How Do I Open Photo Library In Mac

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Your Photos library holds all your photos, albums, slideshows and print projects. If your library is large, and you want to free up storage space on your Mac, turn on iCloud Library and use Optimise Mac Storage, or move your photo library to an external drive.

Before you start, make sure that you back up your library.

2020-4-6  (Alternatively, if you do this step first prior to moving your photo library to the external drive, the images will be added to your Mac - but if you are short of storage space you probably wouldn. So, I’d assume it’s safe to do so. But, just in case it’s best to backup all your pictures before proceeding. How to upgrade iPhoto to Photos and migrate all pictures. Matt Elliott from CNET has contributed an excellent guide on how to move your photos and videos from iPhoto to the new Photos app, the details about iCloud Photo Library. Not sure what you should do with your iPhoto and Aperture library when both apps get the axe next year? Here's what you need to know about migrating from Apple’s (almost) discontinued photo. Regardless, to create a new System Photo Library, first open the location where your current system library is and drag it to a backup spot if you want to keep it (recommended). Drag it to the Trash if you don’t. Next, open Photos, which will spur the following prompt. Click “Open Other” to either find an existing library or create a. These other Photos libraries function identically to each other, with one exception: Only one library can be synced with iCloud Photo Library at a time. Your others will be locally (or externally, if you have them on a hard drive) siloed from iCloud's sync service. How to import your Aperture library into Photos for Mac.

Prepare your drive

You can store your library on an external storage device, such as a USB or Thunderbolt drive formatted as APFS or Mac OS Extended (Journaled).1 Find out how to check the format of your external storage device.

How Do I Open Photo Library In Mac

To prevent data loss, Apple doesn't recommend storing photo libraries on external storage devices like SD cards and USB flash drives, or drives that are shared on a network.

Move your Photos library to an external storage device

Mac
  1. Quit Photos.
  2. In the Finder, go to the external drive where you want to store your library.
  3. In another Finder window, find your library. The default location is Users > [username] > Pictures, and it's named Photos Library.
  4. Drag your library to its new location on the external drive. If you see an error, select your external drive's icon in the Finder, then choose File > Get Info. If the information under Sharing & Permissions isn't visible, click , then make sure that the 'Ignore ownership on this volume' checkbox is selected. If it's not selected, click to unlock it, enter an administrator name and password, then select the checkbox.2

  5. After the move is finished, double-click Photos Library in its new location to open it.
  6. If you use iCloud Photo Library, designate this library as the System Photo Library.

Delete original library to save space

How Do I Open Photo Library In Mac Download

After you open your library from its new location and make sure that it works as expected, you can delete the library from its original location.

In a Finder window, go back to your Pictures folder (or whichever folder you copied your library from) and move Photos Library to the trash. Then choose Finder > Empty Trash to delete the library and reclaim disc space.

Open another Photos library

How Do I Open Photo Library In Macbook Pro

If you have multiple libraries, you can open a different one like this:

  1. Quit Photos.
  2. Press and hold the Option key while you open Photos.
  3. Select the library that you want to open, then click Choose Library.

Photos uses this library until you open a different one.

How To Open Photo Library On Mac

Learn more

If you have a permissions issue with your library, you might be able to resolve the issue by using the Photos library repair tool.

1. You can't move your library to a disc that's used for Time Machine backups.

2. If the volume isn't formatted APFS or Mac OS Extended (Journaled), or has been used for Time Machine backups but hasn't been deleted, this checkbox will either not be present or won't be selectable after unlocking. Delete and reformat the drive for this option to be available.