Mac Photos Library Folder

06.04.2020
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Mar 18, 2020  Move your Photos library to an external storage device. In the Finder, go to the external drive where you want to store your library. In another Finder window, find your library. The default location is Users username Pictures, and it's named Photos Library. Drag your library to. Import the photos into the new library. Move Your iPhoto Library to a New Location/Mac. Even though you can use the multiple libraries tricks to move your photos to a different location, you can also move it by using a simple drag and drop. First, quit iPhoto. In the Finder, choose your home folder (it's usually named after you). Nov 22, 2018  Where are the photos stored on Mac? The Photos app maintains pictures and videos in its own library, making it easy to view the content, but confusing to access the actual files. To find the photos on your Mac, you’ll need to find that Photos Library first: With the Photos app open, click on Photos in the menu bar; Then go to Preferences. Apr 22, 2015  How to use multiple photo libraries with Photos for Mac. Photos for Mac lets you work with multiple libraries. Learn how to choose a default library, open another library, and merge multiple.

People love taking pictures. That's one of the reasons camera phones becomes standard feature. That is also why photo management feature is crucial for any personal computer. And if you are a Mac user, one of the most popular photo management apps is iPhoto.

But sometimes you need to move your iPhoto library. One of the reasons is because photos and videos can quickly fill out your hard drive. So it might be a good idea to store them on the dedicated external drive. Another possible reason is when you want to switch to a more recent Mac version.

By default, the photos and videos you import into Photos are stored in the Photos library in the Pictures folder on your Mac. How to turn on icloud photo library on mac. When you first use Photos, you create a new library or select the library that you want to use. This library automatically becomes your System Photo Library. See System Photo Library.

How do you move your iPhoto library to another location?

Back Up Your iPhoto Library

Before doing anything to your library, it's better to back it up. If anything happens, you won't lose any of your precious memory. Routine backups also protect you from image files become corrupted or are unintentionally erased from your hard disk.

You can set up an external hard drive and use it with the Time Machine application to back up your photos. The app will automatically make regular backups of your computer, including your entire photo library. Just make sure that you quit iPhoto periodically before backing up or the Time Machine can't do a full backup of your library.

Create a New iPhoto Library Or Switch Between Libraries

One way that you can use to move your iPhoto library is to create multiple libraries. The advantages of taking this path are you can better organize your photos, albums, slideshows, projects (such as books, cards, and calendars), and then switch between the libraries.

For example, you could keep separate libraries for your personal photos and your work photos. Or, if you have a child who takes photos, you can keep his or her photos in a separate library.

The caveat is that you can only modify items (such as albums) or edit photos in one library at a time.

Here are the steps to create a new iPhoto library:

  • Quit iPhoto. Hold down the Option key as you open iPhoto.

  • In the window that appears, click Create New. Type a name and choose a location to store the new photo library. Click Save.

To switch between photo libraries:

  • Quit iPhoto. Hold down the Option key as you open iPhoto.

  • Select the library you want to switch to. Click Choose.

If you want to move photos from one library to another, use this steps:

  • Export the photos from the active library. This action doesn't delete the photos from the library.
  • Switch to the library you want to add them to.
  • Import the photos into the new library.

Move Your iPhoto Library to a New Location/Mac

Even though you can use the multiple libraries tricks to move your photos to a different location, you can also move it by using a simple drag and drop.

  • First, quit iPhoto. In the Finder, choose your home folder (it's usually named after you).
  • Open the Pictures folder (in the home folder) to locate the iPhoto Library file.

For moving iPhoto library to a new location:

  • Drag the iPhoto Library file to a new location on your computer.

  • But the process doesn't stop here. You have to tell iPhoto the new location of the library. Open iPhoto. When it can't find the library, it will ask you the location.
  • In the window that appears, select the library you want, and then click Choose.

For copying iPhoto library to a new Mac:

  • Connect your external hard drive. When it displays on Finder, drag the iPhoto Library folder or package to external hard drive.
  • Eject the hard drive from your old Mac and connect it to this new one.
  • Now open iPhoto on the new computer. Hold down the Option key on the keyboard, and keep the Option key held down until you are prompted to create or choose an iPhoto library.

That's for how to move iPhoto library to a new location or a new Mac. If you unfortunately lost some important photos during the transfer, you can use Any Data Recovery for Mac. This app is a complete Mac data recovery solutions to recover all types of files from Mac's hard drive, including recovering photo on Mac, and also from other portable devices like USB flash drive, external hard drive, SD card, iPhone.

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  • Recover data deleted, formatted or lost on Mac;
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Mac Photos Library Folder Download

The Mac Photos app is a handy way to organize all of your photos and videos in one app, but what if you want to have access to all of the original files? Sure, you can go into Photos, click on an image, and drag it to the Desktop or Downloads folder to work on it, but that’s not a helpful solution if you want to work on a lot of the master image files. (Related: How to Combine Multiple Photos Libraries Into a Single Library)

The Photos app stores all of your images in a “Photos Library.photoslibrary” package file. In this article, I’ll show how you can open the package file, find the Master folder, and then create a shortcut in the Finder window sidebar.

Creating a Shortcut to the Master Image Files
1) Click and hold on the smiling Finder icon on left side of the Dock, then select New Finder Window from the pop-up menu.

2) You should see a “Pictures” shortcut in the Finder Favorites in the left sidebar. Clicking this takes you to the Pictures folder, which contains folders and library package files from the image-related apps on your Mac. On my Mac, for instance, you can see libraries from Lightroom, Photo Booth, Photos, and a screenshot app called SnapNDrag Pro (see image below):

If your Finder sidebar doesn’t include a Pictures folder, you can navigate to that folder in the Finder by selecting Go > Go To Folder… from the menu bar, typing ~/Pictures/ into the search field, then pressing Return.

3) Locate the Photos Library file, which has the Photos logo on it. You can see that file in the screenshot above.

Mac Photo Library Location

4) Right-click (or control-click) on the Photos Library file, then select “Show Package Contents” from the menu. The Finder window should now show something similar to the screenshot below:

Change Mac Photos Library Root Folder

(The folders located in the Photos Library.)

5) Now drag and drop the Masters folder into the Finder window sidebar in the Favorites section. This places an alias to the Photos library Masters file that is visible in any Finder window.

(Drag and drop the Masters folder from the Photos Library package to the Finder sidebar.)

Show Library Folder Mac

6) Close the Photos Library package by clicking the red “close” button in the upper left corner of the window, or use the Command – W keyboard shortcut.

Now clicking on the Masters item in the sidebar takes you to the master image files from the Photos app. These are the original full resolution files that are imported into Photos from your iPhone, SD cards, or other sources (see screenshot below).

(The original CR2 – Canon Raw image – files in the Masters folder of the Photos Library package file.)

Mac Photos Library Folder Mac

If you ever decide that you don’t want the Masters shortcut in the Finder Favorites, just drag and drop it from the sidebar to remove it.