Can 2 Different Computers Use The Same Mac Photos Library

Mar 18, 2017  Sharing is caring How to use multiple iPhone or iPad devices with one computer If you and your family share the same computer but each have different content on your iPhone or iPad, you can still sync without getting things mixed up. Apr 22, 2015  How to use multiple photo libraries with Photos for Mac. To choose a different library than the library you last opened, hold down the Option key when launching Photos. How to use multiple. Nov 22, 2010  The Easiest Way to Share Lightroom Catalogs with Different Computers. ( 1 laptop, 1 deskop w/mutliple ext. HDD ) both running Vista & LR3. If I make sure the catalogs on both computers have the same name, can I use Live Mesh to keep those files updated? Adrian Campbell-Howard 7 June. Is the Mac way: All your photos are in /volumes//.

Hi! I’m in the midst of some confusing computer issues.
I’m new to mac, and I’ve put a huge number of pictures into iPhoto. Now all of my old and new jpeg files exist in the iPhoto Library in Finder.
If a few years down the road I get a Windows laptop, will I be able to transfer my iPhoto Library to my Windows “My Pictures” and still be able to access the files? The Windows computer wouldn’t have iPhoto, so does that mean it wouldn’t be able to view them? I’m really nervous about losing the ability to access my pictures.
Would it be safer not to use iPhoto? I really like the program, but I don’t want to lose accessibility if I need to use Windows. I have two external hard drives that I frequently use to back up my files, and both are Mac/Windows compatible. The issue is just if the iPhoto Library will be transferable or not.
Thank you SO much in advance for any help! Sorry if I was repetitive – I’m trying to wrap my head around this!

Oct 28, 2019  Mastering Photos for Mac How to use Photos with multiple Macs. Open your other Mac, and launch Photos. If you have an iPhoto library on that secondary. How can I share Photos across multiple users on Apple Photos, without paying for iCloud? Ask Question Asked 4 years, 9 months ago. Active 1 year, 3 months ago. Viewed 41k times 2. Me and my wife have separate Itunes accounts and have separate users on our Mac computer. If they share the same Photos library on the Mac drive. Feb 06, 2007  Another way to maintain ONE library is to use VNC (aka 'remote desktop) and she can run Aperture on the Mac Pro with the diosplay send over the notebook. This simply eliminates the problem The Mac iPro is happy to let two people be logged in at the same same time the notbook would simply be providing a seconmd monitor/keyboard foer the Mac Pro.

Observing members: 0 Composing members: 0

3 Answers

Can 2 Different Computers Use The Same Mac Photos Library Size

iPhoto is a bit tricky. You will find iPhoto Library in your pictures folder. You need to get the pictures out of that. Right click (Command click) on it and select “Show Package Contents” In there you will see a folder with the originals. From there you can drag them to a external drive. They will open without a problem on a Windows machine.

@thisisfun Thank you for your help!! I love the idea of being able to get the pictures out of iPhoto. I followed through and did the Show Package Contents, then clicked on the Originals folder. However, the Originals folder was only 4KB big (and I have about 200GB of pictures) – and didn’t contain pictures. Does this mean iPhoto doesn’t have the originals?
Thank you, again!!

@hellolulu No, it doesn’t nessesarily mean that. If you’ve edited a photo, it puts the original version of it in the original folder. If you haven’t touched it up or anything, it wouldn’t be in the original folder.

Can 2 Different Computers Use The Same Mac Photos Library Mac

Answer this question

This question is in the General Section. Responses must be helpful and on-topic.

I want to share a single iPhoto library between two Mac computers. I would like to store the iPhoto library on the network because both Macs may not be connected at the same time.

After reading the article Save Space On Your Mac By Storing iPhoto & iTunes Libraries Remotely Save Space On Your Mac By Storing iPhoto & iTunes Libraries RemotelyWith my head held low with shame, I publicly admitted last week that I'm a digital hoarder. My once blazingly fast Mac is now left with just 100GB of a 1TB drive left. I've already.. Read More on MakeUseOf, there is a comment there by Pierre and answer by James saying it’s not possible to for two Macs to use the same iPhoto library concurrently. Is there a way to get around this?

The other thing is, the office is all Windows apart from these two Macs, so I also need recommendations on network solution as the iPhoto library won’t open when on a non-mac formatted network share file system (I.e Windows Server).

Any suggestions?
Thanks

  1. Deleting mac photos library. The main problem is that iPhoto is purely client-sided. There is no 'server' or 'database' back-end therefor there is no safe way to use it on multiple systems simultaneously.
    Yes, if both Macs are running the same iPhoto version and the Library is stored on a central storage (e.g. external disk or a server) then both clients can use the same iPhoto Library in turns ~ I wouldn't recommend doing at the same time.

    Then you hit the already mentioned problems of it being a OS X only application and being 'unique'.
    On Windows you will never truly be able to use all the (meta)data you store within iPhoto. Basically you can only use the actual photos. And yes, this means you can access the iPhoto Library using Windows - it's actually just a file and folder structure. It is some 'magic' within OS X that makes it look like a single large library file.

    As for the storage:
    I don't recommend anything other than HFS+. iPhoto stores certain (meta)data in a way only HFS+ supports it. On NTFS or FAT32 you will get regular problems and errors, rarely data loss.
    http://support.apple.com/kb/TS5168
    So if you attempt to do this at all it should be a Mac playing AFP and SMB server for both systems.

    In your case I would start looking into a cross-platform Digital Asset Management.
    I don't have any experience or knowledge of some of the freeware options here. For payed options there would be Canto and Celum. But they both start in the four-digits as far as I remember.
    http://www.canto.com/
    http://www.celum.com/

  2. iPhoto '11 (version 9) library's volume is unsupported
    http://floppydonkeyste.blogspot.fr/2011/09/iphoto-11-version-9-librarys-volume-is.html

  3. Apple actually have a support article on this topic at http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1198. In a nutshell, you can move the iPhoto Library to a file server, but as you rightly mention in your question, access from both Macs at once could lead to unpredictable results. You _could_ use a Windows server, but Windows machines still won't be able to access the photos as the library uses a proprietary format.

    In terms of alternatives, it would help to have some context so we can make suggestions. What are you trying to achieve? How big are the libraries? Does everyone need access to the photos, or only a few users? Does everyone need to be able to upload photos, or just one or two people? Are the photos for viewing only/downloading/something else?

    • Hello Oron,

      Thanks for your reply. I did come across that article. Putting the iPhoto library on a network share, does not work, like you said because the file system is of a different format.

      The context:
      - Two Mac laptops
      - Wanting to share the same iPhoto library and meta data added to the photo's
      - Both users will need to access and be able add photo's and meta data to the library
      - Library to be used to assist with creating content with Pages for Mac http://www.apple.com/mac/pages/ (so viewing, downloading and adding to applications)
      - Library to be accessed by a select few people only in a network
      - If possible, have photo and meta data access from Windows machines as well
      - Libraries currently would store around 10000 photo's+ (estimate)
      - Apparently to import images to Pages for Mac, they images need to be in a iPhoto library - I am yet to try drag and drop

      Thanks.