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Photos and MAC

I can't seem to add photos to an album without the program populating new albums within the target album. My MAC is updated to Big Sur.

Posted on Jun 2, 2021 9:29 PM

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Posted on Jun 2, 2021 10:43 PM

Could you please describe more detailed what you are trying to do?

Are you trying to import photos into Photos and add them to an album? Or are you asking about adding already imported photos to an album?


  • For already imported photos you can easily add photos to an existing album - just select some photos and drag the photos to the album in the sidebar. If you accidentally drag the photos into a folder instead of an album, Photos will create an additional album in the folder. This cannot be avoided, because we cannot add photos to folders. Folders are used to group the albums and can only hold subfolders and albums, but not photos. - only albums can hold photos, so Photos will create a new album in the folder, if we drag photos to a folder.


  • When you import photos and select a set of folders for import and enable the checkmark "Keep Folder Organisation", Photos will unfortunately create an additional enclosing folder for the new import. This cannot be prevented. But you can drag the imported albums out of the folder to the folder where you want them to be.


5 replies
Question marked as Best reply

Jun 2, 2021 10:43 PM in response to yvonnenco

Could you please describe more detailed what you are trying to do?

Are you trying to import photos into Photos and add them to an album? Or are you asking about adding already imported photos to an album?


  • For already imported photos you can easily add photos to an existing album - just select some photos and drag the photos to the album in the sidebar. If you accidentally drag the photos into a folder instead of an album, Photos will create an additional album in the folder. This cannot be avoided, because we cannot add photos to folders. Folders are used to group the albums and can only hold subfolders and albums, but not photos. - only albums can hold photos, so Photos will create a new album in the folder, if we drag photos to a folder.


  • When you import photos and select a set of folders for import and enable the checkmark "Keep Folder Organisation", Photos will unfortunately create an additional enclosing folder for the new import. This cannot be prevented. But you can drag the imported albums out of the folder to the folder where you want them to be.


Jun 2, 2021 10:32 PM in response to yvonnenco

Hi


You are adding photos to a folder, not to an album.


Folders can't hold pictures directly, they have to go into an album. So if you drag a photo to a folder it creates an album for it.


You therefore need to create an album inside the folder, and drag the photos to the album.


(Folders, can hold albums and subfolders, but not photos. Albums can hold only photos)

Jun 4, 2021 5:59 AM in response to yvonnenco

I want to thank everyone who responded to my cry for help. Initially I was clueless to the fact I had indeed been attempting to add photos to a FOLDER rather than an album! In the various replies to my question the light bulb came on! I have been able to create the necessary album which is a memorial to my Dad. So you see how desperate I was feeling I couldn’t get this to work on my own.

Photos and MAC

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