Storing Photos, Movies and Songs on a Time Capsule

As our cameras get more megapixels and our song and video libraries grow, the hard drive space on any computer becomes minimal, especially on the Air. You can greatly reduce that problem by moving these file externally and using the equivalent of an alias in Photo and iTunes. It's a simple process and when done you'll even forget the file are elsewhere. Ideally this is done with a Time Capsule, but it work just as well with a USB drive plugged into and Airport Express. My process is slightly different than some you may have seen. This one keeps your libraries on your Air but keeps the files on the TC. Others move the entire library, which means iPhoto and iTunes can't open when not connected to your TC.

Here's my iPhoto setup: I created a folder system for my images on my Time Capsule. There's a folder for each year. Here's my process:

• Back up to Images to DVD.
• Drag them to the folder on the TC.
• Delete them from iPhoto.
• Empty iPhoto's trash.
• From the iPhoto menu choose Preferences/Advanced and uncheck Copy Items to the iPhoto Library.
• Drag the images from the TC back into iPhoto.

This creates an alias to the image but doesn't import the image itself. As long as I am connected to WiFi from most anywhere in the world I have access to my images. iPhoto even creates thumbnails of the image. Home video you want in iPhoto can be done the same way. If you modify an image. iPhoto will store a local copy of the image.

Incidentally, when you burn DVD's from iPhoto, they're not normal data DVDs. These are special iPhoto DVDs. Put the DVD into your Superdrive and the images show up as part of your iPhoto library without having to import them.

The process is similar in iTunes with songs and movies. Go to Preferences/Advanced and uncheck Copy Files to iTunes Library.

An advantage of this method is that all your songs, photos and movies are in iTunes and iPhotos and not just a limited number. Normally we find ourselves pulling movies or songs in and out to save space and we don't have to do that anymore. Once you've done the process, you can set new files to go into iTunes and iPhoto and then yearly do the process of moving locally stored files to the TC and then importing aliases back. Note that calling up your files doesn't work as fast as when they're stored locally, but the massive amount of space gained is well worth it.