Apple Event: May 7th at 7 am PT
Hello!
Can I share the iPhoto-Libraries I and my wife each have on our shared iMac?
(That is, obviously, I have many Pictures my wife hasn't, and she has many pictures I haven't in my library. Instead of duplicating them into the other's iPhoto-Library, we'd like to just share them...)
thanks!
david
iMac, Mac OS X (10.7.3)
For iPhoto 09 (version 8.0.2) and later:
What you mean by 'share'.
If you want the other user to be able to see the pics, but not add to, change or alter your library, then enable Sharing in your iPhoto (Preferences -> Sharing), leave iPhoto running and use Fast User Switching to open the other account. In that account, enable 'Look For Shared Libraries'. Your Library will appear in the other source pane.
Any user can drag a pic from the Shared Library to their own in the iPhoto Window.
Remember iPhoto must be running in both accounts for this to work.
If you want the other user to have the same access to the library as you: to be able to add, edit, organise, keyword etc.
Quit iPhoto in both accounts. Move the Library to the Users / Shared Folder
(You can also use an external HD set to ignore permissions, a Disk Image or even partition your Hard Disk.)
In each account in turn: Double click on the Library to open it. (You may be asked to repair the Library Permissions.) From that point on, this will be the default library location. Both accounts will have full access to the library, in fact, both accounts will 'own' it.
However, there is a catch with this system and it is a significant one. iPhoto is not a multi-user app., it does not have the code to negotiate two users simultaneously writing to the database, and trying will cause db corruption. So only one user at a time, and back up, back up back up.
That is common and seems to only be solved by using the recommended sharing method of placing the library an an external hard drive with ownership ignored - http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1198
That have been very successful
LN
I tried moving back the iPhoto library to /users/shared/Pictures and re-applying the permission changes and this seemed to work - no repair needed when opening with another user account. Hope this lasts ...
Good - hope it works out for you
LN
Go back and do what lukemacdonald suggested (all steps). It is working for me. You should not need to move files to an external drive.
Mine are in /users/shared/family and I have a group called "family" defined that has r/w permissions over it. The chmod g+s is needed to set the sticky bit, so new adds and changes keep the same ownership/permissions. You might get one more repair permissions notice from iPhoto, but after that, everything is good.
iPhoto: Sharing libraries among multiple users - Apple Support is the ONLY way (journaled external drive, ignore permissions) you can share your library and not get permissions issues. I have been on the phone for 3 days trying to recover my library after upgrading to Yosemite. my case just got elevated to the senior iphoto technitian at Apple support and after describing and working on my problem he said no matter how you work the permissions issues, iPhoto was not written to accommodate being placed in the shared folder. I did this over 5 years ago at least with the intention of my wife using it from her account. She has NEVER used it (or even logged into her account being she just uses mine) and here I am dealing with confirmed permissions issues which will require manually rebuilding the library and losing all my albums and faces for a 212GB library. Don't mess around with files that carry a lot of sentimental value, just follow Apple's built in and/or prescribed methods for sharing, and back up your library using at least two separate places. If iPhoto is not fitting what you want to do, then find another product that does.
Is it possible to move the IPhoto library file to the users/shared folder and then have people access it there (from each account)?
- Glenn
See the post directly above yours.
No, in the current version you will have persistent permissions issues.
iPhoto: Sharing libraries among multiple users - Apple Support
Just split my library into separate ones for me and my wife. What a hassle.
share iPhoto-library with other user account?
