Is your iMac or Macbook getting long in the tooth ?

[RogerS]

As in, say, 2007 ? Do you use iPhoto ? Thinking about getting a new iMac? Now or in the future ? If so then read on.

Here's a heads-up.

Over the years, iPhoto has had numerous upgrades as has the replacement Photos. The underlying file structures have also changed. And, of course, OSX has had a lot of releases. Basically the issue is the further apart your current version of iPhoto and OSX is and the current version of Photos of OSX, the harder you will find it to migrate your photos.

LOML's Mac is 2007. iPhoto '08. (version 7.1.5) and OSX 10.9.5. Just got her a new Mac. Photos 5.0 and OSX 10.15.6. Bottom line - you can't migrate from one to the other in one go. You need another Mac that's got the right software somewhere between the two. Old enough that you can get the 2007 into a suitable format that is readable and can be migrated over by the most recent Mac.

 

[Beau]

Yep mine is getting tricky to use. Mac Mini (2012) and and its now starting to creak when running Excel in office. Gave Mac a go as I hate the built in disposability of PCs but this Mac has been little better and will go back to PCs next time.

 

[MikeK]

My Macs range from mid to late 2009 models and are at or near their end of life for OS upgrades. I'm holding off on any replacements until they die. All of my important data is backed up to external drives. I have one set of drives for the complete OS backup and another set of drives just for the data files in their native format.

I use Photos only for my iPhone images. For my remaining Sony digital camera, I use Lightroom or Capture One because I use the RAW format for the images.

 

[Regex]

Yep mine is getting tricky to use. Mac Mini (2012) and and its now starting to creak when running Excel in office. Gave Mac a go as I hate the built in disposability of PCs but this Mac has been little better and will go back to PCs next time.

I highly recommend getting a used ex-office/corporate laptop, as they are cheap, durable, and tend to have good specs. 4 years ago I bought a used ThinkPad model x220 on eBay, with a docking station, spare battery, 8GB RAM and SSD for £200. Long battery life, tough chassis, lots of ports (no hdmi though). These things are workhorses; it is still going strong with Windows 10 on it and I use it regularly. These days thought it does run a bit hot though, but that's it probably just showing it's age. The main downside is the screen size, so I recommend getting a model with a docking station, and they're not as pretty as MacBooks.

Specs to look out for:
8GB of ram or more
SSD (quieter than spinning HDD)
i5 CPU or above.

Here's a link with an example search.

 

[clogs]

my early 27" mac is getting slow.....
BUT
so's the guy driving it......hahaha.....

 

[srp]

Transferring photos from a really old Mac to a new one is not difficult at all. They are only .jpg files after all. You need to find the folder in which they are stored - in my case they are in ~/Pictures/Photoslibrary.photoslibrary/Masters, all sorted into individual folders by year. In an older system the directory path may be slightly different, something like ~/Pictures/iPhotolibrary (you can easily find out for your particular version with Google).
Once found, just transfer them by whatever method is easiest - network, external disc, sd card or whatever. Stick them in a folder on the desktop, and then open up iPhoto and import them - they will then be copied to the appropriate folder so iPhoto can sort and display them.

 

[AJS2018]

I recently upgraded my 2013 iMac by replacing the hard disc with a ssd, the change in performance is astonishing. Now run Fusion 360, Sketchup, Illustrator etc with out any delay. you have to take the glass from off but there are loads of videos on YouTube and it’s easy. The replacement 500gig ssd was about £70.

 

[NewbieRaf]

Yep depending on what machine you have you can upgrade selected components like RAM and ssd. The Mac mini 2012 is especially good for this. Also wiping your system and starting again will help. On video editing and creative stuff I do agree the more power the better but let’s not forget graphics power too which is as important. Just because it’s at 500 ish U.K. pounds I’ve been recently recommending the new iPad Air. iPads are IMO designed specifically for “creative work” and the experience with Apple Pencil is next level. Feel free to pm me if you need any more advice

 

[Jetset]

I recently upgraded my 2013 iMac by replacing the hard disc with a ssd, the change in performance is astonishing. Now run Fusion 360, Sketchup, Illustrator etc with out any delay. you have to take the glass from off but there are loads of videos on YouTube and it’s easy. The replacement 500gig ssd was about £70.

This is also what I did with a 2009 MacBook Pro. Added a SSD and from 4 to 8GB (the maximum) of ram.

Battery life is not very good and I’m about to change that next.

Also, you don’t need a docking station—just plug in external devices as you wish. Mouse, keyboard, monitor etc.

Fairly cheap upgrade and boots up in seconds.

 

[MikeK]

This is also what I did with a 2009 MacBook Pro. Added a SSD and from 4 to 8GB (the maximum) of ram.

Battery life is not very good and I’m about to change that next.

Also, you don’t need a docking station—just plug in external devices as you wish. Mouse, keyboard, monitor etc.

Fairly cheap upgrade and boots up in seconds.

I'm using a mid-2009 MBP (5,4) with 8GB or RAM. Which SSD did you use for your MBP and which battery are you going to use?

 

[AJB Temple]

I have kept all of my Apple Macs dating back almost to the earliest days. This includes all of the laptops, including the black one with the curvy shape, which was my favourite. Until recently I used my 2011 MacAir for web surfing and email when I was too lazy to get out of bed.

But as I also have the latest laptops and a powerful iMac Pro, you do realise that in some ways the new ones are better, especially screen quality and speed. I think the older ones were actually better built. I am typing on a 2018 MacBook Pro with 3.8 Ghz dual Intel I7. It has a bit of case flex and the truly awful and noisy butterfly keyboard is annoying. Screen is good though and processing is fast.

I have upgraded older Macs, but it's not really possible to upgrade screens, and of course Apple changes its connectivity and charging systems regularly.

By contrast, I am now out of the business I was in until last year, but it was in institutional finance and for connectivity we used PCs. They would last up to 3 years before we were forced to upgrade processors, memory etc. We did not allow much storage on machines but in practice with constantly developing software (some of it in house developed) we struggled to get any more than a 5 year life out of any PC (and these were good brands). We also used Macs in the business for various things and their lifespan was quite a bit higher for some reason.

 

[AJS2018]

I have kept all of my Apple Macs dating back almost to the earliest days. This includes all of the laptops, including the black one with the curvy shape, which was my favourite. Until recently I used my 2011 MacAir for web surfing and email when I was too lazy to get out of bed.

I find it very hard to part with old Macs, I think it‘s because they are designed so well. I even have a PowerBook 100 in a cupboard somewhere.

 

[Jetset]

I'm using a mid-2009 MBP (5,4) with 8GB or RAM. Which SSD did you use for your MBP and which battery are you going to use?

Will check...!

 

[Padster]

@Jetset if @MikeK can't find it I will check as I have a 17"MBP Late 2011 that is still flying stuck on High Sierra now - it was 4GB RAM but I doubled and changed to a 1TB SSD

Regards

Padster

 

[tekno.mage]

I still have and use an elderly (early 2000s) Powermac G5 tower - which I use for real work! I have the complete Adobe suite on it and still use this software (mostly Photoshop, Lightroom and InDesign and occasionally Illustrator). I still use it for email, but its useless for the web as the version of safari won't work with most modern websites. I also have a 2012 MacBook Pro which has the latest operating system on it (Catalina) - but as I won't use subscription based software I mainly use it for web-based stuff and Microsoft office. I didn't buy either of the machines new, and will continue to use both until they die. All my data is backed up to external drives. I do find it annoying that the support for files created in older versions (Microsoft!) is lacking in the latest versions, but there are some work rounds for these problems. If upgrading the MacBook Pro becomes impossible in future I will probably have to buy a second-hand MacBook which will run later software - but that will be mainly for web-browsing which I guess I could do on an iPad!

 

[RogerS]

Transferring photos from a really old Mac to a new one is not difficult at all. They are only .jpg files after all. You need to find the folder in which they are stored - in my case they are in ~/Pictures/Photoslibrary.photoslibrary/Masters, all sorted into individual folders by year. In an older system the directory path may be slightly different, something like ~/Pictures/iPhotolibrary (you can easily find out for your particular version with Google).
Once found, just transfer them by whatever method is easiest - network, external disc, sd card or whatever. Stick them in a folder on the desktop, and then open up iPhoto and import them - they will then be copied to the appropriate folder so iPhoto can sort and display them.

Yes. But I'm talking about migrating to Photos !

 

[RogerS]

... We also used Macs in the business for various things and their lifespan was quite a bit higher for some reason.

Partly because Apple 'own' both hardware and software. Our old iMacs were 13 and 11 years old respectively. Performance-wise perfectly adequate especially as Apple always tweaked the OS and improved things like speed as versions progressed.

It was the ever-changing world of websites that finally forced us to get new ones as it became impossible to track which browser worked with which website and some wouldn't work at all.

 

[RogerS]

I find it very hard to part with old Macs, I think it‘s because they are designed so well. I even have a PowerBook 100 in a cupboard somewhere.

Mate of mine still has the two Apple II's I sold him way back when !

 

[RogerS]

.... I also have a 2012 MacBook Pro which has the latest operating system on it (Catalina) - but as I won't use subscription based software I mainly use it for web-based stuff and Microsoft office....

I don't quite follow you...Catalina isn't subscription based.

 

[RogerS]

Pssst...I'm thinking of trying out the beta of Big Sur. OSX 11.x ...none of your old 10.x stuff