How To Combine Multiple Photo Libraries Mac

How To Combine Photo Libraries Mac
How To Combine Multiple Photo Libraries Mac Os
Combine Multiple Photo Libraries Mac
How To Combine Multiple Photo Libraries Macbook Pro
Merge Photos Libraries Mac Os
Combine Mac Photo Libraries

Dec 04, 2019 Everyone who uses this function must know how to merge iPhoto and Photos library on Mac to perfectly execute the merging. This also allows users to save plenty of space on your Mac computer. There are a number of ways to do this on your device. There are some third party applications that allow users to merge, import and manipulate the iPhoto. Now, starting with the smallest Photos library and working up in size, follow these steps for each library you want to merge: Double-click the Photos library to open it. In Photos Preferences General, click Use as System Photo Library. (If it’s dimmed out, that library is already set as the System Photo Library.) Wait for photos to upload. Feb 26, 2018 Fortunately, PowerPhotos for macOS High Sierra and recent macOS versions, works much like the older iPhoto Library Manager for Macs running Photos in OS X. Create and manage multiple photo libraries, copy photos and metadata from one library to another; even merge photo libraries. And, of course, you can find and delete duplicate photos. Jun 21, 2017 Multiple Libraries in Photos and iPhoto. How to combine photos in Photoshop with Layer Masks. How To Move Mac Photos Library To An External HDD.

We take a lot of photos with our iPhones and even DSLRs and other cameras. Photos are great for capturing memories with others, or when you just want to get a snapshot of something beautiful. Photos on Mac can help you keep all of your photos in one place, and even help you organize them.

How to add pictures and videos to albums

If you have a lot of photos and videos, one of the simplest and easiest ways to start organizing everything is to make use of albums, especially when you give them good names. And if you use iCloud Photo Library, all of your albums in Photos for Mac get synced to your iOS devices too.

Launch Photos on your Mac.
Click on Photos in the sidebar, under the Library section.
Pick out the photos you want to add to an album, either new or existing.
- Hold down the command key on your Mac and click to select multiple photos.
Right-click on your chosen photos and videos.
Move the cursor to Add to.
You can choose an existing album, or create new album.
- If making a new album, give it a good, easy-to-remember name.

Optionally, you can make a new album at any time by clicking the + button that appears in the sidebar next to My Albums. Drag-and-drop the albums in whatever order you want to rearrange them in the sidebar.

How to organize albums and folders

When you have a lot of albums, it may be better to clean it all up by organizing albums into folders, which are like collections of albums. It's easy to do.

Launch Photos on your Mac.
Either right-click on My Albums in the sidebar, or hover above and then click on the + button that appears next to My Albums.
Click New Folder.
Give your folder a name.
Drag the albums that you want into that folder.

How to use Smart Albums

Smart Albums are like regular albums, but smarter, obviously. They're great for helping you quickly organize images without the need of manually adding each one to an album because it's all automated.

Launch Photos on your Mac.
Right-click on My Albums or click the + button that appears next to My Albums.
Select New Smart Album.
Give your Smart Album a name.
Choose the parameters for your Smart Album.
Click OK to confirm.

Smart Albums have a large number of different parameters, such as photos, faces, aperture, ISO, Live Photo, RAW, Portrait, and more. With all of these options, you can create many different Smart Albums to suit whatever it is you need.

If you're not satisfied with the Smart Album, you can always tweak the settings by clicking on the gear icon that's next to the Smart Album's title, then re-select the parameters you want to use.

Unfortunately, Smart Albums do not sync to your other devices through iCloud Photo Library, as they're only available on your Mac.

How to navigate Photos for Mac faster with the sidebar

The Sidebar in Photos is a great way to quickly jump between various areas in Photos quickly and easily. Plus, it helps you find albums that may otherwise be hidden, so this was a design choice made by Apple.

However, if you are running macOS Sierra and older, you can actually hide or unhide the sidebar as you wish.

Launch Photos on your Mac.
Click on View in the menu bar.
Select Show Sidebar in the menu.
The sidebar will appear on the left side of the screen.
Follow the steps above to hide it (make sure Show Sidebar is unchecked).

How to navigate moments, collections, and year views in macOS Mojave and earlier

One of the coolest things about Photos is that it intelligently groups all of your photos and videos into moments, collections, and years.

This means that your photos appear in a timeline and are grouped by things like location, or even event. It's a great way to take a look back at your memories and relive those specific moments in time.

The Moments, Collections, and Year views are only available in macOS Mojave and older.

Launch Photos on your Mac.
Make sure that you're in the Photos view from the sidebar.
Click on Photos, Moments, Collections, or Years buttons at the top of the window.
Click on a section of a Year to move to that Collection, or a section of a Collection to drill down into that Moment, or an item in a Moment to view that image or video in closer detail.
You can also use your keyboard's arrow keys to move between photos and videos in a Moment.
A single click on an item selects it, while a double click takes you to view it.

In the Year and Collections views, thumbnails can be small. You can click-and-hold and then drag the cursor in any direction over the thumbnails to get a larger preview. Letting go will take you directly to the image that the cursor was last on.

How to navigate through Years, Months, and Days in macOS Catalina

To replace the previous Moments/Collections/Years view, Catalina changed it to Years, Months, and Days for simplicity.

Launch Photos on your Mac.
Make sure you're in the Photos section in the sidebar.
Source: iMore
Click the Years, Months, or Days buttons at the top of the window. The default view is All Photos.
Clicking on Years lets you see each year as a block. Double-clicking the year takes you into Months.
When you double-click on a Month, you'll drill down into the Days view.

How to create a new library with Photos for Mac

You can create a new library for your photos at any time with Photos for Mac. To do so, make sure that you quit Photos and reopen it with the following method to get the Library options.

Hold down the Option key on your keyboard.
Double-click on Photos on your Mac.
Click on the Create New button in the Choose Library window.
Name your Library.
Click OK.

How To Combine Photo Libraries Mac

You've now created a brand new Photos Library. Unfortunately, there is no easy way to migrate over photos and video, so you will need to export the content you want, and then import it back into the new library.

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.
Click on the name of the library you want to open.

VoilÃ¡! Just make sure to repeat this process each time you want to switch to a different Photo library.

How to move your Photos library to an external hard drive

If you're low on storage space on your Mac, you can just move your Photos Library to an external hard drive. Keep in mind though, that you will need to have this external drive plugged in to access your Photos Library, even if you have iCloud Photo Library enabled. And you aren't able to create a second Photos Library that has iCloud Photo Library enabled on your Mac, so be wary.

Launch a Finder window on your Mac.
Click on the Mac hard drive (Macintosh HD) in the sidebar.
Double-click on the Users folder.
Double-click on your username.
Double-click on your Pictures folder.
Click on the Photos Library file and then drag it to your external hard drive in the sidebar.

This process may take a while, depending on how big your Photos library is.

A note on reference libraries

The Photos app technically supports the management of images that aren't locally stored within its library â€”Â that is, you can keep a set of images in a folder called 'October Trip' and manage them within Photos without having to make a separate copy of them. You can do this by navigating to Photos > Preferences from the menu bar, selecting the General tab, and unchecking the 'Copy items to the Photos library' box under Importing.

That said, reference libraries won't play nicely with iCloud Photo Library users; you may run into problems when syncing, or not be able to sync at all. So if you plan on using a reference library, you'll have to opt out of iCloud Photo Library.

I also didn't have any luck getting referenced files to sync properly with Photos â€” I'd delete a photo, but the reference file would stay in its original location, even after deleting it from the 'Recently Deleted' folder. Not sure if that's a bug or just not how Photos wants us managing referenced photos, but worth noting.

Questions?

Sound off in the comments below!

October 2019: Updated for macOS Catalina.

Photos for Mac

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Icloud login. Jan 05, 2020 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. Apr 01, 2020 Designate a System Photo Library in Photos If you have multiple photo libraries on your Mac, you can choose one to be the System Photo Library. The System Photo Library is the only library that can be used with iCloud Photos, Shared Albums, and My Photo Stream. Feb 21, 2018 Since iOS 11 it is now possible to update the iCloud Photo Library through mobile connection and not only through WiFi. Below the setting that turns this feature on, there is an “unlimited updates” option. While I understand what it does when it is set to ON (= do the same as if it was under. Mar 03, 2020 iCloud Photos works with the Photos app to keep your photos and videos securely stored in iCloud, and up to date on your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Mac, Apple TV, and iCloud.com. How it works iCloud Photos automatically keeps every photo and video you take in iCloud, so you can access your library from any device, anytime you want.

To combine Photos libraries, open the source library and export the photos and videos that you want to keep. Then open the destination library (the one that you want to use as your main library) and import the photos and videos.

Choose a photo library

Here's how to open one of the multiple photo libraries that you might have on your Mac or on a connected external drive:

Press and hold the Option key as you open the Photos app.
Select the library that you want to open, then click Choose Library.

Photos uses this library until you open a different one using the same steps.

Export photos and videos from the source library

Open the source library, then decide whether you want to export your files as unmodified originals or edited versions:

Edited versions retain their edits when you import them. The advantage is that you don't have to recreate any edits; however, these files become the destination library's originals. This means that you can't revert to their earliest pre-import version.

How To Combine Multiple Photo Libraries Mac

Unmodified originals don't show any edits that you made when they were in the source library. This gives you flexibility for later editing, but recreating your edits might take substantial work.

How to export edited versions

In the Photos app, select the photos and videos that you want to export. To select multiple items, press and hold the Command key while you click. To select a group of items in order, click the first one, then press and hold the Shift key while you click the last one. This selects all of the items between the two that you clicked.
Choose File > Export > Export [number].
An export dialog appears.
- In the Photos section, set Photo Kind to JPEG, TIFF, or PNG. JPEG recompresses your photos, which may result in smaller file sizes. TIFF and PNG files are higher fidelity and may result in larger file sizes.
- In the Videos section, choose a Movie Quality setting. This section appears only if your selected items include videos.
- In the Info section, select the checkboxes if you want to preserve metadata and location data in the exported files.
- In the File Naming section, set File Name to Use File Name and set Subfolder Format to either Moment Name or None. Moment Name creates a subfolder for each Moment that's represented in your selected items. This is useful if you'd like to create an Album in the destination library for each Moment. The None option exports all of the files directly into the destination folder.
Click Export. A Finder dialog appears.
Navigate to the location where you want to save the files, such as the Desktop or an external drive. Click New Folder if you create a new folder for your exported items.
Click Export.

How to export unmodified originals

In the Photos app, then select the photos and videos that you want to export. To select multiple items, press and hold the Command key while you click. To select a group of items in order, click the first one, then press and hold the Shift key while you click the last one. This selects all of the items between the two that you clicked.
Choose File > Export > Export Unmodified Original.
An export dialog appears.
- If your photos include IPTC metadata (such as titles or keywords) that you want to keep, select the Export IPTC as XMP checkbox.
- Leave the File Name setting on Use File Name.
- Next to Subfolder Format, choose Moment Name or None. Moment Name creates a subfolder for each Moment that's represented in your selected items. This is useful if you'd like to create an Album in the destination library for each Moment. The None option exports all of the files directly into the destination folder.
Click Export. A Finder dialog appears.
Navigate to the location where you want to save the files, such as the Desktop or an external drive. Click New Folder if you create a new folder for your exported items.
Click Export Originals.

How to import photos and videos into the destination library

Open the destination library, then drag the folder that contains your exported items into the main area that shows your other photos and videos. When a green plus sign appears on your pointer, you can release the folder.

The photos in the folder are sorted into Moments based on their creation dates and locations. The videos are sorted based on the date you exported them from the source library.

If you created subfolders when you exported the items and you want to create an Album for each subfolder, follow these steps:

In the Finder, open a subfolder.
Select all of the photos and videos within the subfolder.
Drag the items onto My Albums in the Photos sidebar.
Name the Album in the highlighted text box that appears in the sidebar.
Repeat for each subfolder.