Locking Photo Album

Calm down, mate! 🙂
I don't believe any of your pictures are lost and I'll show you how to restore them later on.

Read carefully and don't hesitate to ask questions. More importantly, I'd recommend you solve your other issues first.


I think we need to clarify a few things...

As far as I know, it is impossible to lock a single iPhoto album. One can only "lock" an entire iPhoto library.
By default, iPhoto stores all it's data (pictures, albums, ratings...) in a big folder called "iPhoto Library" (your homefolder/Pictures/iPhoto Library). (It doesn't have to be called "iPhoto Library" though.) It is possible to have multiple, absolutely independent libraries. If you wanted to secure a certain number of photos, you'd have to create a separate iPhoto Library and figure out a way to "lock" the new iPhoto library folder. (Which is exactly, what Lori recommended.)

Creating a new library folder is fairly easy. (Close iPhoto.) Hold down the "option" (=alt) key while relaunching iPhoto. A new window pops up asking you to open an existing Library folder or to create a new one. Since you've already created a new library folder using a slightly different method, we can go ahead and switch between your existing libraries to make sure you didn't loose any pictures. Click "choose library" and navigate to the Pictures folder within your home(=user) folder. Your old library should still be named "iPhoto Library". Select it and hit "Open". You should see your old pictures, except for the ones you've moved to a new library.

Since pressing the option key isn't necessarily the nicest way to switch between iPhoto libraries, a nice guy has developed iPhoto Buddy, an utility to manage different libraries. It doesn't interfere with iPhoto or your pictures in any way, other than telling iPhoto which library folder to open. So far, iPhoto buddy does only know about your new, confidential library, which means you'll have to add your old one to the list: Open iPhoto Buddy, click the "+" from the lower left corner, navigate to your Pictures folder, select the old iPhoto Library and hit "Choose". To switch between your libraries, select it from the iPhoto Buddy list and press the iPhoto symbol on the right.

By now, we've managed to find an easy way to switch between libraries. What about locking your confidential files? Basically, there are two different methods and it all comes down to the level of security you need.
iPhoto Buddy gives you the option to "lock" an individual library. This, however, does only affect iPhoto Buddy itself. The password is absolutely useless as soon as iPhoto knows, which library to open. Anybody can circumvent iPhoto Buddy by holding down the option key as described before, which leads to the question, what are you trying to achieve? Do you just want to separate your pictures, hide them from your 4 year old son, who hasn't heard about the magical option key yet, or are you trying to actually secure them? In that case, there's no way around file encryption since - with physical access to the machine - any software implementation can be broken more or less easily. Encrypted data is -guess what- stored on your hard drive in an encrypted form. You must have the password in order to read it. Mac OS X uses the popular AES 128 bit standard for those kinds of things. Assuming you're using a long password, that couldn't be guessed or found in a dictionary, it would -as of today- be impossible to retrieve your data. For your own protection, you might want to keep an unencrypted backup on CD / DVD. (Always back up your data. See Dr. Smoke's guide on Backup and Recovery. Other popular backup utilities can be found using the forum search function.)
I'm not arguing against file encryption. In fact, I'm a strong advocate of tools like FileVault, GPG etc. I just wanted to inform you about the risk of file encryption.

So how do you encrypt your iPhoto Library?
You'll have to put it inside an encrypted, virtual disk image. Open Applications/Utilities/Disk Utility, click "new image", select an appropriate max. size (make sure you've enough space for future pictures), select Encryption "AES" and Format "sparse image" (this will allow the image to grow up to the maximum size.) Enter a name and put it i.e. in your Pictures folder.
When entering your password, disable "store in keychain". Once mounted, your disk image will appear as removable media on your desktop as well as the Finder sidebar. Locate your new (!!!) iPhoto Library folder and drag it into the disk image. (You can delete your unencrypted folder as soon as we've verified everything.) Open iPhoto Buddy, (remove the unencrypted version from the list by selecting it and pressing the delete key), hit "+" and add your confidential library inside your disk image to the list. Afterwards, you should be able to select and open it using the iPhoto button on the left.
To "lock" your files, quit iPhoto, switch to Finder and unmount (eject) your disk image by pressing the eject symbol from the Finder sidebar or -from the desktop- dragging the white disk symbol into the trash.
Next time you launch iPhoto Buddy, you'll be prompted for the disk image password.
Try switching back and forth between your confidential library as well as your old one.

Glad I could help.

I was looking for a way, to keep it lock, as well as with the other pictures.

Again, I'm not aware of any elegant way to have a few encrypted(="locked") images integrated inside a huge library. (Disabling "Copy files to iPhoto Library" and using aliases to the disk image seems to work except for the combined Thumb xSegment.data files.)

The more I think about it, iPhoto Buddy doesn't look like the most user friendly way for your purpose. Why couldn't you switch libraries just by clicking a different dock icon?

The path to your iPhoto library is saved in com.apple.iPhoto.plist. In order to use two different libraries and .plists simultaneously, we'd have to copy the iPhoto application and edit "/Applications/iPhoto.app/Contents/Info.plist"

CFBundleIdentifier com.apple.The Second iPhoto

This would enable you to launch iPhoto 1 for your standard library and iPhoto 2 for your confidential pictures without using iPhoto Buddy.

Unfortunately, iPhoto has a build-in locking mechanism that will prevent the execution of two "iPhotos" at the same time.

Caution: iPhoto is already running, Only one copy can be running at a time.

Trying to solve this, I've opened a new discussion thread:
Hacking iPhoto, running multiple instances of iPhoto at the same time.

Jacinthe,
I have never used iPhoto Buddy so I can't tell you from experience what to do or how it works.
Did you take a look at this page? I think you can also click the "+" button to add a folder you created or a library that is already on your hard drive to Buddy's list.
http://www.iphotobuddy.com/features.html

Have you selected the album in iPhoto, then go to File>export?
In the export window choose the File export button at the top
In the next window, choose full size and your naming scheme
In the next window choose to export to the desktop, then create a new folder (button on bottom left of the window) and export to that folder.

Now that the photos are exported, go back into iPhoto and delete those photos you just exported from the library.
Now you need to empty iPhoto's trash which is all the way at the bottom of the source window. Highlight the trash and go to iPhoto>empty trash in the menu bar.
Now the photos are out of your main library.

Now create a new folder in your Pictures folder and name it accordingly.
With iPhoto Buddy open, click the "+" button at the bottom left of the window. Navigate to the empty folder in the Pictures folder and choose it. (I am guessing on this part because I have not used iPhoto Buddy)
Next click the Launch button (bottom right of the iPhoto Buddy window)
this will launch iPhoto with the empty folder as the new library.

At this point, when iPhoto is open with a new empty library, you will want to import the folder of private images on the desktop. Drag the folder of images into the iPhoto viewing window to import them. Once they are imported you can delete the folder on the desktop (and empty the trash).
Let me know how it goes.

Jacinthe,
You don;t create the new folder with Buddy. You create a new folder in the Finder.
Open up a Finder window, click on the Pictures icon in the left column
Once the Pictures folder opens, click the "new folder" icon in the toolbar.
An untitled folder will be created in the Pictures folder. Name the new folder.
Now switch back to iPhoto buddy and click the plus sign to add the new folder you just created.
Can you get this far?

Open iPhoto buddy, highlight your original Library, then click "launch iPhoto" button
this is how you switch between libraries. It should all be explained in the programs help or documentation files. these should always be read before running and launching a new program.
Many people use this program on this forum and have no problem with it.

You can also hold down the Option key when launching iPhoto until you get a message screen. In the message screen choose to open another library and navigate to the original library. highlight it, then click the "open" button.
this will now open the original library.
Old toad, our forum guru uses iPhoto Buddy so he will probably pop in this thread to help you out.

Jacinthe:

Locking a library with iPhoto Buddy only locks it if you use iPB to try to open it. If you lock one in iPB and then open iPhoto via the application it will open that library even though you locked it in iPB.

Will the user's you want to lock out be in their own accounts or in the master account? If they are in their own accounts you can create a separate library in your account for your special photos and set the access so only you have access to that folder. Any other user trying to open that folder with iPhoto or with the Finder will be unable to do so if they are logged in to their account and not yours.

If the other users have to be in the same account then DPSG-Scout's suggesting of creating a password protected disk image to contain your special library is the best option.

1 - launch Disk Utility and click on the New Image button at the top. Select the size of the disk and AES-128 encryption, give it a name, click Create and enter your password.

2 - once the disk image is created then copy the library you want protected in it.

3 - next open iPB and drag your primary iPhoto Library folder and the protected one into it's open window.

Now you can close iPB and unmount the protected disk image. When you next open iPB to select a library to use a password window comes up if you select the library in the disk image. Entering the password will automatically open and mount the disk image and launch that library. When finished quit iPhoto and drag the mounted image to the trash to unmount. That will do the trick for you. Good luck.