Out of control photo library, Please help.

Need photo storage advice please.


Have 3 macs with different large photo libraries. Family of 5 with 5 phones loaded with pictures. I would like to have all my photos in one location preferably some sort of drive and a way to back it up.


Thank you Kirby

Posted on Dec 17, 2019 4:48 AM

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Posted on Dec 17, 2019 5:25 AM

The only supported way to keep photos libraries on external volumes, is to use a "sneaker drive", a portable drive, that you plug into the Mac where you want work with the library. Photos for Mac does not support the remote access to a photos library. You cannot keep the the Photos Library on a NAS, or a network share, or on iCloud Drive, Google Drive, or a DropBox. If you want use the same Photos Library on several Macs, the only supported way is iCloud Photos or the portable external drive.

See: Move your Photos library to save space on your Mac - Apple Support


If you want o merge your Photos Libraries from the three separate Macs into one library, you have several options, none is really easy - it will take a lot of time for large libraries: Notes on Merging Photos Libraries, 2019 Version

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Dec 17, 2019 5:25 AM in response to letitia162

The only supported way to keep photos libraries on external volumes, is to use a "sneaker drive", a portable drive, that you plug into the Mac where you want work with the library. Photos for Mac does not support the remote access to a photos library. You cannot keep the the Photos Library on a NAS, or a network share, or on iCloud Drive, Google Drive, or a DropBox. If you want use the same Photos Library on several Macs, the only supported way is iCloud Photos or the portable external drive.

See: Move your Photos library to save space on your Mac - Apple Support


If you want o merge your Photos Libraries from the three separate Macs into one library, you have several options, none is really easy - it will take a lot of time for large libraries: Notes on Merging Photos Libraries, 2019 Version

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Out of control photo library, Please help.

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