wulbert
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Q: How do I stop all my iMac photos appearing on my MBP?

I have a 2011 MBP on El Capitan and a 2012 27" iMac running Mavericks. My problem is that after a recent update on the MBP to El Capitan, all the photographs on my iMac (all 4000 of them plus video) are now on my MBP.

I do not want this. I tend to keep the laptop for business related pictures and family stuff on the iMac. Now its all mixed together. I do not have iCloud enabled for Photos app or iPhoto, and I have not deliberately selected to share all these pictures.

I assume the 4000+ are now actuall on my MBP because I can still see them and search them even with WiFi turned off.

I'm finding this very frustrating and hating Photos.

How can I keep my photographs only on the actual computer which I upload to from my camera?

MacBook Pro, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.5)

Posted on Jan 23, 2016 6:44 AM

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wulbert

Q: How do I stop all my iMac photos appearing on my MBP?

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  • Helpful answers

  • by LarryHN,

    LarryHN LarryHN Jan 23, 2016 8:39 AM in response to wulbert
    Level 10 (85,520 points)
    Photos for Mac
    Jan 23, 2016 8:39 AM in response to wulbert

    Unless you provide details we can not help except to make guesses

     

    My guess is that you are using iCloud Photo Library or MyPhotoStream - the entire purpose of both of those is to share photos among computers - if you do not want that do not enable those services - if you log out of iCloud and have no iCloud services enabled then the Mac is stand alone and will not share

     

    To get help rather than guesses you have to tell us what you have - what OS, Photos version and the iCloud settings on each device

     

    LN

  • by wulbert,

    wulbert wulbert Jan 23, 2016 9:15 AM in response to LarryHN
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 23, 2016 9:15 AM in response to LarryHN

    Sorry, I thought I had already given that information above.

     

    I have a 2012 iMac running 10.9.5 and an early 2011 MBP running 10.11.12. I have "My photo stream" enabled (ticked) on both devices but not "iCloud photo library" or "iCloud photo sharing"

     

    My understanding was that "My photo stream" shared only pictures from the last 30 days. I now have every picture I've ever taken, over 6 years, on my MBP (They were originally only on the iMac)

     

    What I would like is for only pictures which I take on my phone to be shared. What I don't want is hundreds of pictures of 15MB each from my DSLR sent to my MBP every time I load then to the iMac.

     

    So you are saying: either share it all, or don't share anything. That's my choice?

     

    Prior to updating the MBP to 10.11.12 my camera pictures stayed on the device which I loaded them onto and only pictures from my iPhone were shared. This suited me perfectly.

  • by wulbert,

    wulbert wulbert Jan 23, 2016 9:26 AM in response to wulbert
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 23, 2016 9:26 AM in response to wulbert

    Just realising what a nightmare this will be for me. If I want to find a work related photo from last year, I'll have to scroll through hundreds of holiday snaps to find it, with clients looking over my shoulder. What a mess!

  • by LarryHN,

    LarryHN LarryHN Jan 23, 2016 9:33 AM in response to wulbert
    Level 10 (85,520 points)
    Photos for Mac
    Jan 23, 2016 9:33 AM in response to wulbert

    Yes - MyPhotoStream shares everything - not just selective photos from selected devices - and on the Mac these MPS photos are imported into the library so although they are deleted from MyPhotoStream after 30 days they are permanently in the library on the Mac

     

    My Photo Stream FAQ - Apple Support

     

    LN

  • by wulbert,

    wulbert wulbert Jan 23, 2016 9:52 AM in response to LarryHN
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 23, 2016 9:52 AM in response to LarryHN

    Thanks Larry,

     

    I'm still no clearer as to why ALL my iMac photos are now on my MBP? These are pictures from 10 years ago.

     

    Weird that this only happened today, I've been on 10.11.12 for weeks now.

    I've tried to go back to iPhoto but of course I now have a massive library of 80GB which would need to be converted back to iPhoto and will take hours. Photos doesn't seem to group pictures by date either, just lumps them all together in one huge pile. This makes no sense. I must be missing something. I was hoping I could just delete all the Events that I didn't want but that feature has gone with the Photos app.

    I'm having a bit of a melt-down with this.

  • by LarryHN,

    LarryHN LarryHN Jan 23, 2016 10:00 AM in response to wulbert
    Level 10 (85,520 points)
    Photos for Mac
    Jan 23, 2016 10:00 AM in response to wulbert

    there is no way to convert from Photos to iPhoto - if you have photos in Photos that are not in your iPhoto library then you can export form Photos and import to iPhoto

     

    Photos has a Photos view which is in date-time order (years/collections/moments) and an All Photos view which is  order by date added to the library

     

    You can delete unwanted photos by selecting them in Photos or All Photos and pressing the delete key - or in an album using the Command-Delete key combo

     

    LN

  • by wulbert,

    wulbert wulbert Jan 23, 2016 10:10 AM in response to LarryHN
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 23, 2016 10:10 AM in response to LarryHN

    OK, I can delete all the pictures I don't want from Photos, it will take a while.

     

    How do I then stop them re-appearing? Just by not using the "My Photo Stream" ever again?

    Is that right?

  • by LarryHN,

    LarryHN LarryHN Jan 23, 2016 10:35 AM in response to wulbert
    Level 10 (85,520 points)
    Photos for Mac
    Jan 23, 2016 10:35 AM in response to wulbert

    Not importing them again - that can be by direct import, iCloud services, Image Capture etc - nothing will ever be in your Photos library unless you specifically import it

     

    LN

  • by wulbert,

    wulbert wulbert Jan 23, 2016 11:35 AM in response to LarryHN
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 23, 2016 11:35 AM in response to LarryHN

    Thanks Larry,

    I figured out that deliberately importing photographs would put them in my library. I meant how do I stop them automatically importing.

    Thank you for your time and help.

  • by LarryHN,

    LarryHN LarryHN Jan 23, 2016 12:17 PM in response to wulbert
    Level 10 (85,520 points)
    Photos for Mac
    Jan 23, 2016 12:17 PM in response to wulbert

    They never automatically import - you tell Photos what to do and it does it - if you import it does - if you turn on MPS it does that - if you turn on ICPL it does that - etc, etc, etc

     

    Nothing is done automatically - you totally control everything

     

    LN