How do I successfully transfer all photos from an old Mac to a new Mac?

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How do I successfully transfer all photos from an old Mac to a new Mac?

Has anyone had actual success doing this (not theory). I selected all the photos and dragged the 20,000 to a large flash drive they'd fit on but after several days of watching them load, when it finished it said 0 had been copied. I can't be the only one who's dealt with this...

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Earlier Mac models

Posted on Mar 26, 2025 1:43 PM

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Answer 1

Mar 26, 2025 2:04 PM in response to HollandU369

Did you just drag and drop? To a flash drive? Is this from the Photos app?

First, there's no telling what you get with Drag & Drop from some place in the Photos app.
Second, flash drives are notoriously slow and undependable for this.
Third, whatever you got transferred would probably have mixed up metadata.

The Photos Library is, probably, in the Pictures Folder and named, probably, "Photos Library.photoslibrary." That's a file that you can drag and drop. You'd be better off using a quality external drive. You need an external drive in any case for backups. You keep backups, right?

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How do I successfully transfer all photos from an old Mac to a new Mac?