Apple Intelligence now features Image Playground, Genmoji, Writing Tools enhancements, seamless support for ChatGPT, and visual intelligence.

Apple Intelligence has also begun language expansion with localized English support for Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, South Africa, and the U.K. Learn more >

You can make a difference in the Apple Support Community!

When you sign up with your Apple Account, you can provide valuable feedback to other community members by upvoting helpful replies and User Tips.

Looks like no one’s replied in a while. To start the conversation again, simply ask a new question.

Moving my 'system photo library' back to my hard drive on MacBook Air

In order to free up space on my hard drive, I moved my photos library to an external hard drive. Since then, I have replaced my hard drive with a more powerful one and would now like to just use the external hard drive for back ups. I want my 'system photo library' now to be on my MacBook Air again. Can any one help?


I would also like icloud to NOT save them as it's using all my space on the cloud. Hence my wanting to use my hard drive as my main store for the photos.


Appreciate your advice.

MacBook Air 13″, macOS 12.4

Posted on Aug 2, 2022 7:12 AM

Reply
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Aug 3, 2022 9:38 AM

Hi


Drag it back to your pictures folder.


Open it. Open preferences general tab and click "use as system photos library" and in preferences icloud tab uncheck icloud.


If you are not using iCloud - even more important to have a regular backup strategy. Set up something that will work automatically so you don't have to remember (such as time machine)


Done.

Similar questions

1 reply
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Aug 3, 2022 9:38 AM in response to Soose101

Hi


Drag it back to your pictures folder.


Open it. Open preferences general tab and click "use as system photos library" and in preferences icloud tab uncheck icloud.


If you are not using iCloud - even more important to have a regular backup strategy. Set up something that will work automatically so you don't have to remember (such as time machine)


Done.

Moving my 'system photo library' back to my hard drive on MacBook Air

Welcome to Apple Support Community
A forum where Apple customers help each other with their products. Get started with your Apple Account.