Where Is Mac Photos Library

Final word on photo management on Mac. There are basically two things you need to remember to bring order into your photographing life: Before you get to organization and management, be sure to unclutter your photo library.

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 Photo Library and use Optimize Mac Storage, or move your library to an external drive.

Before you start, be sure to back up your library.

Jan 13, 2020 Access all of your photos from anywhere. ICloud Photos automatically keeps all your photos in iCloud, so you can access them on your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Apple TV, Mac, iCloud.com, or on a PC. When you edit and organize images in the Photos app, your changes are kept up to date and visible everywhere. Jul 12, 2017 On our system, we see our Photo Library is in our Dropbox, but yours will almost likely show up in your user folder. We click the the “Show in Finder” button and here’s where our “Photos Library” is located. We want to move it back to our user folder so Dropbox stops constantly updating. Oct 25, 2019  How to switch between Libraries in Photos for Mac. When you create a new library, you may still want to go back to a previous library for something. Fortunately, it's easy to switch between multiple libraries. Make sure that Photos is not open (quit if it is). Hold down the Option key on your keyboard. Double-click on Photos. May 07, 2015  A window will pop up with a number, which in my Mac’s case was over 236GB between a number of different photo libraries — Apple’s Photo Booth, Aperture, iPhoto, and Photos, just to name a.

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.

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

  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 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

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 disk space.

Open another Photos library

If you have multiple libraries, here's how to open a different one:

  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.
Mac

Photos uses this library until you open a different one.

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.

Mac Pictures Folder Location

1. You can't move your library to a disk 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 erased, this checkbox will either not be present, or won't be selectable after unlocking. Erase and reformat the drive for this option to be available.

Wondering, “Where does iPhoto store photos?” Well, in this post, you will get to know about the location where it stores your photos, and how find photos on Mac.

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Without any doubts, iPhoto is a useful picture management application by Apple. The app was present in a Mac computer, but it replaced with Photos application in 2015. However, whenever users import photos into iPhoto, the app makes copies of their photos and leaves original files somewhere else where users can’t access easily.

No matter for what reasons you want to know the location where iPhoto stores original pictures whether for backup purpose or to transfer them into another application, you can refer to this guide. Here, we are going to show you where iPhoto stores photos in detail. Also, you will get to learn on how to find photos on Mac computer.

Location Of Mac Photos Library

Part 1: Where Does iPhoto Store Photos

So, let’s begin: iPhoto stores your pictures copies in a special folder known as “iPhoto Library”. You can locate in your Mac Home folder and then, Pictures folder. Here are the detailed steps to find the location where iPhoto stores photos:

Step 1 To begin the process, go to the “Finder” in your Mac computer and after that, navigate to your Home directory.

Step 2 Thereafter, if you log-in to your Mac computer with the name “Alex”, the full path to the folder “iPhoto Library” would be Mac HD > Users > Alex > Pictures > iPhoto Library. And right-click on the folder, and then, choose the “Show Package Contents” option.

Where Does iPhoto Store Photos

My pictures library windows 10

Step 3 When you reach your iPhoto Library folder, you will see a set of files and folders organised with numbers. All these numbers you see are the originals files creation dates. Look at the below figure to understand.

However, if you are now using an iPhoto newer version known as Photos, then you can locate the photos in a similar way as described above. But, you have to locate the “Photo Library” folder instead of “iPhoto Library” folder. And then, tap on “Masters” to view your pictures set in folders by date.

Part 2: How to Find Photos on Mac and Transfer Photos to Mac

No doubt, iPhoto or Photo application allows you to view pictures on Mac. But, what if you want to transfer photos from iPhone to Mac? Don’t worry as AnyTrans for iOS is here for you. It is mainly designed for iOS data management and transfer. With the help of it, you can manage your iPhone files including photos on Mac easily. Here are its main features and advantages on photos management:

  • Transfer any type of photos: With the help of it, you can move photos in Photo Stream, Camera Roll, Photo Library, Photo Share and Albums from your iPhone to Mac.
  • Support selective transfer: It allows you to move all photos in one go or only selected photos to your Mac.
  • Multi-directional transfer: It allows you to migrate files from computer to iPhone also, and there will be no data and quality loss during transfer.
  • Supports all data types: No matter whether you want to move photos, audios, videos, apps, contacts, or any other data type from your iPhone to Mac, it can do it with ease.

Now, Free Download AnyTrans for iOS on your computer, and then follow the step-by-step guide to view and transfer photos from iPhone to Mac effortlessly.

Free Download * 100% Clean & Safe

Step 1: Connect your iPhone and Mac.

To begin the process, launch the software on your Mac. Then, run it and connect your iPhone to a computer with the help of a digital cable. Next, move to the file category” page as shown in the figure.

How to Find Photo Files on Mac- Step 3

Step 2: Select photo category to transfer.

After that, select “Photos” and then, choose a photo type you want to move to your Mac computer from iPhone. Let’s take an example of Camera Roll.

How to Find Photos on Mac with AnyTrans for iOS – Step 2

Step 3: Transfer photos from iPhone to Mac.

Here, choose the desired pictures you want to move and finally, click on the “Send to Mac button as shown in the figure.

After the process completes, you can view the transferred photos on your Mac.

How to View Photos on Mac

The Bottom Line

That’s all on how to find photo files on Mac and how to transfer them to Mac. Hopefully, this guide helps you to find the location of your iPhoto/Photo original files. However, give a try to AnyTrans for iOS software by downloading and installing it on your PC, and manage your iPhone data in a better and efficient way.

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