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Two Photo Libraries On Mac

  1. Change Photo Library On Mac
  2. Merge Two Photo Libraries On Mac
  3. Move Photo Library On Mac
  4. Switch Photo Library On Mac

Apr 01, 2020  Follow these steps to designate a System Photo Library: Quit Photos. Hold down the Option key and open Photos. One of the photo libraries is already designated as YourLibraryName (System Photo Library). Choose the library you want to designate as the System Photo Library. After Photos opens the. It helps you to create and manage multiple libraries, copy photos between libraries, find duplicates, and—most important for this topic—merge libraries. Because PowerPhotos is working entirely on your Mac’s drive, it’s fast and it doesn’t require huge amounts of extra disk space. Jan 12, 2020  It's not clear why Apple decided to hide the user's Library folder, but you have multiple ways to get it back: two Apple provides (depending on the version of OS X you are using) and one in the underlying file system. The method you use depends on whether you want permanent access to the Library folder or only when you need to go there. Enter iPhoto Library Manager and PowerPhotos, two Mac photo library manage apps from the same app development team. Obviously, the app names tell the story. IPhoto Library Manager has been around for years and does what is not easily done in iPhoto. Manage multiple photo libraries for iPhoto libraries on older Macs. Oct 28, 2019  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 ⌘,). 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. 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.

11 9 likes 5,345 views Last modified Feb 13, 2020 10:54 AM

When merging two photo libraries we usually want a lossless merge:

  1. The original photos and the edited versions should be merged into the merged library as master-version pairs, so it will be possible to revert edited photos to the original.
  2. The library structure with albums, smart albums should be preserved in the merged library.
  3. All metadata, including the faces labels should be migrated.
  4. The products (books, cards, calendars, slideshows) should be migrated.


Written for Photos 4.0 on macOS 10.14.4 or older:

(this applies to Photos 5.0 on Catalina as well)

There is currently no completely lossless way to merge Photos Libraries, because Photos does not support importing one Photos Library into another library. All work-around methods are compromises. There is no lossless merging of Photos Libraries other than iCloud Photo Library, and even the merging in iCloud will not include the print products. Photos 2.0 or older will not sync the faces with iCloud.

Open a Finder window. Iphone backup location. If you’re old school and still prefer to backup your iOS devices through iTunes, it’d be handy to know where those backups are located. Click on Go Go To Folder. Follow along to learn where iTunes stores its backups.Where does iTunes store backups?On a Mac.


If you are planning to migrate your photo libraries from Aperture or iPhoto to Photos and own Aperture 3.6, merge your libraries in Aperture before the migration while you still can use Aperture as described here: Aperture 3.3: How to use Aperture to merge iPhoto libraries - Apple Support

Make backup copies of the libraries before you try that.


The options in Photos are:

  • Merge the libraries in iCloud by uploading them to the same iCloud Photo Library: Merging in iCloud is the only way to preserve the master-version pairs, so you can revert edited photos to the original versions. Your albums and folders will migrate, keywords, titles, and other metadata. All edited images will be paired with their originals, so you can undo the edits and revert to the original. The searchable faces names will upload (only on Photos 1.5 or older, not on Photos 2.0), but not the faces thumbnails and albums. Photos will scan for duplicate original files while merging and resolve conflicts between duplicate originals. It is the best way to migrate libraries you invested much work into, but uploading large libraries to iCloud requires a paid subscription for more storage than the free 5GB - for at least a month, and it is slow. My library with 40000 photos took a full week to upload.
    • To merge in iCloud enable the smaller of the two libraries as your iCloud Photo Library.
    • Wait for all photos to upload; that can take a very long time, a week ore more, depending on the size of the library. Photos will merge the the library into the library that is already in iCloud.
    • Now enable the larger library as your iCloud Photo Library. This library will be merged into the library in iCloud too, creating a merged library in iCloud. The merged library will sync back to your larger Photos Library. The merge will not include the Faces albums and projects from the first library you uploaded. That is why I recommend to start with the smaller library. The download will be like to a different Mac, see: Use Photos and iCloud Photo Library on multiple Mac computers - Apple Support
    • To sync the faces names with iCloud Photo Library, I apply keywords with the names of the persons to all photos in a people album. Photos 1 and 2 cannot sync the named faces, but Photos 3 and 4 can sync them.


  • Merge the libraries by exporting the photos (edited versions and originals) from one library and reimporting them into the other library. (Combine libraries in Photos - Apple Support) This is the most tedious way and only feasible for very small libraries. You would have to export the edited versions and the originals separately and they would no longer be paired. On Yosemite or El Capitan - even if you export the originals with XMP sidecar files to preserve the IPTC metadata, the metadata from the sidecar file will not be applied to the originals when reimporting. Your metadata will be gone, unless you export the edited versions as JPEGS. So there is no help for it but to export both, the originals and the edited versions, and to deal with the duplicates. Photos 2.0 on Sierra can read the sidecar files on import - so exporting with XMP files will transfer the metadata to the new library.

But you will have to recreate the albums and smart albums as well.


  • Merge the libraries with PowerPhotos 1.62 or newer: PowerPhotos is a tool to manage Photos Libraries. You can easily browse libraries in turn and move photos and videos between libraries (not bursts). Merging with PowerPhotos is fast (https://www.fatcatsoftware.com/powerphotos/. It will migrate the metadata (but not the faces) and the albums. Fully supported: photos and videos, keeping keywords, descriptions, titles, dates, favorites, locations, bursts, and Live Photos intact; albums, folders, and moments. On older versions of Photos (up to Photos 4 on Mojave) you have to decide, if you want to use the originals or the edited versions. So you will either lose the editing work or the high quality originals or create redundancy by merging twice in two passes, once to transfer the originals, and then the edited versions. You will have to add a pass to remove duplicates afterward. See chapter six in the PowerPhotos manual: : https://www.fatcatsoftware.com/powerphotos/Help/merging%20libraries.html, also: https://www.fatcatsoftware.com/powerphotos/Help/copying%20limitations.html. For older versions of PowerPhotos more limitations apply.
  • Another option would by to keep both libraries separate and use PowerPhotos to browse the libraries and to transfer selected albums as you go.

On Mojave, iCloud Photo Library would be the best option. Merging with PowerPhotos the second best. If you are tagging faces in Photos or are using iCloud Photos anyway, I would go for the iCloud merge or upgrade to Catalina, see below.

Change Photo Library On Mac


Update for PowerPhotosVersion: 1.7.7 on Catalina macOS10.15.2

PowerPhotos now supports a nearly lossless merging of libraries and exporting partial libraries, including the locations, videos, Live Photos. There are still a few limitation for smart albums and named faces. But PowerPhotos now lets us move photos between libraries as master-version pair with reversible edits. Live Photos are also supported. See the updated feature list:

And the limitations when merging into an iCloud Photos Library:


Update for Photos 3.0 on macOS 10.13 and Photos 4.0 on macOS 10.14 Mojave:

Merge Two Photo Libraries On Mac

Photos 3.0 and Photos 4.0 will also sync the recognized faces when you merge two Photos libraries in iCloud. Projects do still not sync to iCloud.

Move Photo Library On Mac


Switch Photo Library On Mac

Old deprecated version: Notes on Merging Photos Libraries - Apple Community