Export Photos Library Mac

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 20, 2016  In this video, I'll show you how to safely move your Photos library to an external hard disk and free up an amazing amount of space in the process.

Export photos in a selected format. In the Photos app on your Mac, select the item you want to export. Choose File Export Export number Photos. Click the Photo Kind pop-up menu and choose the file type for the exported photos. JPEG creates small-size files suitable for use with websites. Jan 29, 2015  Cool Tip: If you want to transfer your iPhoto Library to another Mac just plug your drive to it and copy your iPhoto library backup to the target Mac’s Pictures folder. Be warned though, this. The most important thing is your photos and videos. You can transfer all your photos from iPhoto to Windows with simple steps. To do so, open 'iPhoto' on your Mac and select all your photos to transfer. Click 'File' menu and select 'Export' option. A 'File Export' window opens up. How to export your Photo Booth photos and videos. The Photo Booth Library and choose Show. Or you can empty them out of the library in the Finder. This Mac 911 article is in response to a. Nov 12, 2017  In Photos, select Photos / Preferences to identify your photo library location. After the dialog pops up, there is a button 'Show in Finder' - press this to get to your photos directory. This opens it in the Finder, then right click and Show Package Content.

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.

Export pictures from mac to external drive

Move your Photos library to an external storage device

  1. Quit Photos.
  2. In the Finder, go to the external drive where you want to store your library.
  3. In another Finder window, find your library. The default location is Users > [username] > Pictures, and it's named Photos Library.
  4. 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

  5. After the move is finished, double-click Photos Library in its new location to open it.
  6. If you use iCloud Photo Library, designate this library as the System Photo Library.

Export Photo Library Mac

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.

Copy Photos To External Drive Mac

Open another Photos library

If you have multiple libraries, here's how to open a different one: How to get to library mac.

  1. Quit Photos.
  2. Press and hold the Option key while you open Photos.
  3. Select the library that you want to open, then click Choose Library.

Export All From Mac Photos Library

Photos uses this library until you open a different one.

With the release of Mac OS X Lion way back in 2011, Apple removed easy access to the user’s Library folder. Although arguably well-intentioned, this change was frustrating for longtime Mac power. How to make library folder visible on mac sierra Dec 13, 2016  How to Unhide and Make Library Folder Visible in macOS Sierra By Mahesh Makvana December 13, 2016 The Library folder for the users on a Mac is always hidden as Apple just doesn’t want you to access it as it thinks you don’t need access to it.

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.

Export Pictures From Mac To External Drive

1. You can't move your library to a disk that's used for Time Machine backups.

Export Mac Photos To Windows

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.