Can't open photo albums when uploading an image on MacBook Pro

I've never been able to upload an image easily to a website, or app from my MacBook Pro. I have done all the updates right away when they become available, but have never been able to go to an album and then select the image I want.

Example would be trying to upload an image to a photo printing place online, but none of my albums show up, and so I have to scroll through all my photos in photo library to find the one photo I want, when I already have it saved in an album that should be easy to find. So frustrating!!

Any suggestions or help to make uploading images would be greatly appreciated!!

Thanks!!

MacBook Pro 14″, macOS 15.6

Posted on Sep 16, 2025 11:03 AM

Reply
1 reply

Sep 16, 2025 11:52 AM in response to AppleCider12

AppleCider12 wrote: …Any suggestions or help to make uploading images would be greatly appreciated!!

Sure. And you're right, not showing albums in the Media selector is crazy. There are several methods that we use-- some more than others.


  • One option is to, in Photos, select the pictures you want to send and use File>Export to send the pictures to a folder on the Desktop. Then in Safari you can load from that folder in Finder. The big advantage here is that you get to choose the size of the picture, its compression quality, and whether or not you want private information like location, captions, etc. You can also replace the filename with sequential titles, so they can reman in order.

  • Another way to go is to, in Photos, select the pictures you want to send, and give them all a temporary unique keyword, like AppleCider12 maybe. Then, in Safari, you can use the search field to hunt for those pictures. Here, I'm looking for Mushrooms

Then, you can delete those keywords if you want.

  • Or, if all your pictures have something in common, maybe a date or a subject, then you may be able to get what you need by just typing a description into Safari's search field. Here I've typed in Red Shirt, and I get only (well mostly) pictures of people in red shirts.

Independent of uploading to a web site, it's really useful to use keywords. Then it's easy to use Smart Albums to help pick out the pictures you want, even if it's not for uploading. Keywords are a great tool for organizing pictures. I use keywords with keyword shortcuts to help me choose favorites, for instance. You can see this for some hints about keywords:

Choosing Favorites using Keywords in Mac … - Apple Community


Can't open photo albums when uploading an image on MacBook Pro

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