User profile for user: Mick_M
Mick_M Author
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How can I transfer Photos 9 library from Sonoma to an older machine running Catalina?

I've just finally finished scanning all of our family photo albums and merging them with all the family phone pictures and tagging and sorting everything. That monster project was all done on my M1 MacBook Pro running Photos 9 on Sonoma. I'd like to put all that on my wife's computer now, but it's a much older MacBook Pro that can go no further than Catalina and Photos 5. I tried copying my "Photos Library.photoslibrary" package to her machine, but it Photos on her machine won't accept it because the library was built using a newer version of Photos. Is there any way I can export my entire library and it's organizational structure (folders and albums) to her Catalina machine so it will accept it? I get that Sonoma likely has a bunch of features that Catalina doesn't, but I was looking for some kind of lowest common denominator export/import for just the basics (without having to buy a new laptop!).


[Re-Titled by Moderator]


MacBook Pro (M1, 2020)

Posted on Mar 20, 2025 1:09 PM

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User profile for user: Yer_Man
Yer_Man
User level: Level 10
164,706 points

Posted on Mar 21, 2025 1:27 AM

What might work, but I don't guarantee it, is to sync the library on the new machine with iCloud Photo Library, and then sync the iCloud Photo Library that with the older machine.


As ever, back up first.

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User profile for user: Yer_Man
Yer_Man
User level: Level 10
164,706 points

Mar 21, 2025 1:27 AM in response to Mick_M

What might work, but I don't guarantee it, is to sync the library on the new machine with iCloud Photo Library, and then sync the iCloud Photo Library that with the older machine.


As ever, back up first.

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User profile for user: Richard.Taylor
Richard.Taylor
User level: Level 6
12,642 points

Mar 21, 2025 6:37 AM in response to Mick_M

It sounds like a great project-- I've been doing the same, but it seems like "finished" just mean I'll find more stuff in a closet somewhere.


As Yer_Man says, the the only way to read a newer Library on an older OS is to use iCloud Photos synchronization. A newer Photos Library database has stuff in it that an older database just can't interpret. When you turn on synchronization, all the data from your Library will be copied to iCloud. Then the older machine, when connected to iCloud Photos, will copy everything it needs from iCloud. If you don't otherwise need iCloud's synchronization services, you can afterward disconnect and cancel.


Let us know if you need more info…

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User profile for user: Mick_M
Mick_M Author
User level: Level 1
54 points

Mar 21, 2025 8:36 AM in response to Richard.Taylor

I think I'm just going to export all of my albums individually to an external drive and import them one by one into my wife's machine. I just tried a few and it's working. I've made sure I'm maintaining all titles, keywords, location data etc. Seems to be working out. While there are several albums that contain the same photos, I was pretty systematic in the way I did that so it's straightforward to "repair" that. It's a little bit of a hassle, but it'll get me there. Once both machines are the same I can manually keep up with making sure they're in sync. We don't take too many photos these days.

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User profile for user: Richard.Taylor
Richard.Taylor
User level: Level 6
12,642 points

Mar 21, 2025 8:44 AM in response to Mick_M

If you edited and annotated pictures then which ones are you exporting-- the originals or the edited versions? If you have only the edited versions, then you can't go back to change things later-- something I've found that I do when I've learned new things or have new capabilities (more the former than the latter!) But only the edited versions have your new metadata, not the originals. It sounds like your'e going to end up with a "Master" Library and a "Pretty Good copy" Library. Of course that's fine if it's what you want (and you remember which is which!)

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User profile for user: léonie
léonie
User level: Level 10
198,659 points

Mar 21, 2025 10:12 AM in response to Mick_M

With iCloud Photos you could not only downgrade the library to a format compatible with Catalina, you could share the library with her and automatically she the new photos, if you enable the shared iCloud Photos Library.

Alternately, how about making your wife a present of a new Mac 😁 with a more recent system version, if you not want to use iCloud Photos, ebven temporarily?



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User profile for user: Mick_M
Mick_M Author
User level: Level 1
54 points

Mar 22, 2025 6:22 AM in response to léonie

Thanks for your help everybody. The library has been transferred to my wife's old Mac the hard way - by exporting each album individually (including all the metadata etc.). I do understand why, but the process did add about 10GB to the size of her library. I also thought about getting my wife a new Mac, but it's just used for email and web browsing and for that purpose even an older machine would suffice. What would have been awesome would have been if Apple supported exporting a hierarchy of albums instead of one at a time. Maybe I'll provide feedback on that (not that they've ever implemented even one of my suggestions over the many decades).

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How can I transfer Photos 9 library from Sonoma to an older machine running Catalina?

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