given name, so iPhoto Library Manager will reuse existing face definitions when possible.  It will also carry over the full name and/or e-mail address of each person if you have entered values for those.

For example, let's say you have two libraries, which we'll call library A and library B.  In library A, you have a person named Bob Smith, but in the Faces view, he is simply named "Bob". In library B, you have a person named Bob Jones, but again, in the Faces view, you've simply called him "Bob".  If you copy a photo containing Bob from library A over to library B, iPLM will reuse the Bob already in library B, which is probably not what you want, since they are two different people. If you want to make sure your two Bobs don't get confused, you should type in different names for each of them in the Faces view, so that they remain as separate entities if you end up copying a photo of one of them to another library.

7.52. Copying original photos

When you edit a photo in iPhoto, iPhoto keeps a copy of the original photo in addition to your modified version of the photo. This allows you to use the "Revert to Original" menu command in iPhoto if you want to discard your changes and start over in editing your photo.

When you copy photos between libraries with iPhoto Library Manager, it will bring over both the original and modified versions of each photo, so that you can continue to use the "Revert to Original" command in the destination library just as you could in the source library.

7.53. Avoiding importing duplicate photos

Whenever you import photos into an iPhoto library, iPhoto will try to determine if some or all of the photos you're importing are already present in the library. If it thinks that a duplicate is being imported, it will put up a dialog box asking whether or not you really want to import the photo, showing you small versions of the photo in question and the photo it thinks it is a duplicate of. The dialog also has an "Apply to all" checkbox that will apply your answer to any other duplicates detected in the batch of photos being improted.

When using iPhoto Library Manager to copy large numbers of photos, this duplicate detection can interrupt the copying process. There is no way to turn it off completely, and the "Apply to all" checkbox only applies to a single roll/event. Since in many cases (especially when merging libraires) iPLM will be copying many rolls/events at once, if your two libraries have lots of duplicate photos among them, this means having to babysit your machine and answer "no" once each time a new roll/event begins to be imported and iPhoto nags you about duplicates.

7.54. RAW/hidden photo options

7.55. Album copying options

When copying albums, iPhoto Library Manager will copy all the photos in the albums you're copying over to the destination library.  By default, these photos will be organized into the same rolls/events that they belonged to in the original library. You can change this behavior if you wish using the following options:

• Preserve the original rolls/events. This is the default behavior. It will import a single roll/event for each roll/event in the source library that contains at least one of the photos being copied. Note that, if the copied albums contain some, but not all of the photos in a given roll/event, the imported roll/event will have the same name, comment/description, and date as the source roll/event, but will only contain those photos that are in the albums being copied.
• Create one roll/event per album. Instead of following the roll organization from the source library, iPhoto Library Manager will create a new set of rolls, importing one roll per album copied. Each roll will have the same name and comment as the album it represents and will have the default date assigned to it by iPhoto when importing. Note that if a single photo belongs to more than one album being copied, that photo will only be imported once and belong to only one of the imported rolls.
• Create one roll/event for all the albums. This option will import all the photos as a single roll, whose name, comment, and date will be the default values assigned by iPhoto

7.56. Merging options

7.57. The Use XML Info Only option

Occasionally, a user's iPhoto library can get to a point where, due to either some sort of corruption in the iPhoto library's data, or just from a library having too many files for the machine to handle well, doing anything in iPhoto can become exceptionally slow or cause iPhoto to crash. This is, of course, exactly the situation in which many people want to use iPhoto Library Manager to get their libraries into a more managable setup, usually by splitting the library into multiple smaller libraries. However, if the iPhoto library has gotten bad enough, iPhoto's slowness can interfere with the normal operation of iPhoto Library Manager, making it impossible to effectively split your library up.

7.6. What can and can't be copied

7.7. Log files

8.0. Working with iPhoto and iPod/iPhone/Apple TV

If you own an iPod, iPhone, or Apple TV, you can use iTunes to sync the photos from your iPhoto library so that you can view them on any of these devices. If you have multiple iPhoto libraries set up though, you can only sync the contents of one of your libraries at a time. When you sync your device in iTunes, it will sync the photos from whichever library you currently have selected as the active library (i.e. the one that would appear if you opened iPhoto). If you switch libraries between syncs, this can result in the photos on your device being replaced with those from another library, which may not be desired.

8.1. About iPod Folders

iPod folders allow you to sync photos from across multiple libraries to your photo capable iPod. iTunes will allow you to sync photos either from your iPhoto library or a folder of pictures, but when syncing from an iPhoto library, it will only sync from the currently active library, meaning you can't mix and match photos from different libraries. What an iPod folder does is allow you to specify different albums that you want to sync with your iPod from any or all of your libraries. iPhoto Library Manager will automatically copy the photos from those albums into a folder you specify (the "iPod folder"), putting each album of photos inside a subfolder. You can then tell iTunes to sync with that folder instead of with iPhoto, which will put the pictures from the albums you selected onto your iPod.

8.2. Creating and configuring iPod Folder

To create a new iPod folder:

1. Click the "iPod Folders" button in the main window, or select "Show iPod Folders" from the Window menu.
2. Click the "New iPod Folder" button at the top of the "iPod Folders" window.
3. Choose a location and name for the folder and click "Create".

When viewing an iPod folder, you will see two panes in the iPod Folders window. The pane on the left displays all the libraries you have in your iPhoto Library Manager library list, and the pane on the right displays the albums in whichever library is selected on the left. You can add a single album of photos or a whole library of photos to the iPod folder by checking the checkbox next to the album or library you want to include.

Checking a library will include all the albums in that library, including any additional albums you add to that library at a later date. If you want to include most, but not all of a particular library, first check the library, and then uncheck the albums you don't want to include.

You can also just check individual albums that you want to include in your iPod folder. If you check a folder album, all of the regular albums that it includes will be included in the iPod folder. However, this folder hierarchy will not be recreated in the iPod folder, because the iPod only supports a single level of folders when it syncs your photos, so any subfolders would be ignored anyway.

If multiple albums that have the same name are included in the same iPod folder, one or more will be renamed in order to avoid conflicts. For example, if you have a "Vacation" library and a "Family" library, and both have an album named "Dinner", you will end up with two subfolders in the iPod folder, one named "Dinner (Vacation)" and "Dinner (Family)". If identically named albums come from the same library, they will be named "Dinner", "Dinner 2", and so on.

New in iPhoto 7 is the ability to hide some of your photos in your iPhoto library so that they don't appear in your events or albums, even as they are still stored in the library. Hidden photos cannot be included in an iPod folder, and must be marked as unhidden in order to be copied correctly. Simply showing the hidden photos in iPhoto through the View menu is not sufficient - the photos must actually be unhidden in order to be copied to the iPod folder.

Unregistered users are limited to having no more than 100 photos copied into their iPod folder. If you specify albums containing more than 100 photos, only the first 100 processed will be copied into the iPod folder.

8.3. iPod Folder options

Clicking the "Options..." button in the iPod Folder will bring up a sheet giving you several additional ways to configure your iPod folder's organization

Sorting/Naming

When you sync an iPod with a folder full of photos, the photos will appear on the iPod in alphabetical order, as determined by the filenames of the photos. iPhoto Library Manager provides the option to, instead of using the photos' normal filenames, assign sequential numbers as the filenames of the photos as they are copied. This allows the photos to be sorted in a particular order (by photo date, modification date, rating, title, or their order as displayed in the album itself) so that they appear in that order when viewed on the iPod.

Note that the "album order" option will sort the photos in the order that they are displayed in the album in iPhoto, which depends on what option is selected from the View menu within iPhoto for that album. For instance, if you have an album manually sorted in a particular order, it must have "Manual" selected under View->Sort By in iPhoto if you want them to also be in the manual sort order in the iPod folder.

Copy/Symlink/Alias

iPhoto Library Manager will copy photos to the iPod folder by default, but also provides the option to instead create a symbolic link or alias to each folder in the album. Unfortunately, neither symlinks nor aliases are understood by iTunes when syncing with an iPod, so neither of these options is useful for transferring photos to an iPod, but this option can come in useful if you're using an iPod folder for some other purpose, such as collecting photos for use by some other program.

Copy/Link to

By default, the modified version of a photo (i.e. the one that is displayed when you're browsing through your photos in iPhoto) is the one that is copied to the iPod folder. You can, however, elect to copy either the original photo, or the smaller thumbnail version of the photo instead. If a photo has not been modified at all in iPhoto, then the original will be copied when either the "Modified photo" or "Original photo" option is chosen.

Because the iPod screen is small and has a low resolution, iTunes must scale the photo down to an appropriate size when transferring it to an iPod. Since the photo is going to be shrunk down anyway, if you are only intending to view your photos on your iPod, choosing to copy the thumbnail version to your iPod folder carries a couple of advantages. Because the thumbnail version of photos are smaller, it will take less time to copy the files when updating your iPod folder, they will take up less extra disk space, and they will be easier for iTunes to scale down when syncing, thus speeding up the syncing process. However, if you intend to use the "Include full resolution photos" option when syncing your photos in iTunes, you will probably not want to use the thumbnail option, since if you do, the "full resolution" photos copied to the Photos folder on the iPod will actually just be the small thumbnail versions.

Log updates

Checking this box will create a log file named "iPodFolder.log" inside the iPod folder. Each time the folder is updated, the actions that take place will be logged in this file. You can open this file later to see what photos were copied and when.

Update automatically

Checking this box will tell iPhoto Library Manager to automatically update the iPod folder whenever it detects that iPhoto has written out a new copy of its AlbumData.xml file. Note that iPhoto Library Manager must be running in order for any updating to occur, but it will automatically update as soon as you open the program

8.4. Updating an iPod Folder

Once you've created and configured an iPod Folder, to actually copy the specified photos into the folder, simply click the "Update" button in the iPod Folders window. iPhoto Library Manager will proceed to copy your photos into the appropriate folders within your iPod Folder. To avoid unnecessary copying, photos that have not been modified since the last update will not be recopied when updating; only the photos that need to be copied will be. If you want to have your iPod Folder automatically updated whenever you edit one of the iPhoto libraries it draws its photos from, check the "Update Automatically" checkbox in the options sheet, and iPhoto Library Manager will detect when the library has changed and update the iPod Folder as appropriate.

Important: When an iPod Folder is updated, the folder will be cleaned up, and any files not belonging to one of the albums being copied will be removed (with the exception of the "iPod Photo Cache" folder created by iTunes when syncing). Do not use the iPod Folder to store any other files, as they will be removed on the next update

8.5. Syncing with an iPod Folder

Once you have created and configured your iPod Folder, it is time to sync it with your iPod.

To sync with your iPod Folder:

9.0. Accessing an iPhoto library from multiple accounts

It is sometimes desirable in a setup where more than one user uses a given machine to be able to have multiple users work on a shared iPhoto library, eliminating the need to have a seperate copy of the library for each user. Unfortunately, this capability was not kept in mind when iPhoto was designed. There does not exist a perfect solution for sharing a library between multiple users, but iPhoto Library Manager has tools that can at least help ease the process.

Permissions and iPhoto

In Mac OS X, every file on the system is owned by one of the users on the system. Any files created by one user cannot be modified by another user unless that user is given permission to do so. So for instance, if the user "bob" creates an iPhoto library, and another user "susan" wants to be able to modify that library, bob must first change the permissions of the files in the library so that susan can modify them. If bob and susan are in the same group, then setting the "group" permissions for a file will allow them both to access it, no matter who owns it. If they are not in the same group, then setting the "other" permissions allow them to share the file. You can see the current owner, group, and permissions for a file by selecting it in the Finder and selecting the Get Info command from the File menu.

Changing these permissions is easy enough, and can be done in the Finder or through the Terminal. However, any new files or folders that are created by iPhoto will be given the default permissions (readable and writable by the owner, but only read access for the group and other users), so those new files and folders will not be accessible by other users. Additionally, when multiple users start to use a library, the library will start to have a mix of files that are owned by different users on the system. As can be seen, the situation quickly becomes very difficult to manage.

10.0. Rebuilding a corrupted iPhoto library

If you have an iPhoto library that is corrupt and causing iPhoto to crash or otherwise be unusable, iPhoto Library Manager provides the ability to rebuild your library based on the information found in its AlbumData.xml file. Select the library you want to rebuild and choose the "Rebuild Library" command from the File menu. After choosing a location to store the rebuilt library, iPhoto Library Manager will proceed to try rebuilding the library as best as it can based on the available data.

11.0. Extracting photos from a corrupted iPhoto library

There are some situations, such as when an iPhoto library gets corrupted, when your photos may still exist inside your iPhoto library, and you can still see them in the Finder, but they don't show up in iPhoto. iPhoto Library Manager's photo extraction feature makes it simple to copy all your photos out from such a library.

12.0. Preferences

To access iPhoto Library Manager's preferences, click on the "iPhoto Library Manager" menu and select "Preferences". There you will find the following sections:

General

13.0. Registering iPhoto Library Manager

14.0. System requirements

iPhoto Library Manager 3.6 requires Mac OS X 10.4.11 or later and will run on either a PPC or Intel based Macintosh. You can create, add, and switch between libraries, as well as use iPod Folders with any version of iPhoto. The album copying, library merging, library rebuild, and photo importing features all require iPhoto 4.0.3 or later.

15.0. Frequently asked questions

15.1. Accessing an iPhoto library from multiple computers

15.2. Storing a library on an external drive

15.3. Copying a library from one computer to another

15.4. Merging libraries from two different computers

If you have iPhoto libraries on two separate computers and would like to merge them together into one library, the first thing you need to do is choose which machine you'd like to use to perform the merge (we'll call this the "merging machine"), and make both libraries accessible from that machine. This can be done a few different ways, including:

15.5. Transferring iPhoto Library Manager to a new machine

iPhoto Library Manager stores the list of libraries it keeps track of in its preferences file, which is located at ~/Library/Preferences/com.mac.bwebster.iPhotoLibraryManager.plist.  If you copy that preference file to the same place on the new computer, that will bring the list of libraries over to the new machine.  You should quit iPLM on the new machine before copying the preference file into the Preferences folder. This will transfer your registration information over to the new computer as well.

Note, however, that the libraries will only be found on the new machine if the libraries themselves are located in the same place on the new machine.  For libraries on an external or networked drive, this should just work by connecting the drive in question to the new machine, since it will be showing up with the same drive name as before.  Any libraries that are stored on the internal drive of the old machine would have to be placed in the same location on the new machine in order to be automatically found.

If iPhoto Library Manager can't find a particular library, it will display its name in red in the library list, so that's a quick way of knowing which libraries it wasn't able to find.  If any libraries don't make the transition, you can just drag the library folder into the library list to add it back in.

15.6. Splitting a library

If you have a library that has gotten too large and you want to split it into multiple, smaller libraries, there are a couple different ways you can go about doing so.

Copying Albums

First, click the "New Library" button and choose the location you want to create the second library.

Then, if you are a registered user, simply drag one or more albums of photos from the album list of your big library onto your newly created library. This will copy those albums over to the new library, including all their dates, ratings, comments, etc.

If you have not registered yet, you can instead create a folder on your desktop, open up your big library in iPhoto and drag out the pictures you want from the iPhoto window into the folder you created. Then, use iPhoto Library Manager to open the newly created library, and finally drag the folder from your desktop into the iPhoto window, which will import those photos into your new library. Using this method will require recreating your albums and other photo attributes manually in the new library.

After you have copied the photos to your new library, you can remove them from the big library, and you will have successfully split your library into two.

Duplicate & Prune

Use the "Duplicate Library" command in the File menu to make a copy of the library folder that you want to split. You can then open one copy of the library and move whatever photos and albums you don't want in that library to its trash. Then open the second library and move the rest of the photos into that library's trash. After double checking to make sure that no photos have been trashed from both libraries, empty the trash of each library.

15.7. Copying photos from a burned iPhoto CD/DVD

iPhoto includes a built-in CD/DVD burning feature that allows you to backup some or all of your albums to CDs or DVDs for storage. When you insert such a burned disc into your computer, it will appear in the iPhoto source list on the left just below your main library. From there, you can copy photos from the CD/DVD into your library. However, this process can sometimes result in incorrect metadata (especially keywords) being assigned when those photos are copied to the library. If you have troubles with this, you can instead use iPhoto Library Manager to copy your photos to one of your libraries on your hard drive.

To copy photos from a CD/DVD:

1. Insert the CD/DVD into your computer. When the computer recognizes the disc, it may (depending on your configuration) automatically launch iPhoto. If it does, go ahead and quit iPhoto after it opens.
2. Double click the CD icon that appeared on the desktop to open it up. Inside you should see a folder named "iPhoto Library". Drag that folder to your desktop (or another location on your hard drive) to make a copy of it.
3. Once the copy is complete, open up iPhoto Library Manager and add the library folder to your library list.
4. Select the library to be the current library and open iPhoto. The first time you open the library, iPhoto will need to build a thumbnail cache, which may take a few minutes.
5. Once iPhoto has completed its thumbnail caching, you can then treat the library as any other iPhoto library, using iPhoto Library Manager to copy albums from it or merge it into another library.

15.8. Resuming an incomplete merge

15.9. Using an existing folder of photos

15.91. Copying your keyword list to another library

One of the key features of iPhoto Library Manager is that it will copy a photo's list of keywords when copying the photo from one library to another. However, this only helps for keywords that are actually assigned to one or more of your photos. What if you have a large list of keywords, but some of them aren't actually assigned to any photos in your library? How can you take that keyword list and duplicate it in another library? Here's one technique that utilizes this feature of iPhoto Library Manager:

1. Open the library whose keyword list you want to copy and choose a photo in the library. We'll call this our 'dummy' photo. You can even duplicate an existing photo to use as a temporary 'dummy' if you don't want to be modifying any of the existing photos.
2. Assign every keyword in the library to the dummy photo (or at least every keyword you want to bring over to the other library). Note that in iPhoto 6 and earlier, doing this through the keyword pane in the lower left is a big pain in the butt, since you have to draaaaag the photo on to each keyword over and over again. Try using the info window (command-i) which has simple checkboxes, much better for quickly assigning multiple keywords to a photo.
3. Copy that photo over to the library you want to copy the keyword list to. iPhoto Library Manager will copy the photo over, then assign all the keywords in the list to the copied photo, effectively recreating the whole keyword list in the destination library.

Now that the photo's been copied and the keywords recreated, you can delete the dummy photo from the destination library. You can also return to the original library and remove all the keywords from the dummy photo, or just delete it if you made a temporary photo for this purpose.

Another similar technique, if you create new libraries fairly often and like to have a standard list of keywords in your libraries, is to create an empty library and use this technique to populate its keyword list, then just keep it around. Whenever you need a new library, instead of creating a blank one, just use the "Duplicate Library" command to duplicate this library, along with the whole keyword list. Now all your new libraries will start out with the same custom keyword list.

15.92. Deleting an album

When you copy an album or event from one library to another using iPhoto Library Manager, the destination library will make its own copies of any photos that are being transferred. If you no longer want those photos to be in the original library, you can safely delete them without it affecting the copies that are in the library you copied the album to.

One common task that is often needed when managing your libraries (especially when splitting a libary in two) is to delete an album along with all its photos from one of your libraries. This is tricky, since when you select photos in an album and press the "delete" key (or drag them to the trash), it does not remove the photos from your library as a whole, it only removes them from the album. And, of course, deleting the album itself also leaves the photos in your library. The trick is to select all the photos and hit command-option-delete. This will remove the photos from both the library and the album.

To entirely remove an album of photos from a library:

1. Select the album you want to delete.
2. Click in the main photo view on the right and then press command-A to select all the photos in the album.
3. Press command-option-delete to remove the photos from both the album and the library.
4. Press command-shift-delete to empty the trash and delete the photos for good.
5. Select the album again and press delete to remove the album from your album list.

15.93. Library size discrepancies

15.94. Downgrading a library to an earlier version of iPhoto

15.95. Merging iPhoto libraries from different user accounts

Merging libraries from different user accounts is done much like any other merge, but is complicated by the fact that by default, one user account does not have permission to access another user account's files. The easiest way around this is to make a copy of one user's library (let's call them user A) to another location where the other user (whom we'll call user B) can have access to it. The best place to copy the library to is an external hard drive, since the system by default ignores permissions on external drives altogether. If an external drive isn't available, you can instead copy it to a shared location, such as the Shared folder located inside the Users folder on your internal hard drive.

So, to summarize the steps:

16.0. Troubleshooting

16.1. Disappearing iPhoto libraries on external drives

If you have an iPhoto library that you are keeping on an external hard drive, and that library suddenly has all its content "disappear" (i.e. you open up the library iPhoto and it contains no photos or albums), there is one particular cause that accounts for the vast majority of these symptoms.

When you attach an external hard drive, OS X "mounts" the drive (i.e. makes it ready for use) in a particular location on the system. There is actually an invisible folder named "Volumes" at the root level of your main hard drive, and when you attach an external hard drive to the machine, OS X puts the contents of that hard drive inside the Volumes folder.  So for example, if your hard drive is named "External", OS X will mount your hard drive at /Volumes/External, and all the hard drive's contents will appear as subfolders underneath that. (for the rest of this explanation, substitute the name of your own hard drive for "External")

The most common trigger for the disappearing library problem is when you either have a system crash, a power outage, or you accidentally disconnect the external drive without ejecting (i.e. unmounting) the drive first.  Many programs will not handle this well, and will continue to write files and folders to /Volumes/External even though the hard drive is no longer there. Since there is nothing at /Volumes/External, a plain folder can be created at that location where the drive contents used to be. This folder is actually stored on your internal hard drive, and any program that writes files into it will actually be writing those files to your internal hard drive.

The next time you plug in the hard drive, OS X will want to mount the drive at that same /Volumes/External location, only now there is a folder there, so it can no longer use that precise location. So, what it does instead is to mount the drive at /Volumes/External-1 (or sometimes "/Volumes/External 1", depending on your version of OS X), so the drive's contents show up there instead. This is not immediately obvious though, since the name of the drive appears the same in the Finder. In fact, if the same crash/outage/unplugging happens multiple times, you can end up with multiple folders, e.g. "External", "External-1", "External-2", etc.

iPhoto stores the location of its current library as a simple path, so if you open up iPhoto with a library on your external drive set as the current library it will go looking in /Volumes/External instead of /Volumes/External-1. This results in an empty library being created on your internal hard drive, and thus the "disappearing library" phenomenon.

Luckliy, the solution to this problem isn't terribly hard. There are actually two different ways you can go about fixing it, one simpler method, and one more thorough method.

The simple method is to select the library in iPhoto Library Manager and use the "Remove Library" button to remove that library from iPLM's library list (don't worry, this won't delete any files, it only removes the library's entry from iPLM's list). Then, click the "Add Library" button, and go select the library on the external drive to add it back to iPLM, but this time with the correct path (e.g. starting with /Volumes/External-1/). This should allow you to get your library back up and running quickly.

However, doing this doesn't alter the fact that there's this "doppleganger" folder hanging around at /Volumes/External, which may end up affecting more programs than just iPhoto, so you may want to take these further steps to clean everything up. First, click on the Finder and select "Go To Folder..." from the "Go" menu. When it asks you for a path, type in "/Volumes" and hit return. This should reveal the normally invisible Volumes folder to you. Inside, you will probably see an alias for each drive that's attached to the machine, plus one or more plain folder icons for your "doppleganger" folders.

To clean this up, you should first eject your external hard drive, quitting any applications that are using files on that hard drive beforehand. Once it's gone, you can then take any stray folders hanging around in /Volumes and move them either to the trash or your desktop. It's possible that in the time the folder's been around, one or more programs has managed to write some files into the folder, so you should double check inside first before trashing it to make sure there aren't any files in there that you want to keep around.

Once you've gotten rid of the folder(s), go ahead and plug your external hard drive back in, and it should now show up at its normal location at /Volumes/External. You should double check your library paths in iPhoto Library Manager to make sure they are pointing to the correct location, and doing a remove+add to fix any libraries that aren't pointing at the right place. After that, you should be able to use your hard drive like normal.

16.2. The AlbumData.xml File

One of the files that iPhoto keeps inside its library folder is a file named "AlbumData.xml". This file is written out by iPhoto so that other applications, such as iMovie and iTunes, can read it and tell what photos and albums are in your photo library. iPhoto Library Manager also reads this file in order to display what albums are in your photo library.

The AlbumData.xml file is only written out by iPhoto, it is never read back in, so you cannot modify it as a way of changing information in your library. In fact, the next time iPhoto writes out the file, it will wipe out any changes that have been made.

There are some instances where iPhoto will write out malformed data to the AlbumData.xml file, causing other applications to be unable to read the file correctly. This will result in iPhoto Library Manager displaying an error message reading ""The album data file for this library is malformed" (with some additional details) in the list where the library's albums are usually displayed. Other applications such as iMovie and iWeb, in their interface for accessing iPhoto's files, will typically display a message such as "Launch iPhoto 2 or later to populate this list."

The most common cause of a malformed AlbumData.xml is the presence of an ampersand (&) character somewhere in the path of the iPhoto library folder. This can include the name of any folder that contains the library or the name of the disk that the library is on. If this is the case, first quit iPhoto, then go rename the folder or disk to remove the ampersand character. When you switch back to iPhoto Library Manager, it will detect the renaming and the path in the Location field on the right will update. You will then have to open up the library in iPhoto, change something in the library (such as adding a new album), and close it again to get iPhoto to write out the file again with the new, non-problematic path.

16.3. Dealing with a corrupt iPhoto library

There are sometimes when your iPhoto can, for one reason or another, become corrupt and unable to use. Various symptoms can include your photos not showing up properly (e.g. showing up as gray or black squares), the library becoming unusably slow, or iPhoto crashing as soon as you try to open your library. There are several steps you can perform to try to get your library back into working order.

iPhoto's built-in rebuild function

16.4. Dealing with misrotated photos

16.5. iPhoto and Spotlight

16.6. Error messages while copying or merging

If you receive an error message from iPhoto Library Manager when trying to copy albums or merge libraries:

1. Make sure you are running the most recent version of iPhoto Library Manager. This is especially important if you have recently updated iPhoto, as this can sometimes require a compatibility update for iPhoto Library Manager. You can select the "Check For Updates..." menu item from the "iPhoto Library Manager" menu to see if there is an update available to download.
2. If you have installed a newer version of iPhoto over an older version (especially over version 2.0), try deleting iPhoto and reinstalling it from your iLife installer disc. (see more info about this here.)

16.7. The album/event list in iPhoto Library Manager does not update after making changes in iPhoto

iPhoto Library Manager normally keeps the album list it display in the main window up to date whenever you make changes to the library using iPhoto, such as adding new photos or albums. However, there are a couple situations in which the album list will not update, no matter how many changes you make to the iPhoto library. This affects other applications that display the iPhoto library contents as well, such as iMovie, Mail, Pages, and others.

16.8. iPhoto gives an error message when trying to open a library

If you have an library that, when you attempt to open it in iPhoto, you get an error message saying "The iPhoto Library is locked, on a locked disk, or you do not have permission to make changes to it." (or something similar), there are a few basic reasons for the vast majority of such errors.

Two copies of iPhoto are trying to access the same library. 

If the library you are trying to open is being accessed over a network, such as through file sharing from another machine, or a network disk such as a Time Capsule, Airport Extreme, or other NAS drive, make sure that no other machine on your network already has that library open in iPhoto. iPhoto only allows a library to be open in one copy of iPhoto at a time, so if you already have the library open in iPhoto on one machine, you will need to quit iPhoto on that machine before you can open that same library on a different machine.

You do not have sufficient permissions to open the library. 

iPhoto requires that you be able to both read and write to a library in order to be able to open it. This is the case even if you don't plan on making any changes to the library - you still need to have write permission to open it, read-only permission is not enough. Here are a few troubleshooting tips to make sure you have write permission to your iPhoto library:

17. Support

18.0. Release Notes

Version 3.7.2 (released 12/06/2011)

• Newly created iPhoto 7 libraries now show the correct type in the Finder
• Because iPhoto 9 likes to gobble memory like a hungry wumpus, we now relaunch iPhoto periodically during long merge/rebuild operations
• Worked around a problem where an error occurred when trying to back up the faces database for some iPhoto 9.2 libraries
• Worked around an error that could occur when copying faces to libraries on some non Mac formatted drives
• Fixed a bug where an error would occur when trying to copy photos with iPhoto 7.1.5 running on Tiger
• Decreased memory usage during long merge/copy operations
• Fixed a crash that could occur at the very end of a merge/copy operation
• Fixed an error that could occur when copying an album with a custom key photo under iPhoto 9
• Fixed a problem where under some circumstances the "Relaunch iPhoto" button would quit iPhoto, but then not open it again

Version 3.7.1 (released 10/21/2011)

• Fixed a problem where you couldn't drag the "Flagged" album from an iPhoto 9 library to copy it
• The "Remove Library" toolbar button now acts the same as the equivalent menu item, changing to "Delete Library" when the option key is held down

Version 3.7 (released 10/14/2011)

• We now relaunch iPhoto 9 periodically during long photo transfers, to prevent it from running out of memory
• Updated for compatibility with iPhoto 9.2 and iCloud
• Fixed a problem where the "Extract Photos" command would not work properly with some iPhoto 9 libraries
• Fixed a bug that could cause a -10000 error when recreating certain hierarchies of folders/albums in iPhoto
• Newly created libraries are now made into packages without needing to open them once in iPhoto first
• Holding down the option key now turns the "Remove Library" menu item into "Delete Library", which moves the library to the trash in addition to removing it from the library list

Version 3.6.8 (released 07/12/2011)

• Updated for compatibility with iPhoto 9.1.5
• Minor updates for compatibility with OS X Lion

Version 3.6.7 (released 06/20/2011)

• Fixed a bug where, when copying events with iPhoto 9.1.3, only one photo per event would be imported

Version 3.6.6 (released 05/05/2011)

• Worked around a bug in iPhoto 9.1.2 that would cause multiple entries to be displayed for some events in the event list

Version 3.6.5 (released 04/28/2011)

• Updated for compatibility with iPhoto 9.1.2

Version 3.6.4 (released 04/14/2011)

• When directly importing a folder of photos into an iPhoto 8 library, the resulting event is now correctly assigned the name of the folder
• When copying events with iPhoto 7-9, photos in the trash are no longer copied
• Fixed a bug where photos cached from web galleries would be included when performing a merge
• If an error occurs while adding photos to an album, we now log the error and continue rather than halting the copying process
• Fixed an error that could happen when copying photos on a G3 machine running Tiger
• When trying to copy a photo with 0 bytes of data, we now log and error and skip the photo rather than telling iPhoto to import it

Version 3.6.3 (released 12/22/2010)

• Fixed a problem where photos would not be imported when copying albums/events with iPhoto 9.1.1
• Fixed an issue where, under certain circumstances, some faces would not be transferred correctly when merging iPhoto 9 libraries

Version 3.6.2 (released 12/03/2010)

• Fixed an error message that could occur when dragging photos directly from the iPhoto window to a library in the iPLM window
• Fixed a case where in certain circumstances, iPhoto would display an exclamation mark when trying to view a photo that had been copied from another library
• Key photos for events copied in iPhoto 9 are now preserved in all cases
• Fixed a crasher that could occur when multiple iPod Folders were auto-updating themselves simultaneously
• Fixed an issue where, when copying photos to/from certain iPhoto libraries, the process would halt with an error message about a "malformed disk image", despite there being no actual problem with the library data
• Fixed a problem when copying photos from certain libraries on 10.4 that would lead to a "*** +[NSNumber numberWithInteger:]: selector not recognized" error message

Version 3.6.1 (released 11/29/2010)

• Fixed an issue that would cause iPLM to be unable to launch iPhoto on PPC systems running Tiger
• Fixed an issue that could result in an error message being displayed while trying to copy certain photos with iPhoto 9
• Fixed a crash that could occur during the face copying stage while transferring photos

Version 3.6 (released 11/23/2010)

• Faces and places data are copied when copying photos between an iPhoto 8 library and an iPhoto 9 library
• Albums' key photos are maintained when copying albums between libraries in iPhoto 9
• The minimum system requirement has changed from OS X 10.3.9 to OS X 10.4.11
• Copying photos between libraries with iPhoto 9 is now fully supported, with all photo metadata (title, date, keywords, description, rating, faces, and places) copied along with the photos.
• Fixed an issue where trying to view the event list of a library with a large number of events would be very slow
• Clicking on the iPhoto version in the lower right corner now shows the path to the copy of iPhoto that iPLM is using
• When copying from an iPhoto library that can't be opened using the installed version of iPhoto, we now automatically enable the "Use XML Info Only" option rather than requiring the user to enable it manually
• Fixed a bug where too large a size would be reported for iPhoto 9 libraries upgraded from earlier versions
• Improved album hierarchy creation when dealing with multiple albums that have the same name
• We no longer create extra albums when merging smart albums with the "Combine contents of albums with same name" option enabled
• The merge setup sheet now remembers its size
• Fixed a bug where faces could end up in the wrong place when merging differently rotated copies of duplicate photos
• Fixed a merging bug where, if every photo in a given event was a duplicate, the duplicates already in the library would not be added to albums
• Added a "Don't import duplicates" checkbox to the merge setup sheet as a convenience over having to change the option in the main preferences window

Version 3.5.8 (released 10/23/2010)

• Note that this release does not yet provide support for copying photos with iPhoto 9. It contains a couple quick fixes that will be helpful for those using iPhoto 9.0, but full support for iPhoto 9.0 will be included in an upcoming update.
• It is no longer necessary to upgrade newly created libraries when opening them for the first time with iPhoto 9.0
• When trying to copy photos using iPhoto 9.0, we now display a message saying this is not yet supported, rather than failing with an error message
• Fixed an issue where reopening an iPhoto library after upgrading it to 9.0 would result in no photos being displayed in iPhoto

• Version 3.5.7 (released 01/22/2010)

• Improved version checking when copying photos between libraries
• Fixed a problem where edit settings on RAW photos would not be copied properly for some users after installing the Digital Camera Raw Compatibility Update 2.7 in Software Update

Version 3.5.6 (released 12/22/2009)

• Clicking the support e-mail link in the built-in help now works correctly on Snow Leopard
• The "Last 12 Months" and "Last Import" albums are no longer recreated as regular albums when merging
• Fixed a bug where, when copying hidden RAW photos, the JPG version would be copied instead
• Missing libraries can no longer be selected when setting up a merge
• Made the "Specific Date" field in the importing prefs a little less picky about accepting input
• Fixed a problem during face thumbnail regeneration that could stop the operation with an error
• Added an item to the Help menu to view the printable version of the documentation
• Fixed the help button in the iPod folders intro sheet

Version 3.5.5 (released 09/20/2009)

• Fixed a bug where iPhoto's auto-split would not be disabled during a merge, causing imported events to be split up when they shouldn't be
• Fixed a problem where remote volumes would not be selectable when using the "Add Library" button

Version 3.5.4 (released 09/16/2009)

• Got rid of some harmless but annoying warning messages printed to the console in Snow Leopard
• Fixed a bug where iPhoto Library Manager would crash for some users when copying photos on Snow Leopard
• Fixed a problem where iPhoto Library Manager would not launch on a G3 Mac

Version 3.5.3 (released 08/27/2009)

• Fixed a bug where Places set using Applescript would not be copied correctly
• Fixed a bug where some Places data would not be copied if the user had the "Look up Places" pref set to "Never" in iPhoto
• Fixed a crasher that could occur when copying photos with certain characters in their filenames

Version 3.5.2 (released 06/05/2009)

• Fixed a bug that could cause iPhoto to hang when copying an album contained within a folder of the same name
• Fixed a bug where original photos would not be copied from a library that was copied from a burned CD/DVD but had not yet been opened in iPhoto
• Newly created libraries no longer require being upgraded when first opened with iPhoto 8.0.3

Version 3.5.1 (released 05/14/2009)

• Fixed a bug where places created using raw coordinates or a pin drop would not be copied
• Fixed a problem that could cause iPLM to crash on 10.3.9 systems with Quicktime 7.2 or later installed
• When copying hidden photos with iPhoto '09, the photos are now properly marked as hidden in the destination library

Version 3.5 (released 05/05/2009)

• iPhoto Library Manager now creates its own log files and logs progress and error information as it copies photos (accessible from the Window menu)
• When using the "Import Photos" menu command, if the user selects an iPhoto library to import, we now perform a merge instead of treating the library like a plain folder
• Fixed a crash that could occur when copying photos on a PPC machine
• Fixed a bug where copying photos that were imported as aliases could result in an unneeded "modified" copy of the photo being created in the destination library
• A printable version of the help is now available at http://www.fatcatsoftware.com/iplm/Help/print/index.html
• Removed the preference setting for double clicking a library - double click now always opens the library in iPhoto, and a single click edits the library's name
• When the user clicks the Cancel button, we now present a dialog to verify that they do in fact want to cancel the operation
• Removed the preference for relaunching iPhoto during a merge. This pref was for working around a bug in iPhoto 6, so we now just relaunch automatically when merging with iPhoto 6.
• Photos that were published to a MobileMe gallery are now always included in the main library during a merge, and not just in the gallery itself
• Fixed a problem where movies and original versions of photos would not be copied for some users
• Tagged faces are now transferred along with photos that are copied/merged between libraries in iPhoto '09
• Places data is now copied along with photos when performing a copy or a merge in iPhoto '09
• Added a "selection" property to the Applescript dictionary so scripters can access the currently selected library

Version 3.4.5 (released 02/16/2009)

• Fixed a bug that could result in iPhoto 6 or 7 crashing during the "Restoring photo attributes" phase of photo copying
• Fixed a bug where copying individual events using iPhoto '09 would not import any photos

Version 3.4.4 (released 02/05/2009)

• Copying albums and merging now works with iPhoto '09. Note: Faces and Places data is NOT yet supported, nor are Facebook and Flickr albums - support for those will come in a future update
• A library's path now updates properly upon renaming when the library is on a non Mac formatted disk
• We now suppress iPhoto asking about digital camera setup during photo copying, which could lead to errors occurring
• Fixed a bug where iPLM could hang after removing two libraries consecutively
• Libraries created with the "New Library" command now work correctly when opened for the first time with iPhoto '09
• Fixed a bug where the "Rebuild Library" command would hang on the "Getting photo information" step
• Fixed a bug that could cause a direct import to fail if iPhoto was already open before starting the import
• We now display a message when merging libraries with books, calendars, cards, or slideshows notifying the user that those items won't be merged.

Version 3.4.3 (released 10/09/2008)

• Duplicate photos are now correctly added to copied albums in iPhoto 4.0.3
• Fixed a problem that could cause copying/merging to fail with an error reading "Tried to create album in inactive library"
• An extra "Events" album is no longer created when merging with iPhoto 7
• "Extract Photos" command now copies video files along with photo files.
• Fixed a problem where trying to copy the "Last Import" album would result in an error

Version 3.4.2 (released 05/16/2008)

• Fixed a problem where some registration codes wouldn't work on Tiger
• Merging no longer copies photos that are in the trash
• Fixed a problem where iPhoto wouldn't launch if certain characters were in the path to iPLM
• Photocasts are now resubscribed to when merging instead of just copying their photos
• Fixed some display and selection bugs in the iPod Folders window

Version 3.4.1 (released 04/09/2008)

• Worked around an iPhoto quirk that could cause an Applescript error when photo sharing is turned on
• When copying photos, if iPhoto has no path for a photo or a photo is missing from the library, we now log that info to the console
• Fixed a bug where a copy would fail if the destination library did not yet have an iPhoto prefs file in it
• We no longer highlight rolls/events when dragging files onto them, since it implied you could import photos directly into an existing roll/event
• Fixed a bug where photos in the trash would still be copied when copying rolls/events
• Expanding a folder will no longer "push" albums down into the "Web Galleries" section of the album list
• Fixed an incompatibility with iPhoto2Gmail

Version 3.4 (released 10/30/2007)

• Now fully compatible with OS X 10.5 Leopard
• Fixed a bug where some events' key photos would not be restored properly during a merge
• Added Applescript accessors for several recently added preference settings
• Fixed a bug that could cause iPhoto to hang when recreating folders during a merge in iPhoto 7

Version 3.3.3 (released 10/01/2007)

• Fixed a problem that could cause an error to come up when merging with iPhoto 6
• Fixed an issue where iPhoto could write out its preferences during a merge/copy and trigger an error in iPLM

Version 3.3.2 (released 09/27/2007)

• Updated for compatibility with iPhoto 7.1

Version 3.3.1 (released 09/26/2007)

• Fixed an issue where photo dates would not be copied correctly during a merge in some cases
• Events can now be copied by dragging them directly from the iPhoto window into iPhoto Library Manager
• The key photo for copied events is now set correctly in the destination library in all cases
• Fixed a problem where thumbnails for copied photos would reflect the original photo instead of the modified version
• Added a new option to copy hidden photos in iPhoto 7
• Added a new option to copy both the original and modified versions of RAW photos in iPhoto 7

Version 3.3 (released 08/20/2007)

• Now fully compatible with iPhoto 7
• Album hierarchies are now preserved when copying (iPhoto 7 only)
• Events can now be sorted by date in the main window (iPhoto 7 only)
• Copying photocasts and web galleries between libraries now subscribes to the feed in the destination library
• Fixed a problem where forced Spotlight indexing would sometimes not successfully reindex the library
• The zoom button in the main window now sizes the window to fit the library and album lists

Version 3.2.6 (released 07/20/2007)

• The album/roll list can now be sorted by name
• Rolls with no photos are no longer displayed in the roll list
• Fixed a problem where the "Set photo date" option of the importing preferences would not work correctly.
• Dragging photos into the empty area below the album list now imports the photos and creates a new album containing them.
• The New Library command now defaults to ~/Pictures instead of ~/Documents
• Fixed a problem where a direct import would fail when the iPLM plugin was not yet installed.

Version 3.2.5 (released 03/22/2007)

• Added a new option to add existing copies of duplicates to albums when copying between libraries
• We now display how many rolls have been processed and how many are left while copying or merging
• Changed software update to use Sparkle framework
• Made some minor speed improvements in copying/merging
• The separate album containing the entire library's photos is no longer created when doing a library rebuild

Version 3.2.4 (released 12/13/2006)

• Added option to skip copying original versions of photos when copying or merging
• Added a new command to force a library to be reindexed by Spotlight
• Album comments are now retrieved from XML info when available during copying or merging
• Improved metadata restoration when copying photos that have the same filename
• When copying rolls via drag and drop, we now ignore the roll creation preference and copy according to the "Preserve original rolls" setting
• Added an option to iPod folders to set a copied file's creation date to its iPhoto date
• Turning off the "Recreate albums" album copying preference now works correctly in all cases
• Movies are now copied correctly in iPhoto 4/5 when dragging them directly from the iPhoto window

Version 3.2.3 (released 09/21/2006)

• Fixed a problem that could prevent copying/merging using iPhoto 5
• Added iPhoto Library Manager Automator actions
• Improved progress display during library duplication
• Fixed a problem where originals would not be copied correctly when working with a recently moved/renamed library

Version 3.2.2 (released 08/23/2006)

• Albums copied to another library are now recreated in the same order as the source library
• Fixed a bug that could cause importing photos directly to a library to fail
• Improved plugin install error checking
• Fixed a bug where roll names would sometimes not be copied properly

Version 3.2.1 (released 05/09/2006)

• Dragging photos/rolls directly from iPhoto to iPhoto Library Manager now imports and preserves roll metadata
• When copying via XML info, roll dates are no longer reset to the current date
• Photo order is now maintained during an album copy
• Fixed a copy/merge crasher that could occur on dual processor machines

Version 3.2 (released 03/18/2006)

• iPhoto Library Manager is now a Universal Binary and runs on Intel Macs. The minumum system requirement is now 10.3.9 instead of 10.3.0.
• Added new iPod Folder feature to support syncing photos from multiple libraries with a photo capable iPod.
• Made several improvements to the merge function:
• Albums are now created at the beginning of the merge process and photos are added to them as the merge progresses, rather than only being created and populated at the very end of the merge.
• A new option allows merged photos to be added to existing albums rather than always creating new albums.
• You can now relaunch iPhoto periodically during the merge, increasing stability and lowering memory footprint.
• If an error occurs or iPhoto crashes during a merge, iPhoto Library Manager will give you the option of continuing the merge.
• Added an option to retrieve library information from the AlbumData.xml file when copying albums or merging (useful for corrupt or very slow iPhoto libraries).
• We now prompt the user when installing/updating our iPhoto plugin.
• Added a Rebuild Library command that can rebuild some corrupted libraries based on the information in its AlbumData.xml file.
• You can now view and copy the rolls as well as the albums of a library (iPhoto 6 only).
• Added Applescript support for accessing a library's rolls and an album's type.
• You can now disable showing the current library's name in the iPhoto window title.

Version 3.1.2 (released 02/17/2006)

• Updated for compatibility with iPhoto 6.0.1
• Fixed a bug where imported photo dates would be set incorrectly in iPhoto 6
• Movie files are now copied properly under iPhoto 6
• Fixed a problem where original photos would not be copied properly in some libraries

Version 3.1.1 (released 01/26/2006)

• Updated for compatibility with iPhoto 6
• Fixed a bug where the "open" Applescript command wouldn't work correctly

Version 3.1 (released 10/13/2005)

• You can now import photos directly into a library by dragging them into iPLM. (registered users only)
• When importing photos, we also optionally:
• Filter out files smaller than a certain size (good for filtering out thumbnails)
• Import the Finder/Spotlight comment of a file into iPhoto
• Set the date of imported photos to their creation date, mod date, the current date, or a user specified date
• Import Spotlight metadata for rating, title, and keywords
• Improved Applescript support, including:
• The "open" command can now be used with a library object to open the library in iPhoto
• You can now access the list of albums each library contains
• Added new "copy", "merge", and "import" commands
• Added new properties that allows setting of photo copying/importing preferences
• Added a new option to automatically skip over duplicate photos when copying albums or merging libraries
• Items in the dock menu are now enabled all the time, not just when iPLM is in the front
• The library list is now "spring loaded" when dragging items into it
• Added workarounds for a conflict with Cocoa Gestures that would disable all menu items

Version 3.0.2 (released 06/27/2005)

• Added a "Duplicate Library" command
• We now display more information when a library's albums can't be displayed
• When creating new keywords in a library, the keywords are now created in the same order they appeared in the source library
• You can now tell iPhoto Library Manager to check for updates on the internet
• Added an optional warning to confirm removing a library from the library list
• Added an option to keep a library's name in sync with the name of its folder on disk

Version 3.0.1 (released 05/03/2005)

• Fixed a problem where some attributes wouldn't copy correctly under Tiger
• Library size calculation now matches the Finder
• Fixed a couple problems that could prevent merging with iPhoto 4
• Improved speed of opening shortcut files
• Fixed a problem that could cause size calculation to get stuck in a loop

Version 3.0 (released 04/05/2005)

• The main window now displays the list of albums in each library
• You can now view the version and modification date of a library, and calculate its size
• Added an option to double click a library to open it
• Added an option for whether to automatically mount the disk a library resides on when opening it
• You can now extract the photos from a damaged library and copy them into a separate folder
• Added the ability to copy albums between libraries, including preservation of names, dates, keywords, ratings, etc. (limit 20 photos for unregistered users)
• You can now merge two or more libraries together, also preserving their metadata (registered users only)
• New shortcut files can be used to open a particular library directly from the Finder (registered users only)
• Fixed a problem where sometimes the iPhoto preferences would not be updated properly when switching libraries
• We now perform checks on a library's version to ensure compatibility with the installed version of iPhoto
• The current library's name is now displayed in the main iPhoto window's title
• Added an option to bring iPhoto to the front when launching it
• Added several alerts warning the user before opening a photo library that doesn't exist or has an incorrect version

Version 2.0 (released 04/15/2003)

• Changed the interface around a bit; we now use the standard Cocoa toolbar, as well as using checkboxes to switch libraries
• We now allow the user to select a library that does not have write permissions (e.g. on a CD)
• You can drag to reorder the items in the library list, as well as being able to drag a folder into the list to add it
• iPLM now has the option to automatically set permissions on the active library when launching and/or quitting iPhoto
• We now display an optional warning when some permissions can't be set.
• You can now switch libraries from the dock menu
• Added an option to keep iPLM running after closing the main window
• Added an option to automatically relaunch iPhoto when switching libraries
• We now track a library folder when the user moves it to another location
• Libraries that do not exist on the disk are now displayed in red
• Added compatibility with iMovie 3 and iDVD 3, so that they can now access pictures from libraries in different locations
• Fixed a bug where a new untitled library would be added to the list on each launch
• The main window is now resizable
• Made full fledged HTML help
• Added some example Applescripts

Version 1.0.1

• Fixed a minor Applescript bug

Version 1.0 (released 02/07/2002)

• Initial release