1. Where Is Library On Mac
  2. Mac System Library Vs Library Research
  3. Mac System Library Vs Library Mail
  4. Mac Show Library

Free up your space by transferring your Photos library to another external hard drive. By freeing up space you will have valuable space for your work on your Mac. In addition to this, we will help you to back up your whole photo library to iCloud.

Apr 01, 2020  Designate a System Photo Library in Photos If you have multiple photo libraries on your Mac, you can choose one to be the System Photo Library. The System Photo Library is the only library that can be used with iCloud Photos, Shared Albums, and My Photo Stream. Sierra is designed to make your library effective. Workflow on the Go. Working seamlessly with Mobile Worklists, Sierra liberates library staff with a mobile experience that moves library operations into the stacks and away from repetitive material handling.

Why store photos on external drive

In today’s world, everyone loves to capture photos of every single moment and wants to save all those moments in his/her personal devices like Mac. But saving all your photos can fill-up your Mac storage quickly and you may face the shortage of space.

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There are many options to store your photos data. One of them to store your photos on iCloud photo library but the drawback of saving your photos on iCloud is, if you delete the photo from your device it will be deleted from iCloud as well.

One question raised up here is that what we can do to store all our photos to some safe place if we are running out of space on Mac?

Fortunately, you have visited the right place to find the solution to your problem. There is a safer and easy way to transfer your entire photo library from your Mac to your external drive. The best of this trick is whenever you need to see your photos on your Mac you just need to open photo library app on your Mac it will automatically take you to your saved photos in external hard drive until unless it is plugged in.

Snapshot of the guide

Where Is Library On Mac

There is a quick snapshot of the guide so you can understand quickly how to move the library to external drive.

  • Prepare your external hard drive to move Photo Library. Make sure drive is formatted as MacOS Extended Journaled.
  • Go to the location of the Photo library and move it to external drive.
  • Set the external library as a System Photo Library (So whenever you open the Photos app it will open the photos library from the external hard drive.)
  • After completing trasfer to drive, make sure this external drive is connected to your Mac whenever you want to access photos.

Our article will help you to move your photos from Mac to external hard drive. Continue reading the steps are about to start.

Do not worry if you have already stored your photos on iCloud photo library. Our article will help you to get back your already saved photos in iCloud photos library and will help you to move them to external hard drive. Here is how to do it.

System Photo Library vs Other Library

When you run Photos app on your Mac first time this will ask you to create a new or use an old library. That default Photo library became the system library automatically. Only System Photo Library are allowed to access iCloud services.

You can create multiple other libraries and work with photos only in one library at a time. To work in another library you have to switch the library. You can also change and set one of the other libraries as a System library.

How to transfer the Photos library to a hard drive

First, make it sure the hard drive you are going to use for Photos library is faster and have enough space. It will save your time and stored your memories quickly. A good hard drive always keeps your stuff secure and there are fewer chances of losing your data.

Before going step by step to move your photo library to external hard, first make it sure that your external hard drive is already formatted for Mac OS Extended (journaled). If it is not formatted for Mac first erase all the data from it and format and choose the option of Mac OS Extended (journaled). Use the Disk Utility on your Mac to erase any hard drive (When you erase any drive in mac everything will be deleted, so please save any important data ).

  1. Find the Photos Library on your Mac, it will be in your Pictures folder. Click the Go menu on the top and then select Home option from the menu.
  2. Open the Pictures folder and there you will find the Photos library.
    TIP: In order to see how much storage your photos have taken, just Ctrl+Click on the photos library icon and click on Get Info. Now you can make sure that you have enough storage in your external hard drive.
  3. It’s time to copy your Photos Library to your external hard drive using drag and drop trick. Now sit back and wait until copies over. The time of transferring photos depends on the size of your Photo Library.
  4. When transferred completed, press and hold the Option/Alt key from keyboard and click the Photos app icon from Dock to open it. Keep holding the keyboard key until you see a window otherwise this will open the Photos app.
  5. You will see a new window to choose the library. On that window hit the button Other library. Navigate to the new location on your external hard drive and choose the Photo Library.
  6. If there is a message that shows “there are some items that need to be downloaded from iCloud Photo library” then you need to click on delete incomplete items and download all those incomplete items.

    Set a photo library as System Photo Library

    We have already moved the library to an external drive now its time to set it as System Photo Library. Doing that will allow it to use iCloud service.

  7. Open the Photo Library from the external drive.
  8. Click Photos men and then select the Preferences option.
  9. On the next window click General and then click Use as System Photo Library button (this will help you to get it to work with iCloud Photo Library)
    TIP: Remember this is the step you need to perform in future If you accidentally unlinked the external drive’s photo library from the Photos app.
  10. Go to System Preferences then iCloud then Photos then Options, and choose iCloud Photo Library to turn that back on. See if you have stored all the photos here.

Note: you will need to plug in your external hard drive in order to see your photos).

Delete Photo Library from Mac

Once you have confirmed that all the photos in the library moved to the external drive. You can delete the Photo Library from your Mac computer. Go to the Pictures folder and delete it to free up space from your mac.

How to back up your iCloud Photo Library

If you want to move all your photos which you have already backed up to your iCloud photo library to a storage device connected to your Mac. Follow our step by step guide above, but you need to download all the images from iCloud first.

If you have already transferred your Photos library onto the external storage device, now you need to follow these steps.

  1. Open Photos on your Mac.
  2. Click Photos then click on Preferences.
  3. Click on the iCloud tab.
  4. Choose Download originals to this Mac.

Now all your iCloud photos will be saved on the storage device. (If you are running short of space you would probably not want to do that)

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Home > Articles > Apple > Operating Systems

  1. The Layers of Mac OS X: Aqua
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There are multiple ways to look at Mac OS X and take it apart. Each way makes its own contribution to your understanding of the OS. In this sample chapter, Ted Landau looks at the major ways to 'take apart' Mac OS X.
This chapter is from the book
Mac OS X Disaster Relief, Updated Edition

This chapter is from the book

This chapter is from the book

There is more than one way to think about dividing up a pizza. First, there is the familiar method of dividing it into slices. Alternatively, you could divide it into layers: topping, cheese, sauce, crust. Theoretically, you could also divide it into its basic ingredients: flour, water, tomatoes, garlic, milk. Each method makes a different contribution to your enjoyment of the pizza. The first method (slices) is best when you're getting ready to eat the pizza; the second is best when you are deciding what to order (such as pepperoni with extra cheese); the third is best if you are concerned about nutrition (needing to know the exact ingredients to calculate calories).

Mac System Library Vs Library Research

The same is true for Mac OS X. There are multiple ways to look at it and take it apart. Each way makes its own contribution to your understanding of the OS. In this chapter, I look at the major ways to 'take apart' Mac OS X. Having at least a minimal knowledge of Mac OS 9 will help, as I occasionally make comparisons between the two OS versions. But even if you've never used Mac OS 9, you'll be able to follow along.

In This Chapter

The Layers of Mac OS X: Aqua

The Layers of Mac OS X: Application Environments

Cocoa
Carbon
Classic
Java
Putting it together

The Layers of Mac OS X: Graphics Services

Quartz
Multimedia: OpenGL and QuickTime

The Layers of Mac OS X: Darwin

Mach
BSD (Unix)

Domains: An Overview

System domain
Local domain
User domain
Network domain

The Libraries of Mac OS X: /System/Library

Core Services
CFMSupport
Extensions
Fonts
Frameworks
PreferencePanes
Printers
QuickTime
ScreenSavers
Services
Sounds
StartupItems
Mac System Library Vs Library

The Libraries of Mac OS X: /Library

Application Support
ColorSync
Contextual Menu Items
Desktop Pictures
Documentation
Fonts
Internet Plug-Ins
Modem Scripts
Preferences
Printers
Receipts
StartupItems

The Libraries of Mac OS X: Users/'Home'/Library

Application Support
Caches
Favorites
Font Collections
Fonts
Internet Search Sites
Keychains
Preference Panes
Preferences
Application-specific folders

Fonts in Mac OS X: Font Formats

TrueType fonts
PostScript fonts
OpenType fonts
Bitmap fonts
Identifying font formats

Mac System Library Vs Library Mail

Fonts in Mac OS X: Working with Fonts

Font Panel window
Font smoothing and Mac OS X
International language support: basics
International language support: troubleshooting
Font utilities

The Layers of Mac OS X: Aqua

Aqua is the name given to what most users think of when they think of Mac OS X: the user interface, the Finder, the Dock, the windows, the translucent buttons, the high-resolution icons, the menus, and all the rest. Many users may never explore Mac OS X beyond its Aqua layer.

From this perspective, a user upgrading from Mac OS 9 will feel quite at home, at least initially. Much still works the same way. You still double-click icons in the Finder to launch them; you still choose the Save command from an application's File menu to save a document; you still open a folder icon to see its contents.

But you will soon notice some significant differences: a new column view, a very different Apple menu, the Dock. I discussed the basics in Chapter 3, when I presented an overview of Mac OS X.

Related Resources

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Mac Show Library

  • Book $55.99
  • Book $55.99