User profile for user: Islandgrandma
Islandgrandma Author
User level: Level 1
23 points

Can the Photos program be run on a thumb drive?

My iMac (Late 2013 running Catalina) is getting pretty full, and I have over 40,000 photos on it. I have them backed up to an external hard drive (My Passport for Mac). I'm thinking about deleting a lot of them from my iMac hard drive, and then re-importing them if I want to work on them. However, on the external drive, I can only open them one at a time in preview, and I can't figure out a way to be able scroll through them like I can in my Photos program to find the one I want. Is it possible to install the Photos program on the external drive (or on a thumb drive) and be able to scroll through them? (I can scroll through the thumbnails, but not the opened pictures. Makes it hard to find the picture I want.) If so, how would I do that? Thanks!

iMac 21.5″, macOS 10.15

Posted on May 2, 2023 2:01 AM

Reply
Question marked as Best reply
User profile for user: léonie
léonie
User level: Level 10
195,223 points

Posted on May 2, 2023 3:06 AM

The Photos.app is installed as a part of the system and needs to remain in the Applications folder. But the app is very small, so you would not gain much free storage by moving the Photos.app. Photos is storing all imported photos in the Photos Library, and you can move the Photos Library from your Pictures folder to an external drive, as described here: Move your Photos library to save space on your Mac - Apple Support


But not any external drive is suitable - note this warning:

"Make sure that your external storage device, such as a USB drive or Thunderbolt drive, is formatted for Mac: either APFS format or Mac OS Extended (Journaled) format.

You can't store your library on a storage device used for Time Machine backups. And to avoid possible data loss, don't store your library on a removable storage device like an SD card or USB flash drive, or on a device shared over your network or the internet, including over a cloud-based storage service."

View in context

Similar questions

1 reply
Question marked as Best reply
User profile for user: léonie
léonie
User level: Level 10
195,223 points

May 2, 2023 3:06 AM in response to Islandgrandma

The Photos.app is installed as a part of the system and needs to remain in the Applications folder. But the app is very small, so you would not gain much free storage by moving the Photos.app. Photos is storing all imported photos in the Photos Library, and you can move the Photos Library from your Pictures folder to an external drive, as described here: Move your Photos library to save space on your Mac - Apple Support


But not any external drive is suitable - note this warning:

"Make sure that your external storage device, such as a USB drive or Thunderbolt drive, is formatted for Mac: either APFS format or Mac OS Extended (Journaled) format.

You can't store your library on a storage device used for Time Machine backups. And to avoid possible data loss, don't store your library on a removable storage device like an SD card or USB flash drive, or on a device shared over your network or the internet, including over a cloud-based storage service."

Reply

Can the Photos program be run on a thumb drive?

Welcome to Apple Support Community
A forum where Apple customers help each other with their products. Get started with your Apple ID.
Learn more Sign up