Nov 05, 2017 Are you using iCloud Photo Library? It might account for missing albums, if you are using iCloud Photo Library on iPhones or iPads and a Mac. After a system upgrade I am regularly missing albums on my Mac. Is the system version in your profile signature still valid? MacOS 10.12.6 Sierra?
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.
- Nov 09, 2018 Find the Photos Library on your Mac, it will be in your Pictures folder. Click the Go menu on the top and then select Home option from the menu. Open the Pictures folder and there you will find the Photos library. TIP: In order to see how much storage your photos have taken.
- Sep 25, 2019 When you tap the Photos tab in iOS, you see your library grouped by Moments. Tap to view your library grouped by collections, and tap again to view years. On your Mac, use the Moments, Collections, and Years tabs at the top of Photos.
Before you start, be sure to back up your library.
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
- Quit Photos.
- 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 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
- After the move is finished, double-click Photos Library in its new location to open it.
- 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:
- Quit Photos.
- Press and hold the Option key while you open Photos.
- Select the library that you want to open, then click Choose Library.
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.
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.
Good Photo Library For Mac Free
iCloud Photo Library gives you access to all of your photos and video, on all your devices, all of the time. It's an optional part of Apple's iCloud service that you can enable at any time, and uses your iCloud storage to upload all new images and video from the Photos apps on your iPhone, iPad, or Mac.
Shoot a video on your iPhone, take a picture with your iPad, import an image from your DSLR to Photos for Mac — if you have iCloud Photo Library enabled, all of these will upload to your iCloud repository, where they can be accessed (in full resolution!) at any time.
iCloud Photo Library can be many things: backup for your photos, sync service, storage optimizer, photography sharing site, and more. It helps you make micromanaging your pictures and videos a thing of the past. Here's how!
What is iCloud Photo Library?
iCloud Photo Library is an optional feature of Apple's iCloud service that can automatically back up and sync any images and video you take to iCloud. It works with Photos for iPhone, iPad, and Mac, and also provides sync services for devices like Apple TV. When you enable iCloud Photo Library, it uses your iCloud storage space to upload all images and video you've either taken, screenshot, saved, or imported on any of your iOS devices or Macs.
I've had a lot of people over the years ask me whether they should use the service: Is it safe? Is it secure? Is the cost of an iCloud plan worth it? Here's the skinny.
How to set up iCloud Photo Library
iCloud Photo Library will save photos, videos, GIFs, screenshots, and more — and even better, when you enable it, you can use Optimize Storage to send your files immediately to iCloud and keep them from cluttering up your iPhone's local storage space.
Here's how to set up iCloud Photo Library on your iPhone, iPad, Mac, PC, and Apple TV to back up your photos and video, optimize storage on your devices, and share images with your friends and family.
How to use and manage iCloud Photo Library
Once you've subscribed to Apple's iCloud service and have iCloud Photo Library enabled, you'll have access to your entire photo and video library on any device — even if it can't store those images locally. The Photos app for iPhone, iPad, and Mac (and the iCloud Photos app on PC) provides easy viewing for images you've taken or saved to your library on your current device; it also syncs with your iCloud Photo Library, where you can view anything you've saved from any device.
We've got guides on how to look at your iCloud-stored photos alongside your local images, edit and share them, view them while online or offline, keep your private photos private, and how to keep iCloud Photo Library from taking up all your storage space.
How to set up and use iCloud Photo Sharing
Apple's iCloud service includes iCloud Photo Sharing, which lets you share images and video with friends, family, and colleagues on an iPhone, iPad, Mac, PC, or Apple TV. While technically considered part of iCloud Photo Library, iCloud Photo Sharing exists outside of the service: You don't have to use iCloud Photo Library to share your images, and shared albums don't count toward your iCloud storage.
Best of all, creating shared albums is simpler than uploading images to Facebook or Instagram, and safer, too: Your images and video stay private between your group, and you can take the album down at any time. If you want to reach a wider range of people, you can even create a public iCloud.com website to host your images for anyone with the link to view them.
How to back up and troubleshoot iCloud Photo Library
Best Free Photo Library For Mac
Questions?
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Update Photo Library On Mac
iCloud Photo Library: The Ultimate Guide
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For all your USB-C needsThe HybridDrive is a USB-C dock with an SSD built in
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