I've had a multi-Mac household pretty much since college, rocking a laptop and desktop in addition to miscellaneous iOS devices throughout the years. Dropbox and iCloud sync made most of the pains of using several Macs disappear, but iPhoto was always a problem. My laptop is tiny! My iPhoto library, not so much.
- Share Photo Library Between Macs And Windows
- Share Photos Library Between Macs
- Share Photo Library Between Macs Computer
How to Combine Multiple Photos Libraries Into a Single Library Saturday, July 1st, 2017 Author: Tom Nelson If you’ve been working with the Mac’s Photos app (or even the older iPhoto or Aperture apps ) for any length of time, there’s a good chance you have multiple image libraries to help you organize your pictures.
Thankfully, Photos for Mac — paired with iCloud Photo Library's Optimize Storage feature — makes working with and syncing multiple Macs a breeze. Apple music wont play my library mac. Here's how you can do it.
How to use Photos and iCloud Photo Library with multiple Macs
Here's a quick, simple breakdown on setting up your Macs to support Photos and iCloud Photo Library.
I recommend starting with your biggest iPhoto library; it'll usually be on your desktop Mac. When you open Photos for the first time, your library should import automatically; if it prompts you to create a new library, your Photos library may be stored in another location on your Mac, and you may need to manually open it.
- There’s an excellent guide to syncing between two Macs using ChronoSync Express here. If you’d rather take a more manual approach to sharing files, Forklift (below) can help. Designed as a tool for managing FTP servers, Forklift can also synchronize and transfer files between Macs on the same network.
- I want to share those libraries between all my Apple Devices. It works for my iTunes Media (Music, Movies, etc.) Issue: - I cannot use the photo library between my old mac (iMac early 2009) and my new one (MacBookPro 2015).
Once you've imported your biggest library on your Mac, make sure iCloud Photo Library is turned on and syncing. You can do this by following these steps:
- Launch Photos on your Mac.
- Click Photos in the menu bar.
- Select Preferences (or do this quicker by pressing ⌘,).Source: iMore
- Click on the iCloud tab.Source: iMore
- Check off the box for iCloud Photos.
- You can also check off the box for Download Originals to this Mac if you have the space.
- You can check off Optimize Mac Storage to save space on your Mac by only saving a percentage of images and video locally — the rest will be thumbnails that you can click on to download when you want to.
Source: iMore
Now, open your other Mac, and launch Photos. If you have an iPhoto library on that secondary Mac, follow the same steps as above — import your library, then turn on iCloud Photo Library. If you have duplicates of the same photo on each computer, iCloud should automatically resolve those conflicts when it syncs, providing you with just one version of your photos when the sync process finishes.
If you don't have an iPhoto library on your secondary Mac, create a new library in Photos and turn on iCloud Photo Library. If you want to save storage space on this secondary Mac, make sure Optimize Mac Storage is selected: This will save a certain percentage of images and video locally to your device, while providing thumbnails of all the others for you to download at your leisure.
After you've set up all your Macs with Photos and the sync process has finished, you're now good to go. From here on out, any time you add photos, they'll sync to every computer you've set up with Photos.
What syncs, what doesn't sync
Photos for Mac syncs a lot more than just your original photos and videos. According to a support document on Apple.com, here's what else you should expect to see sync:
- All folders and albums
- Smart Albums
- Keywords
- Memories
- Searchable keywords
- Key photo selections
There are a few things iCloud Photo Library won't sync, however. Here's Apple's list:
- Books, cards, calendars, and slideshows
- Keyword shortcuts
- Unused keywords
- Last imported album on the Mac in question
- Names and faces in the People album
For those not using iCloud Photo Library
If you've chosen not to enable iCloud Photo Library, Apple still offers you free syncing of your last 1000 photos via My Photo Stream, which doesn't count toward your iCloud disk space.
This will sync and download images you've imported or taken on other devices, but you won't have the option to optimize your storage or sync your albums.
Octoober 2019: Updated for macOS Catalina.
![Library Library](/uploads/1/2/6/6/126616538/124294166.png)
Serenity Caldwell contributed to an earlier version of this guide.
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Share Photo Library Between Macs And Windows
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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.
Share Photos Library Between Macs
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: How to backup mac photo library to external drive.
- 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.
Share Photo Library Between Macs Computer
- 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.
Recover Unlimited Mac Data for You
- Recover data deleted, formatted or lost on Mac;
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- Fully supported latest macOS 10.15 Catalina;