password protect photos

If you are worried about privacy, why not keep your accounts (your wife's and yours) strictly separate? If a Library is local in a protected area of your home directory it should be safe from prying eyes, unless your wife also has admin privileges on your mac.

But to create a password protected sparse image as TD advises really is no big deal - just do it 🙂:

• launch Disk Utility and click "New Image"
• Select to create a sparse bundle disk image and set a max. size and a password protected encryption scheme, click "create"
• Then set a a password.

• 
• This will place a disk image in the folder you named. If you click the disk image you will be prompted for the password and the disk will be mounted. You can drag files to it like to any removable disk.

Don't forget to eject the disk when you are done.

Regards

Léonie

@ TD: would you prefer different settings?

Now I remember! Before iPhoto got multiple libraries I use to use iPhotoBuddy, and it was natural and easy to password protect a library. iPhotoBuddy, at: http://iphotobuddy.com/

As you can see in the picture, below, one of the libraries

has a big Lock Icon on it.

It's free...donnations suggested. I just downloaded it again and will get back to using it. It's useful sometimes to have photos in iPhoto and this way I don't have to worry about anyone on the iCloud or something getting to see all my terrible Before pictures from my Before & After series about Diet & Exercise.

Just so I don't have to get drastic and read the manual....how do you Password Protect an iPhoto library?

....I just got too many 700 page manuals and I get dizzy sometimes trying to wade through them all.

Thanks again, Terence. I got programs that password protect files (like a banking program, etc.) so it has surprised me that photo libraries could not be handled as easily. I submit Apple feedback about it.

And I'll make up an Encrypted Disk Image (4real). Thanks.

I got programs that password protect files (like a banking program, etc.) so it has surprised me that photo libraries could not be handled as easily.

I think you'll find that these involve either a compressed file or... an encrypted disk image.

Regards

TD

Is there a way to protect selected photo files with a password?

You may wish to create two iPhoto Libraries - a public one and a private one. It should suffice to put the private one on an encrypted disk image. This way you will not accidentally open the images you do not want to show to a general audience when you are presenting a slideshow or include potentially embarrassing images into a smart album or a screensaver.

Regards

Léonie

Note that iPhoto Buddy hasn’t been updated for iPhoto 11:

iPhoto Buddy is fully compatible with every version of Apple's iLife suite, from iLife '04 through iLife '09.

And how secure is that lock? Can some access the package?

🙂 My desire for password protect libraries now appears solved, with iPhotoBuddy.

iPhotoBuddy Documentation indicates: "

Updated for compatibility with iLife ’11 (iPhoto 9.x).

(there is inbuilt confusion with iLife being '11 but it's components different numbers)

Tried it today; it works fine. Smoother than years ago when I had it (stopped using it when iPhoto incorporated the feature allowing multiple libraries).

Cool thing too, apparently it now works for iMovie and iWeb.

Having multiple libraries is & was the prime feature of iPhotoBuddy, doing it years before Apple's iPhoto.

Now it's smoothers --- In the past iPhoto had to quit and relaunch in order to get to another library; now it doesn't have to do that.

Much easier to get to desired library with 'Library Launchers,' desktop icons.

RE: How secure is the lock? -- Well, I haven't been able to break it yet. How would that be done? Just trial and error?

The Password Protection seems as simple and same as what I have on my financial app....what I sometimes get when people password protect a Word document...i.e. I have to know the password.

I'll be careful not to revel the password to my wife. I've shredded it. Now she can't get to all those photos of me boldly, boastfully eatting a mountain of mashed potatoes (that I was doing for my 'Before' shots for my 'Before & After' diet and exercise manual.

So...the solution I was searching for solved; things better. Wife doesn't have the password to Fat Pics, she doesn't know how to break a lock, and the only packages she can access come delivered by FedEx.

I'm familiar with the numbering of iPhoto versions. The iPhoto Buddy website says

iPhoto Buddy is fully compatible with every version of Apple's iLife suite, from iLife '04 through iLife '09.

So are you suggesting that iPhoto Buddy is unaware of the numbering of iPhoto versions?

Anyway, I downloaded iPhoto Buddy to run it through it's paces.

Hilarious.

Yes, add the Library to the iPhoto Buddy window. Click the lock button. Put in the password. Library Locked.

Not.

Go to the Pictures Folder and double-click on the Library... it opens.

Locked? Really?

If you want to secure a Library put it on an encrypted Disk Image.

Regards

TD

TD - You seem to have an extraordinary hostility in your Discussions with repeated efforts to insult others; maybe some counciling would be of benefit. I'm here to Discuss problems, kinks, bugs, issues and to seek SOLUTIONS.

But, to reply anyhow: Re: Was I suggesting that iPhoto Buddy is unaware of the numbering of iPhoto versions?

No. I was responding to the superfluous,

issue you brought up suggesting that the product was not compatible with the current version of IPhoto and/or OS 10.7.3.

I don't know where you got that idea -- not from anything I posted.

And I, oibviously (D'uh!) was going to use it, had started to use it.

But you raised that issue and you were wrong in that needless suggestion, taking the topic unnecessarily

down a dead-end street of your own imagination; not reality.

Think about that. It would be, is easy enough to have downloaded the free product and see

if it works or not -- but you start with disparagement and ill-will.

Thus, to responding to that false, uncalled for, useless and worthless tangent --- I was suggesting that maybe YOU were unaware of the numbering of iPhoto versions.

Or you picked up wrong info -- or you hadn't had hands on experience with the free program which would show it obviously worked.

After responding to that unnecessary dispersion we get to the actual feature of Password protection. You noticed it works.

You then notice there was a way around it. Hilarious!

Hard to believe you left your 'secret' pictures folder in the Pictures folder.

My 'secret photo library' (of my old,previous Fat Pics) is hidden deep away in the bowels of the Finder with a deceptive name (i.e., not called "Embaressing Fat Pics). This has to be done when first setting up the Library.

And I'll be sure not to tell you where it is.

And try to keep a civil tongue in your mouth.

If you want to engange in pre-teen forum hostility, maybe get into gaming. But if you want to help others solve problems, maybe adjust your attitude.

My 'secret photo library' (of my old,previous Fat Pics) is hidden deep away in the bowels of the Finder with a deceptive name

You know that that is called "security by obscurity", and it is not really safe, don't you? But since we here are not talking about a case of national security but trust in a family, it's up to you what level of security will suffice for you.

As long as iPhoto can open your hidden away library the images inside should turn up in any search - have you tried to seatch the all pictures smart album or Spotlight?

leonieDF -- Thank you. Good ideas. It was very considerate of you to show the steps in how to do this.

It also gave me the idea of using the other User Account I have already set up on the computer. You'd need a password to just get there, and then a password to use the iPhotoBuddy Launcher App.....or else search the bowels of the Finder to find file 23498523421234.dit. - re: your point about: "security by obscurity"

Now, too, with the steps you helpfully outlined, I try out this Disk Encyrpting and see how it goes.

I'm feeling much better now, though, that my Fat Photos are safe and will only be appropriately used in the context of BEFORE in my Before and After comparisons of my Diet and Exercise book.

National Security was never an issue - although I must add that in the USA these days it seems every word, every song, every dance, every thought....every photo is now possible to be brought up as a bogus 'National Security Issue, in our current mode of ongoing multi-generations of ceaseless global war. --- So thanks for pointing out that concern.

Maybe it is time to start encrytping everything. 'Loose lips sinks ships."

Re: Your point about the Spotlight search...OMG....well, I'll be sure not to give the library any tags, comments or keywords like 'fat,' or 'embarassing,' Humm....maybe I'll add tags like those use for Fonts, (i.e security by obscurity" like I'll use Serif and SanSerif....and Serif will be for BEFORE (the Fat Pics) and SanSerif the AFTER --- (Me with the six-pack of abs)....I'll have to research some Cold War spy stuff for more ideas....like saying "see page 234" -- but only the co-conspirator knows which Book.

The iPhoto Buddy website says that it not updated to run with iPhoto 11. It also says that it is. On the same page several paragraphs apart.

The question you asked was

how do you Password Protect an iPhoto library?

The solution you proposed - using iPhoto Buddy - doesn't do that.

The solution you actually use turns out to be something quite different again. And, again, it's not secure. But it works for you so you have a nice day now.

Regards

TD

Yes, the iPhotoBuddy website had conflicting info. The correct info was that it works with Lion and current IPhoto.

You're very good and pointing out anyone's mistakes, slips of the tongue, or website info that is not consistent.

Steps and resons given by others on this thread have solved my problem...to the max, it seems.

Plus it was true that protecting my embrassing BEFORE Fat Pics was not an issue of National Security so I was merely looking for a modest and easy way and IPhotoBuddy does that for me.

I will, I am 'having a nice day.' -- See if you can do the same.

No

You can password protect an iPhoto library and you can password protect your whole account - but not single photos

LN