# HELP: Backup iPhoto to Windows!!!



## Gapagos (Nov 29, 2009)

Hello, I have a serious problem and I'm seeking advice.
I DID Google for my issues, but the answers I found weren't anywhere convenient, so maybe you can help me with better advice.

I have a MacBook with iPhoto, but it now is my secondary computer, my main PC is a Windows desktop.

All my photos are stored on iPhoto in my Macbook because I love iPhoto. However, *I need to back up my pictures to my Windows PC*, especially because I won't have a mac forever. (but I'll always have a PC, no offense guys, just sayin...)

But I'm not sure how to do that in any efficient way...

WHAT I WANT TO DO:
Export all iPhoto picutres (modified versions) into a new folder structures, and copy the whole thing to Windows.
Yes, I'll lose the originals versions that iPhoto keeps for me, but that's ok. I just want to save all my pictures in their present state.

WHAT I TRIED TO DO:
Using iPhoto "export" menu with all events selected.
*Why this is not good enough:* When I do that, iPhoto exports all files from all events in the same folder, instead of creating a folder for each event.
*Why I can't backup each event individually:* I have on average 40 events per year since 2003, so easily more than 200 events. Creating a new folder and re-exporting a different event over 200 times is WAY too much time consuming. :yikes:

*WHAT I COULD DO:
I could simply go in the iPhoto library and copy the "Originals" folder.
Why this is not good enough: I would lose the changes made to pictures, found in the "Modified" folder. 

WHAT I COULD DO:
I could simply go in the iPhoto library and copy the "Modified" folder.
Why this is not good enough: I would lose 50% of my pictures which haven't been modified. 

WHAT I COULD DO:
Buy a Mac Pro.
Why this is not good enough: I can totally NOT afford it. XX) And dual-booting to play my PC games on Windows would be too much hassle.

Can anyone provide me suggestions on what to do?? Thanks a lot! *


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## chas_m (Dec 2, 2007)

This looks like it will do exactly what you want. I have not personally tried it, but it's free.

I'm not understanding why you can't just buy an external hard drive and archive your photos to it -- assuming you don't reformat the drive, it should be formatted for Windows already, so boom there ya go, but whatever.

PS. Crossover Games, dude.


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## l84toff (Jul 27, 2008)

chas_m said:


> Crossover Games, dude.


This looks interesting. Are you running this? And how is the frame rate look? I have quite a few games from my pc days so this would be cool.


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## voyager_rob (Oct 11, 2009)

Is there something like this (iPhoto to Disk) for iTunes?
It would be nice to back that up to standard files as well.
I tried the export but it wants to got to DVD and not the hard drive.
The internal folder structure is a bit confusing. It would be nice to generate a folder per album.

... Rob


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## Gapagos (Nov 29, 2009)

voyager_rob said:


> Is there something like this (iPhoto to Disk) for iTunes?
> It would be nice to back that up to standard files as well.
> I tried the export but it wants to got to DVD and not the hard drive.
> The internal folder structure is a bit confusing. It would be nice to generate a folder per album.
> ...


That's interesting, I actually find iTunes folder structure to be much more intuitive than iPhoto and that it works great with Windows. But my mp3s are also very well tagged, so it helps.


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## chas_m (Dec 2, 2007)

l84toff said:


> This looks interesting. Are you running this? And how is the frame rate look? I have quite a few games from my pc days so this would be cool.


I don't spend a lot of time gaming (well not what PC types would call gaming, anyway) so no I don't have a lot of experience with it, but it's free to try out so give it a whirl. In theory it will give you whatever framerate the hardware allows, since it doesn't have the overhead of having to run Windows on top of OS X.


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## chas_m (Dec 2, 2007)

voyager_rob said:


> Is there something like this (iPhoto to Disk) for iTunes?


No, because the files in the iTunes Library are standard MP3 or AAC files, sorted in a simple, clear file structure (Artist->Album->Song) that is identical to the Windows version of iTunes (where you'll presumably be moving it) so all you have to do is copy the ENTIRE iTunes folder to the "My Music" folder in Windows.



> The internal folder structure is a bit confusing. It would be nice to generate a folder per album.


??? That is exactly what it does do. See above.


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## Gapagos (Nov 29, 2009)

chas_m said:


> This looks like it will do exactly what you want. I have not personally tried it, but it's free.
> 
> I'm not understanding why you can't just buy an external hard drive and archive your photos to it -- assuming you don't reformat the drive, it should be formatted for Windows already, so boom there ya go, but whatever.
> 
> PS. Crossover Games, dude.



THANK YOU!!!

This is EXACTLY what I was looking for, is free and very simple to use. 
It's even more AWESOME than I expected as it allows me to separate automatically video files from picture files and still keep a same but separate folder structure. That program is fantastic, I'm saving its installation file for further use. Thanks again!!!


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## voyager_rob (Oct 11, 2009)

I had alot of albums split into a normal folder and an extra one under compilations.
After running the 'organize library' routine, iTunes fixed itself up.
This must be left over from older versions. I have always set itunes to manage the folder structure and import copies.

So, it all looks fine now.
... Rob


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## Gapagos (Nov 29, 2009)

chas_m said:


> This looks like it will do exactly what you want. I have not personally tried it, but it's free.
> 
> I'm not understanding why you can't just buy an external hard drive and archive your photos to it -- assuming you don't reformat the drive, it should be formatted for Windows already, so boom there ya go, but whatever.
> 
> PS. Crossover Games, dude.


*THANK YOU!!!*

This program did *EXACTLY* what I wanted.
And it was extremely simple to use, and on top of that I could seperate my videos from my pictures in a same but separate folder structure. This is AWESOME!!!

I saved the installer file for future use. More people should know about this thing!!!


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## Bjornbro (Feb 19, 2000)

chas_m said:


> ...so all you have to do is copy the ENTIRE iTunes folder to the "My Music" folder in Windows.


...and from within (Windows) iTunes, point to the new folder.


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## Orion (Apr 16, 2004)

If you want to keep everything for future use on a non-OSX machine, you can select the iPhoto library file (last two versions are single files; earlier versions are folders) and choose "Show Package Contents". You will see a whole folder structure with originals, modifications, and so forth. You could select everything and create a zip archive.

This would require a bit of work later to figure out exactly which picture is which (since the iPhoto database would be unreadable), but you would have everything.

The method of going through each event and exporting would be time-consuming, but it seems that the issue becomes one of spending the time now or spending it later.


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## chas_m (Dec 2, 2007)

Orion said:


> The method of going through each event and exporting would be time-consuming, but it seems that the issue becomes one of spending the time now or spending it later.


The program I linked to in post #2 (iPhoto to Disk) is a lot easier than trying to do that manually.


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