How to transfer your iPhone or Mac Photo library to an external drive. By AppleInsider Staff Wednesday, January 31, 2018, 04:40 pm PT (07:40 pm ET) Storing an entire collection of photographs in. Mar 18, 2020 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. To transfer your photos library from an Apple Mac to an external drive, you first need to locate the photos or a folder you wish to move. You can right-click and copy, then paste in the new location. Dragging and dropping will also copy the images or folder.
Manually copy your library to an external storage device: Drag the Photos library (by default in the Pictures folder on your Mac) to your storage device to create a copy. If you have more than one photo library, be sure to back them all up.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Mac Copy Photo Library To External Drive 2019
However, if you are running macOS Sierra and older, you can actually hide or unhide the sidebar as you wish.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Voilá! 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.
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 — 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 — I'd delete a photo, but the reference file would stay in its original location, even after deleting it from the 'Recently Deleted' folder. https://newne406.weebly.com/blog/organise-photo-library-mac. 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 MacMainFor all your USB-C needsThe HybridDrive is a USB-C dock with an SSD built in
You need more ports, right? And you probably need more storage, right? What you really need is the HybridDrive.
Apple's photo management software for the Mac, Photos, has grown to be a fairly competent all-purpose storage locker. But as your photo and video library grows — and especially if you've taken advantage of iCloud Photo Library — you may find that your Photos library strains to fit on your Mac's hard drive.
While there are options to keep your Mac from running out of space, like optimizing your photo storage if you use iCloud Photo Library, it comes at a cost: Without a fully-stored Photos library, you won't be able to create secondary backups of your images and video. (And as good as iCloud has become, your photos and video are precious enough that they're worth keeping backed up in multiple places.)
There is an alternative: Moving your Photos library to an external drive (or creating an entirely separate library and syncing it with iCloud). Here's how to do it, and some reasons why you should — and shouldn't! — consider it for your needs.
Why you should (and shouldn't) use an external drive with Photos for Mac
There are a number of reasons why an external drive might make sense when you're working with Photos for Mac:
That said, there are some downsides, too. Here are some reasons you might not want to use an external drive:
Best external drives for storing photos
Okay, so you've decided to move your Photos library over to an external drive. What next? If you already have an external drive, you can always use it for storing your Photos library (and save on cash). But if you're considering getting a new drive for this endeavor, here's what I suggest:
Want some recommendations for specific external hard drives? We've got those, too.
How to move your current Photos library to an external drive and use it as your primary library
As with creating a new library, moving your library to your external drive is a multi-step process. Here's how to go about it.
Step 1: Copy over your Photos library
Your library will begin to copy over to your external drive. Depending on the size of your library and speed of your drive, this can take anywhere from a few minutes to several hours, so be patient. Don't unplug your drive or turn off your computer during this process.
Step 2 (if you use iCloud): Turn off iCloud sync on your old library
Before you open your copied Photos library on the external drive, you have to disassociate the library on your Mac from iCloud. (If you don't use iCloud Photo Library, you can skip these steps.)
Step 3: Make your new library your system default
Now, it's time to make your newly-copied Photos library your system default.
Step 4 (if you use iCloud): Connect your new library to iCloud
Your external library is now set up to be your system default, but it's not currently connected to iCloud. If you use iCloud Photo Library and want to keep that connection active so that you can continually download items you've stored, read on. (Otherwise, you can skip this step.)
Once your library has fully synced and downloaded images, you can disconnect your drive; whenever you want to use your Photos library, you now need to connect your drive to your Mac.
Step 5: Get rid of your old library
A personal plea: Please, please, please make sure your library is fully copied and working on your external drive before you follow the steps below — once you've thrown away your original library, it's gone!
Now you have a direct link to your copied Photos library from the Pictures folder: This prevents your computer from accidentally creating multiple Photos libraries in case you forget to launch Photos with your external drive connected. How to create another itunes library on mac.
Note: If you're worried about accidentally creating libraries, you can always launch Photos by option-clicking on its icon in the Dock or Applications folder; this will give you the option of picking which library you'd like to launch.
How to create a new Photos library on your external drive and use it as your primary library
Creating a new library on your external drive is a multi-step process. Here's how to go about it.
Step 1 (if you use iCloud): Turn off iCloud sync on your old library
Before you create a new Photos library, you have to disassociate your current library as your system default. (If you don't use iCloud Photo Library, you can skip these steps.)
Step 2: Create your new Photos library
Once you've done this, it's time to create a new library.
Step 3: Make your new library your system default
You'll now have an empty library on your external drive. Next up: Making it your system library.
Step 4 (if you use iCloud): Connect your new library to iCloud
Your external library has now been set up from scratch. If you use iCloud Photo Library and want to download all the items you've stored there to have an external backup, read on. (Otherwise, you can skip this step.)
Once your library has fully synced and downloaded images, you can disconnect your drive; whenever you want to use your Photos library, you now need to connect your drive to your Mac.
Step 5: Get rid of your old library
A personal plea: Please, please, please make sure your new library is live and working on your external drive before you follow the steps below — once you've thrown away your original library, it's gone!
Now you have a direct link to your Photos library from the Pictures folder: This prevents your computer from accidentally creating multiple Photos libraries in case you forget to launch Photos with your external drive connected.
Note: If you're worried about accidentally creating libraries, you can always launch Photos by option-clicking on its icon in the Dock or Applications folder; this will give you the option of picking which library you'd like to launch.
Questions?
Let us know in the comments.
Updated March 2019: Updated for macOS Mojave.
Serenity Caldwell contributed to an earlier version of this post.
iCloud Photo Library: The Ultimate GuideMainBacking up: The ultimate guideOpen Iphoto LibraryMainFor all your USB-C needsMac Copy Photo Library To External Drive FilesThe HybridDrive is a USB-C dock with an SSD built inBacking Up Photos From Mac
You need more ports, right? And you probably need more storage, right? What you really need is the HybridDrive.
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