photo management

We have no way of knowing why your photos are appearing in the Photos app, as you don't tell us where they come from, and how they might get there. Shot on a camera? On a Phone? How do they get to your OneDrive folder? These might offer some clues. By default the images are stored in the Photos Library which is in your Pictures Folder.

The long version:

We use computers based on metaphors. There is no desktop, there aren't even files, just bits and bytes. To help us interact with them we've developed this office-like concept, of desktops, files, folders and so on.

The problem is that the file is not your data. That jpeg is not your photograph. That Word file is not your novel. That mp3 is not the Beatles playing 'A Day In The Life'. These are all just shoeboxes. Within the boxes are your data. Organising your data on the size and colour of the boxes makes for a very limited system of organisation. It makes it harder to find things. To beat that metaphor up a little more: think of a shoe store... do they organise their warehouse on the basis of the boxes or on the basis of the shoes therein? Make a lot more sense or organise them on the basis of the contents, no? Mens over here. Ladies over there. Children up there. Now the styles and the colours and so on, all quite independent of the boxes.

So, a Jpeg is what you get when you take your Photograph and compress it to save space. Lumping a bunch of Jpegs into a folder tells you very little about the contents of the folder and or the files. Basically, all you can say for certainty is that there are compressed image files. Hence Photos, and such apps. Add your Photographs to the database and search for your visual data... visually. Why it's exactly like having a very large (almost infinite) photo album like you might have in the world before digital photography. Want to see a photograph? Go to the the big book where we keep all the photographs. Nowadays you want to see, (access, edit, share or whatever) a photograph go the the application where we keep all the Photographs. But the key here is that you're managing the actual data, not the shoe box.

Again. consider the Contacts app on your Mac. It has all your names/addresses/phone numbers and they can be accessed in a million ways from different apps and so on. But you never ask... where's the file(s) that actually contain the data, do you? You just go to the Contacts app. So, same with Photos... Everything you need to do with your photographs can be done via the Photos app. Where the files are, as long as they are safe and can be backed up, doesn't actually matter. The app manages the files, you manage the photographs.

So... want to keep managing your warehouse based on the boxes or the shoes? If you want to keep using your OneDrive system you can simply trash the Photos library from the Pictures Folder. Job done. If you tell us how your images get from your camera/devices to OneDrive then maybe we can explain why they also end up in Photos. And if you want to organise your Photographs rather than the files that contain them... then use Photos. It's not that difficult. Millions of people manage, you can too :)

Well we can answer one mystery straight away:

_My photos are mainly shot on my iphone_

That explains how all your images end up in the Photos.app on your Phone, and, if you have iCloud enabled - and you may, unbeknownst to yourself - how they end up in Photos on your Mac. Everything you take on your iPhone camera goes to the Photos app. It’s the back end of the camera, as it were. So if you have iCloud enabled these are then synced to your Mac. So that would explain that. There is no way to stop the images on your phone going to the Photos app, but you could stop it syncing with your Mac if you wish.

For example - where is my desktop? Is it on my macbook, or is it in the cloud? Honestly I cannot tell, yet I think that without access to the internet this becomes a critical question??

Your desktop is in front of you, no matter where you are. You interact with your data on your device. What your question asks is where are the files stored? If you have an internet connection then, for all practicable purposes, it doesn’t matter where the files live, just that the data is available when you want it.

Obviously, where the files are does matter for purposes of back up, and/or if you don’t have an internet connection. So, you can choose where the data lives. On your Mac? That’s fine if you’re okay with not being able to start a letter on your Mac and the pick up later on your iPad or phone. That relies on the files living in the Cloud. If you don’t need that connectivity then don’t use the Cloud. You can turn that off in the SystemPreferences.

Regarding your metaphor about boxes and shoes. I don't get it. I am not aware that I am trying to organize the shoe boxes rather than the actual data. It's my understanding that a photo is a file - just a particular kind of file.

This is the core issue. Your photo isn’t a file. It’s a photograph. That photograph is stored within a file. But the file is not the photo, and the photo is not the file. The photo is data, the file is a container for the data. So, the shoes live in the shoebox, but the shoes are not the box, nor is the box the shoes. I think sometimes it’s easier to think of a Word file: My Novel.docx. That file is not your novel. Your novel is the words stored within the file. Why is that distinction important? Because if you’re reading the novel where the file is doesn’t matter, as long as it’s available.

But the distinction becomes more useful when you think of more specialised forms of data: for instance music and photographs. Consider iTunes (or Music as it’s known now). You have a store of mp3 files somewhere on your Mac, but you open iTunes and you start to organise your… music, not your Mp3s. Create a playlist. Add 50 songs to it. The files in the store don’t change or move. Create a second playlist. Add 40 new songs to it. And 10 ones you’ve used already. But no files are duplicated. Your music is used twice, but the files are not moved or changed or duplicated. You’re working with the data. Not the files.

So we come to Photos - for photographs but it works in the same way. Make an album: Our Wedding. Then another album: My favourites. Same photos, no duplication of files on the disk. If you want to have your favourite photos and your wedding photos in two separate folders then you’re doubling the disk space if you work with files only. And more, when it comes to editing, Photos never touches your original files. You can always revert to the original. And all because you’re working with the data, not the files.

But it gets better, when you include the metadata. Every photo you take is stamped with the date and time, and if you choose, the location of the image. So, sorting by date is automatic. Searching on a map is simple. Add in Faces data and make a smart album of all the photos of John, Marie or John and Marie. Again you keep reusing the same data in different ways, and the files don’t do anything just sit there. And more, now Photos catalogues your files so that you can find generic objects: seas, cliffs, flowers and so on. That’s the advantage of organising the warehouse by the Shoes and not the Shoe boxes :)

Can you assure me that I can sort my photos and files according to how I want to find them if i put them on iCloud?

Well I’m not necessarily advocating iCloud. You can just have the photos on your Mac if you prefer. But if you want to share them across devices then iCloud is the best way to go. And, of course, you can back up to a local hard drive as well. And again, you can sort your photos as you prefer. In fact you’ll have a lot more options available than you do right now.

Hello, are you looking to find a way to permanently delete your files, photos, or both?

If you want to permanently delete you photos the easiest way would be to go to your one drive, delete the photo, then there should be a tab that shows recently deleted. One you click the tab, permanently delete any photos you wish to.

If you want to permanently delete a file off of your Mac, you should right-click and you should see an option to erase, clicking erase instead of delete causes the entire file is be wiped and erased.

Please let me know if your issue persists, or if you need further help in your problem. Hopefully my answer has been able to be helpful to you.

I thought that Yer_Man's shoe story was cute and useful.

The Desktop is a folder. It's a folder that shows up open on the screen when there's nothing else to show. I store all kinds of stuff in the Desktop folder. I used to feel guilty about it-- we were told to keep the Desktop neat and tidy. But I pretty much never see the "Desktop" screen-- I've always got loads of windows in front. The Desktop folder is stored in each user's folder. Computers can have several users, and they will each see a different Desktop when they sign on.

Notice-- Desktop doesn't look any different from any other folder.

It's OK to say "a photo is a file." All files are a bunch of 1s and 0s. The ".jpg" at the end tells certain programs how to turn those 1s and 0s into a pretty picture. So a picture is a file plus instructions.

In the Photos system, your original picture files are kept in a folder that's inside of another special folder called a "package" (the Photos Library) that's meant to not be opened except in case of emergency. The app Photos has the instructions to take those original picture files, add information like keywords, captions, locations, and titles to them, add information about how you wanted them changed (edited), and turn all that into a more useful picture. All that extra information is stored in other files in other folders inside the special folder-- the Library package.

It's all there, just like it's always been.

You also asked about finding the path. If you search for a Photos Library package, which has the extension ".photoslibrary"

Finder will tell you the path at the bottom of the window. I've misplaced this library into the Documents folder rather than the Pictures folder, and that's why I couldn't find it by just looking where I thought it should be.

And more: my reply was too long for the box:

where are the photos that are showing up in the photos app?

They are in your Photos Library, which is in your Pictures Folder.

and where are the document folders - desktop and downloads?

HD -> Users -> Your Name -> and there they are. As I said they can also be online if you prefer, but they don’t have to be.

The best thing I can suggest right now is that you explore Photos - there's no risk. Every thing is on One Drive any way, right? But explore and see the possibilities of it. See how many ways to organise - Albums, Folder, Smart Albums - and search your images. See if it makes sense for you.

I see others have added to the conversation during the day. More the merrier, but if it gets too confusing feel free to ask more. That's what this place is for.

I thought that Yer_Man's shoe story was cute and useful.

Not often I'm called either of those ;)