Can I access my Photos library from Finder on MacBook Pro?

In Mail, there is a button for Photos Browser

which works well if your pictures are pretty recent, or if you have something distinct (like a keyword) to search by. Unfortunately, it doesn't show albums. Browsers also make this available-- when you open a site's upload routine to find a file, Photos is at the bottom of the sidebar. Again, no albums.

No one understands why albums aren't included in the media chooser-- if we have far flung pictures, we find them in Photos, put them in an album, and then export the album. Keep in mind that pictures can be in multiple albums without taking up extra space-- albums are just lists of pictures to see together. Exports, of course, take space, so I usually delete them after use.

I hope this helps with the Windows to Mac thing…

I'm not sure exactly what you are wanting to do. "Pictures" that you see in the Finder Settings is the Pictures Folder that contains the Photos Library, but putting that int he Sidebar doesn't get you to the pictures inside the Library. Things in the Sidebar are folder-like things, not apps. Apps are most easily used from the Dock. You can put whatever Folders you like in the Sidebar, and you can put whatever Apps you like in the Dock.

If you want to be able to scan through the pictures in your Photos Library, then you have to be running the Photos app, not the Finder app. If there are specific pictures that you'd like to access from Finder, then you can use Photos to export those to a Folder (maybe inside the Pictures folder,) and you can put that Folder in the Sidebar. I sometimes put folders in my Sidebar for quick access when I'm organizing files or using multiple apps, like when I scan old pictures.

Is this what you need?

The problem is, that photos in the Photos.app are not just files. They are represented in Photos by a set of files describing the edits, metadata and the relation to other photos. The Finder has not been designed to handle this.

We need the Photos.app to retrieve the photos from the library for us. If possible, use the Share menu in Photos to share the photos directly from Photos. Perhaps the app you are using for uploading has a sharing extension for Photos.

Richard has mentioned the Media Browser (or Photo Browser). In addition to Mail also the iWork apps are supporting the media Browser and can access the system photos library this way.

Other apps , that do not implement the protocol for the photo picker, can only access the media browser from the file chooser dialog - in the sidebar of the window.

Open Finder, cluck Finder > Settings in the menu bar, click the Sidebar tab and check every item you’d like to see in the Finder sidebar, including Pictures (and perhaps Movies.)

Just drag the Photos application file into the Dock. That will let you open your library from the Dock.

my pleasure, Erwin 😊

Thanks for you thanks!