Mac Photos Move Library Location

How to find Photos' image files in the Finder. And Copy Items to the Photos Library is checked next to the Importing label), then you can’t easily get to the original file in the Finder. May 06, 2015 Or, once I copy the photos library, can I just trash the iphotos one. (or is there a reason it was retained in the first place?) Anyway, I've started by dragging the 'photos library' to the newly formatted drive. Which leads me to my next question. I am about to move the Photos Library to an external drive and have the same exact question in.

  1. Mac Photos Move Library Location In California
  2. Mac Photos How To Change Library Location
  3. Mac Photos Move Library Location In Texas
  4. Mac Photos Move Library Location Online

If you want your Mac's photos to wirelessly sync to all your other iOS devices and computers, you want to set up iCloud Photo Library: Apple's photo sync service lets you back up your images on all your devices, as well as access them — online or offline — on said devices. If you're willing to pay for the extra iCloud storage space, you can store an incredible amount of photos and videos, all accessible at the touch of a button or multi-touch screen.

Feb 11, 2007  I just bought a LACIE HD, and I would like to move all of my iPhoto pitures to the HD, so that they could be backed up. How do I make the Move? Mac mini Mac Pro MacBook Air MacBook Pro macOS Catalina tvOS 13 watchOS 6 WWDC 2020 How Tos. Moving the iPhoto library to another location. Thread starter camilletom; Start date Feb 11, 2007. Locate the Photos library on your Mac - you will find it in your Pictures folder. Open a Finder window and click on your Mac Home folder (the icon looks like a house and it will probably be. How to Move iPhoto Library to a New Location / Computer Now you want to move iPhoto Library to a new location in internal drive of Mac computer (frankly, I don't know why, maybe you just want). Other cases include that you run out of hard drive space in Mac (Mountain Lion included) due to the high resolution photos taken by camera, or you just. Feb 23, 2017 Photos File Location in Mac OS. Photos image files are stored in the following location in Mac OS: /Pictures/Photos Library.photoslibrary/Masters/ The tilde represents the users home directory, if you’re going to use the excellent Go To Folder command to access that directory don’t skip the prefix.

Here's how to set it up on your Mac and get everything configured to your liking!

How to set up iCloud Photo Library on your Mac

  1. Launch the Photos app on your Mac.
  2. Select the Photos menu in the upper left corner of your screen.
  3. Go to Preferences.
  4. Click on the iCloud tab.

    Source: iMore

  5. Check 'iCloud Photos.' This will begin uploading any and all images you have stored in the Photos app to iCloud.

    Source: iMore

How to optimize your photo and video storage

If you routinely shoot 4K video or high-quality images on your iPhone, iPad, or DSLR, you may run out of storage space fast. (I have a 1TB iMac, but also have almost a terabyte of 4K video stored in iCloud — it gets unwieldy, fast!) This is especially true if you have a Mac laptop with limited hard drive space: It's nice to look at your iPhone's gorgeous Portrait mode photos, but not necessarily always practical to store all of them locally.

Thankfully, Apple offers an Optimize Storage option, which lets you store full-resolution photos and videos of only your most recently shot and accessed imagery; all older photos and videos are available to download via iCloud and are stored as low-resolution previews on your device to save space. You can switch between optimizing your Mac's photos storage or storing your full library locally: Here's how!

Note: If you plan on using Optimize Storage, we suggest having at least one device that stores your entire library locally (usually a Mac with a large local or external hard drive), so you have multiple backups of your photographs and video.

  1. Launch the Photos app on your Mac.
  2. Click Photos in the App menu in the upper left corner of your screen.
  3. Select Preferences from the drop-down menu.

    Source: iMore

  4. Click the iCloud tab.
  5. Click Optimize Mac Storage.

    Source: iMore

Full-resolution versions of your photos and videos will be uploaded to iCloud.

How to share photos with iCloud Photo Library

Apple's photo service doesn't just provide online backups and sync for your images and video: The company also offers a free sharing service that allows you to send shared albums to friends and family (or create a publicly-shared website). Here's how to turn it on for your Mac.

Questions?

Mac Photos Move Library Location

Let us know in the comments below.

Updated January 2020: Updated for macOS Catalina. Serenity Caldwell worked on a previous version of this post

iCloud Photo Library: The Ultimate Guide

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With cameras so readily available, it’s easy to accumulate more photos than you know what to do with. You probably take dozens of pictures when you go out, meet up with friends, or go on vacation. And while taking photos is fun, organizing them is work. But it doesn't have to be that way. In this article, we’ll show you how to organize photos on your Mac in three easy steps:

  1. Merge your photo libraries in the Photos app
  2. Delete unwanted photos
  3. Group pictures using Smart Albums in Photos

Step 1. Consolidate all your photos in the Photos app for Mac

When macOS Yosemite was released in 2014, the Photos app finally came to Macs, replacing outdated iPhoto. Now with Photos, you’ve got more organization tools, including the ability to switch between libraries and merge them.

To start with, let’s get all of your photos from different places onto your Mac. Here’s what you should do:

  1. Use iCloud Photo Library to ensure that everything you take on an iOS device is synced automatically with your Mac. Alternatively, AirDrop photos from your iPhone and/or iPad to your Mac.
  2. Import photos from external drives to the Photos app on your Mac
  3. Import photos from your camera
  4. If you have several libraries in the Photos app, merge them into one

Once everything is on your Mac and in one library, it’s easier to get organized. Let’s take a look at a few questions most people have when they juggle several Photos libraries.

How do I switch libraries in Photos?

Libraries in Photos can come from a few different sources, including external devices such as cameras and iPhones. If you were using iPhoto prior to Photos, each device and source will have a Systems Photo Library. You can switch between them, and here is how you do that:

  1. Go to Launchpad
  2. Hold down the Option key, and then double-click on the Photos app to see the libraries you have on this device
  3. Now you can move easily from one photo library to another and open the one you want by double-clicking it

How to create a new Photo library on Mac?

Creating a new library is easy. If Photos is open, you’ll need to quit and reopen to create a new library:

  1. Hold down the Option key
  2. Double-click on the Photos apps
  3. Click the Create New button, then choose Library
  4. Give your new library a name and click OK

How to merge two or more Photos libraries?

At present, there is no native macOS tool for merging libraries in Photos. Essentially, what you’ll be doing is moving all pics to one new library. So, create one as described above, and then follow these steps:

  1. Launch Photos holding down the Option key and select one the libraries you want to merge
  2. In the menu bar, click Edit > Select All
  3. Again in the menu bar, select File > Export. Now you’ve got the following options:
    • Export Unmodified Original. This will export every image in these libraries, excluding any edits or changes made to them.
    • Export [number of photos you want to export] Photos, which gives you the option to pick a format and select Full Size. That will export your photos as they are, with any edits you’ve made, in TIFF, PNG, or JPEG formats.
  4. Pick where they’re going (this could be a folder on your Mac or a connected external drive, for example)
  5. Repeat these steps for the other libraries you want merged
  6. Now close Photos and re-open using Option to select the library you are merging these photos into
  7. Either use File > Import or drag the exported photos into the library

How do I delete a Photo library from my Mac?

If you want to delete a library, it’s super easy. You just navigate to the Pictures folder on your Mac, locate the library you want gone, and move it to the Trash. However, you’ll want to make sure you’ve got all the images and videos out of it first. Export them like we described in the previous section, and then trash the library.

Mac

Step 2. Remove duplicates and other useless photos

Now that you've merged libraries — which can take a while if you’ve got a lot of photos scattered across different locations — you’ve probably got a whole load of duplicates and similar images. Chances are, you had the same photo on an external HDD and on your Mac and now it’s duplicated, or you had a dozen slightly different variations of the same shot. Sure, you might want to keep one or two, but do you really need the other 11 wasting space on your Mac? Probably not. Here is how you delete redundant photos from a Mac without it taking all evening.

How to delete duplicates in Photos

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  1. Download Gemini 2 for Mac and launch it
  2. Click Scan for Duplicates
  3. It will scan every photo, album and folder on your Mac, including those on any connected external hard drives and imported from the iCloud Photo Library. Once complete, click Review Results.
  4. Gemini has a photo preview mode, so you can see every image, including metadata. Your duplicates are grouped under Exact Duplicates > Images, and similar photos will be under Similar > Images. Use the icon at the top to see a grid view, making it easier to identify which copy you want to delete.<
  5. Tick the box next to each image you want to delete, then click Remove

Gemini places these in a separate folder in Photos (Gemini Duplicates), giving you a possibility to look through the images once again before deleting them for good. For more information, this article is well worth a read.

Step 3. Use Smart Albums in Photos to organize your pics

After merging your libraries and clearing out duplicates and similar images, take photo organizing one step further and group the remaining pics with Smart Albums. Let’s take a look at how to use this fantastic feature of the Photos app to your advantage.

What are Smart Albums in Mac’s Photos app?

Smart Albums are a way of grouping images by the parameters you set. Maybe you’ll want an album to contain photos taken last Christmas, or you’d rather group all the pics of your kid together. All that and more can be done with a Smart Album. As is the case with a regular Photos album, you can edit and delete it.

How to make a new Smart Album in Photos

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Creating a new Smart Album is simple:

  1. Launch Photos
  2. Click the + button next to My Albums in the sidebar
  3. Select Smart Album<
  4. Give your Smart Album a name
  5. Choose the Parameters, e.g. “kids,” “days out,” “Holiday 2018.” You can modify these at any time.
  6. Click OK to create

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By developing a system (e.g., photos are grouped into albums by date taken) and using Smart Albums, you’ll make sure your photo library is easy to navigate, even if it contains thousands of photos from 2001 and up until now.

That’s it, hope this short guide helps you cope with your photo overload. And remember: the best way to organize photos on your Mac is to keep your library lean and manageable — free from clutter and useless copies. Gemini 2 will gladly help with that.

Mac Photos Move Library Location Online

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