HOW TO Move a media library >

1 Choose a drive

Find an external drive that has enough free space on it to house your Music library. Remember to leave room for songs you download or rip in future. Connect it to your Mac. It’s best to keep it permanently connected.

2 Copy your Library

Navigate to your user folder and go to Music > Music. Grab that second Music folder and drag it to the external drive. Wait for it to copy across. Once it’s finished, check it has copied everything. Consider making a backup copy.

3 Point at the new library

Launch Music and go to Music > Preferences. Click on the Files tab. Click Change and navigate to the folder that now houses your music. Click Open. Quit Music. You can now delete the original Music folder and restart Music.

4 Copy Photos library

As with Music, choose an external drive on which to store your Photos library. Connect it and navigate to the Pictures folder in your user folder. You should see your Photos library. Drag it to the external drive and wait for it to copy.

5 Open the new library

Quit Photos if it’s open. Navigate the library on the external drive and double-click it to open Photos. Click Photos > Prefs and choose General. Click ‘Use as System Photo Library’. You can now use it with iCloud Photos.

6 Delete original library

You can now drag the Photos library in your user Pictures folder to the Bin and empty it. Make sure you keep the external drive connected, otherwise if you launch Photos it will assume there is no existing library and create an empty one.