Introduction

Normally, when using iPhoto, you have a single iPhoto library that holds all of your photos. As your library grows over time, it can become hard to manage, and iPhoto can get slower due to the large number of photos in the library. iPhoto Library Manager lets you instead divide your photo collection among multiple iPhoto libraries. This allows for more fine grained organization, as well as improving the performance of iPhoto when browsing and editing. You can also easily browse and search your photos, copy photos between libraries, and find duplicate photos in your libraries.

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

Library list:
This is a list of the iPhoto libraries that iPhoto Library Manager knows about. You can create new libraries with the “Create Library” button, and you can add existing libraries to the list via the “Add Library” button, or by dragging and dropping a library from the Finder into the library list. You can rename the items in the list by selecting the library, then clicking the name and typing in a new name. The “Remove Library” button lets you remove a library from your library list (though the library will remain where it is on your hard drive).

Album list:
This displays the list of albums and events in the selected library. You can select an album or event to view the photos it contains in the photo browser on the right. You can also drag albums or events from this list and drop them onto one of your libraries on the left to copy them to that library.

Photo browser:

The photo browser takes up the majority of the window, and allows you to browse through the actual photos stored in whatever library you have selected. There is both a grid view, which lets you browse photos much like in iPhoto, and a list view, which provides an easy way to view your photos' attributes, such as dates, ratings, keywords, etc.

Info pane:
The pane in the lower left corner of the window will show more detailed information about whatever item you currently have selected in the window. This can display information for a photo, an album or event, or a library, depending on what you have selected most recently.