Urgent Mac help needed please..!

[stevewestern]

Can anyone come up with a easy-to-follow way for me to copy photos on a mac to an external hard drive - some friends have asked me to do this for them this afternoon, and as I know nothing about Apple I am struggling..

The hard drive is all formatted and ready to go, and opening iphoto 9 is about as far as I can get.
Is there an easy way to find and then copy and paste them ?

In the downloads folder there are almost 3000 items - is there an easy way to select all the photo's ?

Any help much appreciated, and just think how good I'll be made to look if I can do it..!

 

[ancient_mariner]

You could sort by file type, then scroll down until you find image/.jpeg files, then drag & drop them on the drive.

Have the images been downloaded from the internet? I wondered why they would be in the downloads folder, rather than pictures folder.

 

[Buck]

I don't use iPhoto but you can: -

1) Use Finder and open the folder that contains all of the photos
2) Make sure the window isn't maximised and you can see the external drive icon on the desktop
3) Use CMD+A to select all the photos
4) Click on one and keep the mouse pressed, drag them onto the external hard drive on the desktop

Thsi should do it

 

[Chappers]

If they are already on the computer then a simple copy should do the trick. It's the same as a windows machine. Mac's aren't that complicated. With the external drive connected you should see it on the mac's desktop. Now find the folder with the images in you want to copy.Aelect that folder and press CTRL +C . Now select the external hard drive you want to copy too. Press CTRL+V. You should now get a message saying "Preparing to copy XXX files". You will then get a task bar showing the copy process, telling how far it has gone and a display telling you how many files have been copied.

I prefer the copy option rather than "Move" as you still have the files in place in case anything goes wrong ( Unlikely , but better safe than sorry) . And yes the whole process is similar to Windows

 

[neil_g]

if dragging and dropping make sure the cursor has the green + icon before you drop. bizarrely sometimes it defaults to move, even on external/network drives.

 

[stevewestern]

Many thanks for all the replies, all of which are very helpful !

I seem to have worked things out and am now copying them across - the problem is in part that the owner is even worse than me at computer stuff, and there are a million photo's in all sorts of places - downloaded from emails, on other external hard drives, in folders on the desktop - you get the picture..

Macs may not be complicated, and I am beginning to agree, but as one who has struggled to learn how to use a pc for so many years they seem very alien, but the last hour or so has seen me get past the odd names for programs and not being able to right click !

 

[npinks]

i have never used it myself, but had a similar issue a few months back when reorganising my photo libaray

You could try a program like photosweeper maybe, though this does cost a $10

http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/40634/photosweeper

 

[ancient_mariner]

Right click works fine on a Mac unless it's been turned off, as does command-C and command-V.

 

[sphexx]

Right click works fine but maybe you have a Mac one button mouse. Just plug any usb 2-button mouse in. On a 1-button mouse Ctrl click is the equivalent.

 

[sphexx]

If the owner has been using iPhoto then some of the photos will be in an iPhoto library and can be drag dropped from there or exported via the menus.
(I don't think you need to know this,but the iPhoto library is just a special kind of folder and the original files can be accessed from outside the program -losing any edits- if necessary)

 

[2blue4u]

Right click works fine but maybe you have a Mac one button mouse. Just plug any usb 2-button mouse in. On a 1-button mouse Ctrl click is the equivalent.

or enable the two button function in preferences, then press on the left or right side of the mouse. Use it just as you would any other.

 

[sphexx]

"or enable the two button function in preferences, then press on the left or right side of the mouse. Use it just as you would any other."
You are thinking of the so-called Magic mouse, I think, The true one button mouse does not work that way but I guess they are no longer supplied.

 

[2blue4u]

Sorry. Before my time

 

[stevewestern]

Thanks again for the help and replies - the mouse certainly didn't seem to have a right click function and I didn't see the new posts here until the job was done..