Understanding How Your Photos Are Stored in Your Mac Photos App

macmost.com/e-3146 When you store photos in the Photos app, they become part of your Photos Library. But you can also create albums to view your photos in a different way. What exactly happens when you put a photo from your Library in an album?
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00:00 Intro
00:28 The Photos Library
01:22 Photos Albums
02:15 Are Photos There Twice?
03:48 Photos Albums Are Like Music Playlists
05:10 Uses For Albums
05:40 You Don't Need To Use Albums At All
06:20 Removing Photos From Albums
07:14 Deleting a Photo From Your Library
07:33 Can You Just Have Albums, And No Library?
08:47 What About the iPhone, iPad and iCloud Photos?
#macmost #mactutorial

[@hedydd2]

Basically the albums are just tags applied to the chosen photos in the full library. When an album is chosen to view, all photos in the library with that album’s tag are chosen to view. Multiple tags [albums] can be attached to any particular photo file. Deleting from an album just removes the tag that associates it to that album.

[@macmost]

Yes. That's another way of looking at it.

[@Evanescence4ever100]

I'd say more like filters of viewing photos

[@nidostar2013]

Thanks Gary. Glad you used playlists as an analogy. That’s exactly how I like to explain the relationship between Photos and Albums.

[@phillyrcj]

Thank you for this video. I have thousands of hoots on my phone and I didn’t fully understand the relationship between the library and the albums. I was afraid of deleting anything. Now that you’ve explained it, I feel comfortable removing things from an album knowing they will still be in my library.

[@struttinladysoulakacultivator]

💃🏿I appreciate your vidoes. My son gave me a Mac and said, "learn on KZbin".

[@cdoggsawesomevids2784]

I have been requesting a feature for years where there is a toggle to essentially ‘hide’ or ‘not show’ sorted photos (photos that have been assigned to an album) when viewing your overall library. This could work much like the shared photo feature in the library where the shared photos can be hidden. I think it would offer much more incentive for users to organize their libraries and clean up extra photos from their library.

[@macmost]

You can do that. Just set up a Smart Album where it shows Album, Is Not, Any. Then use that instead of looking at All Photos (which is, by definition, All Photos).

[@runwiththerunners8152]

That is great Gary. I am one who has struggled with this now I understand photos and iTunes. Thank you for the clarity.

[@frhwebmaster]

Many still think of a photo album, like a physical photo album book, their parents and/or grandparents had on the coffee table or a bookshelf.

[@vidform]

So, a Photos album is almost like - but not quite - the Recents folder in Finder in how you can see your photos in 2 different places. I think the reason we get confused with albums in Photos is because we think moving a photo to an album is the same as moving a file into a folder in Finder - the file/photo gets moved from one location to another and no longer exists in the previous location unless it's been copied. When I started creating albums for the first time in Photos, I didn't understand why the photos still appeared in Library. I was trying to cleanup and organize my photos by putting them in different albums. Turns out, that's not how it works. I like how you used playlists as an analogy for albums. Very helpful.

[@rdfuhr]

The analogy that Gary provided is a useful one: playlists are to songs the way albums are to photos. Another possible analogy is that of tags for files shown in the Finder.

[@mirto5663]

Very helpful. Housecleaning my photo albums.

[@GozoAya]

Hi Gary. Two extra points! I think a given photo can appear in multiple albums. And, I'm assuming that if I edit a photo when viewing it from within an album, then the edits affect all instances of the photo?

[@macmost]

Yes, as I say in the video you can certainly have one photo in multiple albums. There is only ONE copy of that photo. If you edit it, that edits the ONE photo and you'll see those changes anywhere that photo appears.

[@Mziselman]

This was very helpful, Gary. Thank you.

[@johannebaril945]

Exactly the video I needed this morning. Thank you very much.

[@plume1639]

Your videos have helped me a lot over the last year. Thank you so much for doing them!

[@Larry77777]

Hey Gary: I really like making/loading Albums in the Photos app on my MacBook. By also using the menu item "Images", I like to Adjust Date and Time on my added screenshots and images from other sources to fit chronologically among my Photos in my Albums. Then click Slideshow at the top of any Album and sit back and enjoy. Renaming any album is easy: just click its name a second time and edit it. I also drag/position them so they appear chronological in my long list of Albums.

[@frhwebmaster]

Thank you Gary.

[@georgee3401]

Very informative video. As usual with your tutorials, I learned new things. Many thanks!

[@loisskiathitis8926]

A very useful and informative video tutorial today! So fun! Thank you, Gary! 👏🏻❤️

[@wondersteven]

Thank you for this.

[@carolcaldwell9192]

Thanks Gary very helpful ❤

[@thomasjacques5286]

So I can build and use ALBUMS and ignore the Library. I need to get organized. Plowing through my entire Library looking for specific photos is a PITA. This now makes sense. Thanks for the great content and info. UPDATE: While watching this I created an ALBUM for my daughter's wedding and copied over 600 photos into it. I feel so silly. Thanks again.

[@macmost]

Right, you can do it how you like. And keep in mind the word "copied" is not the right one to use. To be clear, nothing is copied. Those 600 photos are still in your Library once like before, but now they appear in that album.

[@60beats44]

Thank you so much Gary. So well explained, especially with the diagrams that you used. I also relate these features to the 'Alias' function of my 'Numbers' tables. It remains a mystery for me though why I have more than 2,000 photos duplicates in my Photos library.

[@clairelindsay3066]

Super helpful 👍🏻

[@fjfjrfjfjr]

Thank you Sir! 😀

[@GoodHomeInspection]

Explained well and good to know.

[@jobeejay8201]

Thank you 🙏

[@desertpatient]

Thanks bunches

[@decimanightelf4135]

When I first switched from a pc to a Mac I didn’t realize their folders didn’t work the same way, so I moved photos into an album and then deleted them from the library. Didn’t realize until weeks later that they had disappeared from the album as well, and it was too late to recover them. Lesson learned! I have found that you can save photos in the Notes app without saving them to your library.

[@dchungmanson]

Thanks this is great as I got mixed up with tags for …..? 😊😊😊

[@randallyons8745]

very succinct

[@Mtgavin55]

@macmost Great video Gary. Can you explain how the "Recents" works. When I delete a photo out of "recents" it's allso deleted out of the "Library" also. That doesn't make any sense to me. How do you clean up the "recents" folder/library? Confused...

[@macmost]

It is just another way of looking at your photos. Like with the albums, your photos are only there once. You just have different ways of viewing them.

[@nunuvyurbiz123]

It's like a "viewlist." Another analogy is to aliases in Finder. One frustration is that, as far as I can tell, *shared* albums do create duplicates. That could be desired, but I can also see having shared albums be just links too, so that when you edit the photo in your photo library, the image in the shared library gets updated.

[@60beats44]

If ever you decide to produce a detailed lecture on how the 'Duplicates' feature in the Apple Photos app (Mac) works and using similar (brilliant) tools that you used in this video, I for one would be very grateful, Gary. When looking at the Photos library and discovering these apparent duplicates it would be great if Apple would indicate if any of these photographs are also linked to certain albums. I don't want to delete and remove a jpeg from an album by accident. Hope that this makes some sense?

[@macmost]

I have: kzbin.info/www/bejne/a2GVloCee9iHm68 You don't have to worry about albums. If you try out the Duplicates feature you can see the "action" is to "merge." So if you have a duplicate photo where one is in album A, and the other is in album B, and then you merge, then the one remaining copy of that photo will now be in A and B. If there was one in no album and the other in album A, then the remaining copy after a merge would be in album A.

[@60beats44]

@@macmost Thank you Gary. It was because of you and your KZbin site that I switched from Windows to Mac and I am sure that I am not the only one who is so very grateful for your service. Cordially, Ralf

[@shutterbug49]

Great info and presentation. Can you do tutorials on Shared Albums and Shared Libraries?

[@macmost]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/qKWVmX57qJKNkLc kzbin.info/www/bejne/fqG7laqgeN1mjac

[@leewood28]

Clear and plain language video. You have a talent for teaching.

[@peterdixon6807]

Thanks Gary, very useful. Also, clicking on the heading “My Albums” in the navigation pane changes the ‘view’ pane to show all your Album ‘icons’ - a bit like folder view. I tend to use that a lot as I mainly work/sort by album. I have two Photos Libraries and switch between them when I open the app on my iMac [hold down Option key when you click to open Photos ], depending on what I am working on. I also sync Photos with an iPad but have never been able to work out how to sync and access both Libraries on the iPad. Does anyone know if it is possible?

[@macmost]

You can only have one iCloud Photos library. And on iOS and iPadOS that's all you can access.

[@peterdixon6807]

@@macmost I sort of suspected that, thank you for confirming it.

[@smarbac1]

Thank you for that video. I have a question about deleting photos from your library where they are also stored in iCloud. I have tons of photos in iCloud and want to remove about half of them that I no longer need. I also seem to have a lot of duplicates that I need to get rid of. Can you address that issue, please?

[@macmost]

For Duplicates, use the built-in Duplicates function to go through them. As for other photos you no longer need, I suppose just delete them? If you do, they will be gone forever. Hard to advise as I don't know what you mean by "no longer need."

[@MaiElizabeth]

Now you bring up this topic, I really hate how the Photos app works on the Mac. It's confusing.

[@jasonward808]

Thank you! One question please, if I store my photos on an external drive and want to import them into this Photos app, will it produce a duplicate and will any edits be made to the original or a duplicate?

[@macmost]

The default settings are that it would import the photo and you'd have a new copy of it in your Photos library, independent of your external drive file. But you can change that in the Photos app settings.

[@akula9713]

The issue I have is there is no way of knowing by looking at the library which photos I have in a virtual album and which ones I don’t. I may have many photos of a similar subject spread over many years. So I have to look at the entire library, select every photo for the virtual album, and hope I have not missed any, and I usually do miss one or two. Even more difficult on an iPad. It would be great to look at the library and see a visual on top of the picture to show which albums it’s in.

[@glennchadwick62]

I created a smart album in photos on my MacBook, called “Not in any Album”. Identifies all photos that I have not put into an album. Conditions: [Album] [is not] [Any]. Smart albums do not work on ipad or iPhone, as far as I know.

[@onecarwood]

OMG I don’t know what to think about you now. Taylor Swift ?!? I’m rethinking everything 😂

[@asraiSOA]

Nice! What would be the point of Folders then. Not really sure I understand what the difference is or why there's both Albums and Folders.

[@macmost]

Folders are a way of grouping albums, that's all.

[@livinginaccordwiththesky]

What about titling a photo in the library. Say the title is "tea-mind" and you put the photo in the "tea-mind" album, but you also want this same photo in the "garden" album. How does titling photos work with album organization?

[@macmost]

The title is for the photo. It would have the same title no matter where you viewed it.

[@johnburgess4561]

Gary - You are my "go to" for all things Mac. I have a Photos / Editing dilemma. I have created an album (Summer 2024) and added photos. I wish to edit the photos with Photoshop Elements. I right click on a picture in my album, the pop up box allows me to Edit With -> Photoshop Elements. The photo opens in Elements, I make edits and select Save. The edited photo now appears in Photos. I return to my MacBook 24 hours later & the picture I edited has reverted to it's original unedited state. What am I doing wrong? I feel like I am loosing my mind? I realize I could edit in the Mac Photos Editor however I prefer PSE. Please help if you are able. Thanks, John

[@macmost]

Not sure what would be causing that. I don't use Photoshop Elements, but whenever I have used an external editor the changes stay. Maybe experiment. What happens when you use another app (Markup, Preview, something else). Does it have the same problem? What happens when you do it with Elements and then simply quit Elements and Photos and restart Photos? Is it really a 24-hour thing, or is something else triggering it?

[@johnburgess4561]

@@macmost Thanks very much, Gary. Good thought, I will experiment with another app. 24 hrs is not a magic number, there is another trigger. Thanks again.

[@JonBushell]

That’s great but how do you get photos in the library? I have 120 gb on an ssd but they don’t show up in library, I have to use adobe Bridge.

[@macmost]

You can use the Import function in Photos, or just drag and drop them into the Library.

[@EdBacon]

@@macmost So does the Photos app create a copy of the photo in its database, or does it simply have a pointer the the physical file on the drive, like Lightroom?

[@macmost]

@@EdBacon It usually imports the photo, so there is a copy inside the library that is independent of the file. But you can change that in the settings. If you change it to link, then it won't be part of iCloud Photos though.

[@alnoormeralli]

Great topic! I have about 100,000 photos already organized in various folders organized by date and genre. Can the Photos App be used to navigate the disk folder structure and view / display these photos? I do not care to organize 100k photos in Albums replicating the folder structure. Are there better photography applications for Mac that can navigate folder structures and open photos in folders? I know Finder can navigate but it is clunky for fast photo viewing.

[@macmost]

No, you'd need to import them into Photos and organize them there, or let Photos organize them for you. Once you do the transition though, you have all of the tools in the Photos app easily available.

[@alnoormeralli]

@@macmost will give that a try. As a photographer, I often want to use my iPad instead of my Mac to show my portfolio. I cannot find the "Import" button on the iPad OS version of Photos to access my pictures in a folder. So using Files to show my pictures.

[@macmost]

@@alnoormeralli In the Files app, tap and hold the image (or use the three-dots and select multiple) and then Share, then Save Image. That sends it to Photos.

[@alnoormeralli]

@@macmost Thank you! Your channel is invaluable.

[@denisejunker]

I haven't figured out why Smart Albums are not seen on iPad or iPhone, only on the laptop. I made regular albums and copy over the Smart Album contents to the regular albums to see them on other devices. It is a hassle. You cannot create a Smart Album on the iPad or iPhone, either.

[@macmost]

The Files app on iOS and iPadOS doesn't do Smart Albums.

[@denisejunker]

@@macmost That is exactly what I said. I didn't present it as succinctly. I am trying to emphasize a "quirk" with the app that is annoying. Maybe something for you to mention in a video - if it has been discussed before and I missed it, my apology. In contrast, you mentioned "like Apple Music playlists" but they do support Music's smart playlists across devices.

[@philiprand3720]

I have some photos I want to hide and that is easily done. There are also photos which would best be put in albums. I have seen (in my Italian "Foto") "foto nascoste" (hidden photos) but not hidden albums. I have a set of photos from a tragic moment in my life, and another set of frivolous ones I don't want to be visible in the library. I'll look again to see if there is provision for hidden albums, but I don't think that exists.

[@macmost]

No, there is no hidden albums feature.

[@Quince828]

One of the things that sometimes confuses me is how photos sent to me in iMessage on my phone or iPad end up in the photo library on my Mac. Is the iCloud Photo Library somehow different from the library on my desktop? Are photos saved in one place automatically shared in the library on every device? I’ve tried changing the settings for photo sharing with iCloud but it’s still a puzzle. And if you delete a photo from your iPad library for example will it remain in other libraries?

[@macmost]

If you are using iCloud Photo Library then you have ONE library and you access it everywhere. If you delete a photo on one device, it is gone from your library, the same library you are looking at everywhere.

[@memoarias4218]

What if I transfer my photos on to a external hard drive to keep as a back up. If I delete my photos from my iPhone or mac, would that affect my external hard drive?

[@macmost]

Depends what you are doing exactly. If you are exporting a copy of a photo to your external drive, then that is an independent file.

[@rrrosecarbinela]

Cool. Now let's talk about slideshows: I select a bunch of photos and make a slideshow. Is the slideshow I created in the Photos app comprised of links to the photos, or are duplicates made? I know I can delete photos from the slideshow and they're still in the library, so I'm assuming it's all links to the actual photo... When I export the slideshow, that WILL be a new file.

[@macmost]

Yes, links to the photos. Duplicates are not made.

[@victormedina2269]

How can I export or extract a photo from the Photos Library and retain all of the original metadata (ie. date taken, etc.) without it changing to the current date (ie. date of export)? Any suggestions?

[@macmost]

File, Export, Unmodified Original. Note the file will have the current time. That's a different thing than the metadata time (the time the photo was taken) which is stored inside the photo.

[@philiprand3720]

OK. Thanks. I hae a feeling there was no album feature in hidden photos.

[@raytreat6599]

Seems to me if you create an album for every event you will end up with a huge list of albums to go through to locate an image. Easier to just search the library directly. Also, unfortunate that if Photos is referencing your pictures folder that it can’t automatically reference and update the library when you put new pics in your pictures folder.

[@Oliver-ob5og]

How can I suggest a topic for a video?

[@macmost]

Ask questions here: macmost.com/ask

[@Elandogold]

So is there a way to export your iPhone photo albums into photos app on Mac during your import?

[@macmost]

Not sure I know what you are trying to do. If you are using iCloud Photos then your Mac and iPhone Photos Library will remain in sync no matter where you import new photos from.

[@Elandogold]

@@macmost if I make an album on iPhone, it doesn’t show up in the photos program on the Mac when I import them.

[@macmost]

Make sure you have iCloud Photos turned on for both devices.

[@Coatsey007]

Suggestion, show Not In Album functionality so that users can see those photos they have not yet assigned to an Album so that they can. Also Folders and Albums.

[@macmost]

You can do that now. Create a Smart album: Album / Is Not / Any.

[@joiaguilbeau1658]

when I try to use certain clips there is a red line on the bottom of the time line why is that happening and how do I fix it?

[@macmost]

Not following you. Missing some context here as this is a video about Photos albums. Try macmost.com/ask

[@MrWeddingPhotography]

Since syncing photos with iCloud all my photos are all over the place and not in date order making it difficult to find recent photos even though I choose ‘sort by date’ 🤷‍♂️

[@macmost]

Where are you looking? All Photos is sorted by date. Are you looking in an album? Somewhere else?

[@MrWeddingPhotography]

@@macmost library

[@david2284180]

What about “folders” in photos app? How are folders different from albums. What is the path to the files in a photos folder?

[@macmost]

Folders are just ways of grouping albums, nothing more than that. There is no "path" when dealing with a Library like this.

[@david2284180]

@@macmost thanks for the answer. Now I finally understand. I was thinking in terms of “file system” instead of “library and playlists”

[@EdBacon]

@@david2284180My problem with Apple using “folders” as an analogy for file system directories is exactly what you hit upon. In a file system you specify a path to locate an object. But in a system of folders that simply hold things, that idea does not hold up. Folders are not necessarily hierarchical, but directories are.

[@garytilley3217]

If you delete a photo from the library, & that photo is in an album will it also delete from the album

[@macmost]

Yes. If you delete it from your Library then it is no longer in your Library. It can't be in albums if it isn't there.

[@garytilley3217]

@@macmost makes sense

[@seecraig]

My problem when organizing Albums, Keywords, and Faces, when I look at the Library I can't tell which ones are done and which still need the metadata added. I have to go through each with Get Info and that's tedious. Is there a faster way to do this?

[@macmost]

Not sure what you mean. What's the situation where you are adding metadata and why? Metadata is usually provided by the camera when you take the photo.

[@seecraig]

@@macmost Example I have photos with the keyword Leo added. I have photos in which I need to add the keyword. I can't do a search for Not Leo in the Library. Same with albums. I put many photos in album vacation but I may have missed a few. In the Library I have no idea which ones I missed they're all visible. There's no way to check which have no keyword, and which aren't yet in an album. There's no way to do a boolean search for Not something. Currently the only way I know to check is to Get Info on every single photo in the Library and see which don't have a keyword. That's very tedious unless I'm missing something.

[@seecraig]

@@macmost Here's a simpler way of looking at it. I have an Album with 90 cats in it. My Library has 100 cats. How do I find which 10 cats are not yet in the album?

[@macmost]

@@seecraig Ah, Keywords, not metadata. Metadata refers specifically to the data stored in a photo when it is taken by the camera: time, lens, ISO, GPS, device, etc. In the View menu if you go to Metadata (yes, Apple does use that term there I guess), you can turn on Keywords and then you see a little symbol on photos that have at least one Keyword applied. If you want to see what photos do not have keyword added, create a Smart Album and you can set it to "Keyword" and "is not" and your keyword. You can build up a complex search that way.

[@macmost]

@@seecraig Create a new Smart Album. First criteria: Text Is "Cats". Second criteria: Album Is Not "My Cats Album." Set it to Match "All" at the top. Now your Smart Album will get all photos where it recognizes a cat is in the photo, but the photo is not in the album named "My Cats Album."

[@chezchezchezchez]

But what’s the best way to get all your photos from your iPhone onto your Mac? I don’t wanna pay for maximum iCloud storage. Can I use the 50 GB level and still get a ridiculous amount of photos off my iPhone onto the Mac easily?

[@macmost]

The best way is just to use iCloud Photos. But if you really don't want to pay for that, and yet you have more than 50GB of photos, then you'll need to go back to the old way of transferring via a cable and importing into the Photos app. Compared to how easy it is to use iCloud (or not really "use" anything since it is automatic and effortless), it is much less easy, involving manual steps every time you have photos to transfer.

[@Evanescence4ever100]

My question is, do we have to have them in the library or in albums in photos in finder? Which is better? Because I think those are duplicates

[@macmost]

They are NOT duplicates. Watch this video again. That's what it is about.

[@Evanescence4ever100]

@@macmost I mean about the pictures that are in Finder. I have many pictures there, which are not in the library in the Photos app

[@macmost]

@@Evanescence4ever100 I'm confused about what you are asking here. You say "albums in photos in finder" but there are no "albums" if these are files and not in the Photos app. "Albums" are something in the Photos app.

[@Evanescence4ever100]

@@macmost you’re right I’m sorry. I meant folders of pictures I have manually added to the finder. I have a hard drive and I transfer photos to my iMac. Or I airdrop photos from my iPhone to the iMac. Those pictures don’t automatically appear in the photos library.

[@macmost]

@@Evanescence4ever100 Right. The Photos only has the photos you put into the Photos app. If you instead put the files into a folder in the Finder, then the Photos app doesn't know anything about those. If you want a Photo in the Photos app you need to import it into the Photos app.

[@hrhtac]

Yes, I get it, but I don't want to see my photos in two places. I only want them in one place. I want to be able to MOVE a photo from the main library to a specific album.

[@macmost]

But as I explain there is no "main" library. Just a library. If you don't want to ever view your photos in Library view, then don't. Only view them in albums.

[@MrAMusicPlace]

In other words, the album in photos or the playlist in music is a filter that only lets the selected photos or songs pass through, and filters out all others.

[@macmost]

That's one way of looking at it. Hard for some to see it that way. If you have 10,000 photos and the album has 17 photos in it, then thinking it as filtering out 9,983 photos is not the best way for most people.

[@ZEROCARTOO]

every android user should watch this video before feeling incompetent about not understanding how iOS works xD

[@edlinton5119]

After beating to death the difference between photos library and albums, you left no time to cover other important differences like: 1) preserving photo sequence in albums, and when an album is shared 2) editing photos, how to make an edit like cropping apply to only an album photo and not to the library original. 3) exporting photos

[@macmost]

I can't cover every aspect of Photos in one video. As for cropping, it would apply to the ONE photo, and it doesn't matter which way you get to that photo. Exporting is a whole other thing, but pretty straight-forward.

[@geekmeee]

Gary, consider the age of your audience (I am 71) you might want to include a photo of a stack of 45s on a turntable stacked as a playlist… At least for me, I instantly got the analogy!

[@EdBacon]

Not the best analogy. Your physical 45 can only be in one stack of records, and if on the turntable it is not in your box of records (the “library”). On the other hand any photo can be in more than one album, as any song can be in multiple playlists. BTW I’m 72, not that it matters.

[@geekmeee]

@@EdBacon Exactly, that’s why it’s even better!… since now the playlist is digital.

[@GuitarJams-zs7yf]

I personally don't like the photo app. I prefer the way Windows does it. Most things I like about my MacBook but the photo app is not one of them.

[@macmost]

Sounds like you don't use it, right? There are a lot of good features in there if you take the time to use it a bit.

[@GuitarJams-zs7yf]

@@macmost I wish apple would just give us the option to do it like windows does it with files and a window viewer.

[@macmost]

@@GuitarJams-zs7yf You can. Use the Finder. You have the Preview Pane, or Gallery View (and Quick Look too).

[@GuitarJams-zs7yf]

@@macmost I tried that. it is not the same as windows. With windows I could open a picture, click it to full screen and press the arrow button with mouse to go to next pic. I seen a video of yours to go around it somewhat and it was too many steps. I could use the arrow keys on keyboard but I like to use mouse is I can click arrow keys on screen so I can kick back and view without keyboard.

[@macmost]

@@GuitarJams-zs7yf You can do that. Open the folder in Finder in List View. Now you can use the up and down arrow keys to move through the whole list. Spacebar for Quick Look and you can take that full screen if you like. There's a lot you can do if you just take the time to learn it as well as you know the Windows interface.