Mac Split Photos Library

  • May 07, 2015 A window will pop up with a number, which in my Mac’s case was over 236GB between a number of different photo libraries — Apple’s Photo Booth, Aperture, iPhoto, and Photos, just to name a few.
  • At home I use iPhoto on a 4 year old Mac Mini (with 3GB of RAM) to store my photos. My library was 50GB, and was terribly slow to open or do anything. I split the library (into 1 library per year) using iPhoto Library Manager, USD20, and it really speeded things up.

Repeat for each library. Or, you can export from Photos: Option-launch Photos and select an iPhoto library you want to merge with another. After conversion, choose View Albums and double-click All Photos. Choose Edit Select All. Either: Choose File Export Unmodified Originals and click Export.

I've had a multi-Mac household pretty much since college, rocking a laptop and desktop in addition to miscellaneous iOS devices throughout the years. Dropbox and iCloud sync made most of the pains of using several Macs disappear, but iPhoto was always a problem. My laptop is tiny! My iPhoto library, not so much.

Thankfully, Photos for Mac — paired with iCloud Photo Library's Optimize Storage feature — makes working with and syncing multiple Macs a breeze. Here's how you can do it.

How to use Photos and iCloud Photo Library with multiple Macs

Here's a quick, simple breakdown on setting up your Macs to support Photos and iCloud Photo Library.

I recommend starting with your biggest iPhoto library; it'll usually be on your desktop Mac. When you open Photos for the first time, your library should import automatically; if it prompts you to create a new library, your Photos library may be stored in another location on your Mac, and you may need to manually open it.

Once you've imported your biggest library on your Mac, make sure iCloud Photo Library is turned on and syncing. You can do this by following these steps:

  1. Launch Photos on your Mac.
  2. Click Photos in the menu bar.

  3. Select Preferences (or do this quicker by pressing ⌘,).

    Source: iMore

  4. Click on the iCloud tab.

    Source: iMore

  5. Check off the box for iCloud Photos.

    • You can also check off the box for Download Originals to this Mac if you have the space.
    • You can check off Optimize Mac Storage to save space on your Mac by only saving a percentage of images and video locally — the rest will be thumbnails that you can click on to download when you want to.

    Source: iMore

Now, open your other Mac, and launch Photos. If you have an iPhoto library on that secondary Mac, follow the same steps as above — import your library, then turn on iCloud Photo Library. If you have duplicates of the same photo on each computer, iCloud should automatically resolve those conflicts when it syncs, providing you with just one version of your photos when the sync process finishes.

If you don't have an iPhoto library on your secondary Mac, create a new library in Photos and turn on iCloud Photo Library. If you want to save storage space on this secondary Mac, make sure Optimize Mac Storage is selected: This will save a certain percentage of images and video locally to your device, while providing thumbnails of all the others for you to download at your leisure.

After you've set up all your Macs with Photos and the sync process has finished, you're now good to go. From here on out, any time you add photos, they'll sync to every computer you've set up with Photos.

What syncs, what doesn't sync

Photos for Mac syncs a lot more than just your original photos and videos. According to a support document on Apple.com, here's what else you should expect to see sync:

  • All folders and albums
  • Smart Albums
  • Keywords
  • Memories
  • Searchable keywords
  • Key photo selections

There are a few things iCloud Photo Library won't sync, however. Here's Apple's list:

  • Books, cards, calendars, and slideshows
  • Keyword shortcuts
  • Unused keywords
  • Last imported album on the Mac in question
  • Names and faces in the People album
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For those not using iCloud Photo Library

If you've chosen not to enable iCloud Photo Library, Apple still offers you free syncing of your last 1000 photos via My Photo Stream, which doesn't count toward your iCloud disk space.

This will sync and download images you've imported or taken on other devices, but you won't have the option to optimize your storage or sync your albums.

Octoober 2019: Updated for macOS Catalina.

Serenity Caldwell contributed to an earlier version of this guide.

macOS Catalina

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Photos in your System Photo Library are available in apps like iMovie, Pages, and Keynote. You can also sync them to iOS devices and view them on Apple TV. And if you want to use your own images as your desktop picture or screen saver, the images need to be in your System Photo Library before you can select them in System Preferences.

If you have only one photo library, then it's the System Photo Library. Otherwise, the first photo library that you create or open in Photos will become the System Photo Library. If you have more than one library, you might need to designate a System Photo Library, so other apps can access the photos and videos you want them to use.

Follow these steps to designate a System Photo Library:

Move Photo Library Mac

  1. Quit Photos.
  2. Hold down the Option key and open Photos. One of the photo libraries is already designated as YourLibraryName (System Photo Library).
  3. Choose the library you want to designate as the System Photo Library.
  4. After Photos opens the library, choose Photos > Preferences from the menu bar.
  5. Click the General tab.
  6. Click the Use as System Photo Library button.

If you open a second or different library in the Photos app, and you haven't designated it as the System Photo Library, other applications will use photos from the original System Photo Library. Hold down the Option key when you open Photos to see which library is set as the System Photo Library.

iCloud and the System Photo Library

You can use iCloud Photos, Shared Albums, and My Photo Stream only with the System Photo Library. If you choose a different library in Photos without designating it as the System Photo Library, the iCloud tab in Photos preferences is disabled:

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If you designate a new library as the System Photo Library and then turn on iCloud Photos, the photos and videos in the new library will merge with those already in your iCloud Photos. If you want to keep the contents of your photo libraries separate, don’t turn on iCloud Photos for more than one library in Photos.