new Photos app sharing library across users

@Rufulo and JDW1

It appears a couple users have recently reported in this thread that they successfully set up multi-user sharing of the Photos library using permissions on a shared or public directory under El Capitan.

Have either of you confirmed this? Has Apple changed something with the latest OS version that now allows multiple users on the same Mac to share a Photos library?

Actually I was a little surprised no user reported back about the simple workaround I found. I can confirm it works; ownership and permissions were reset when I updated to 10.11.2, but I assigned once more read/write permissions to my wife's account and everything went back to normal.

I myself have not found a solution that achieves my aim. I want the ability to have Apple's PHOTOS app open in my user and open in my wife's user so we can both browse, edit, add and delete photos. I want that to happen while keeping the Photos library on the same, unpartitioned, internal drive of our iMac. I don't want to be forced to use iCloud to accomplish this.

But my aim is nothing exclusive to me. This is the want and need of most married couples sharing the same Mac. It is a fundamental, basic need that should be made easier by Apple.

That is my want as well.

Yeehat,

Just to clarify. Your Photos library is in a directory to which your wife can read and write, and:

- You can upload, view and edit photos from your account;

- She can upload, view and edit photos in the same library from her account.

Is this correct?

I assume you can't both be running the Photos app at the same time. Do you log fully out of OS X before she logs in, and visa versa, or does it work with "quick switching" between accounts when you're both logged into OS X?

Thanks!

Our Photos library is in /Users/Shared, I granted read/write permissions to me, my wife and everyone, wheel has only read permissions (I made changed via the Finder, not the Terminal). Both of us can upload, view and edit photos to this library from administrator (mine) and standard (her) accounts, though of course not at the same time. It works even with fast user switching. As I said, OS updates seem to reset ownership and permissions to defaults (and this was to be expected) and occasionally one user is required to "repair" library. To accomplish reparation on my wife's standard account an administrator password is required and that's annoying, but at least things run almost like iPhoto's times.

Yay! It works. I updated to El Capitan, set up the Photos library in the Shared directory, set the permissions like you said, and it works. Something must have changed with the El Capitan update, because this didn't work before.

Even better - I can now load new photos from either account and they are visible in the one, shared Photos library.

Now, if I could only figure out where they put the Red Eye tool in this Photos update.

Thank you for your help!

Just tried with one shared library with permissions set R/W to me, my wife and everyone.

Both of us now can access the database however a repair of library is needed everytime we switch!

@RK101 You're welcome 🙂

@jvulto We have just one library, I don't know if this makes any difference. I forgot to mention that we'both set this library as system library in Photos preferences in each account, but I think it's obvious. Now and then we're requested to repair library with no apparent reason, except for the OS update, but not frequently. I've just come back and forth many times between my account and my wife's with fast user switching, opening and quitting Photos to test my workaround once more: it just works (OS X 10.11.2, Photos 1.3). Lastly, I didn't update RAW Compatibility to 6.18 (no use for my needs).

The way Photos and El Capitan is setup you have two options:

1 - and external HD correctly formatted and connected by USB/Firewire to the Mac.

2 - a disk image large enough to hold your library and any anticipated size increase due to adding additional photos. It can be placed in the Shred folder but will have to be mounted manually by each user when they want to use the library.

Personally the first option would be my preference as it frees up space on the boot drive for use by other files and allows one to maintain the amount of free space which is important for optimal system and application performance.

If an external drive is connected to the Mac (why not Thunderbolt?), how does that make it easier to share with my wife's computer in a different room?

I've seen disk drives called Internet disk drives, but don't understand what that means, and wonder if one could be stand-alone in my house and store photos and music and documents I want to share between my wife and myself. I'd want them to be accessible even if one computer is turned off - but backed up via Time Machine with each computer.

1 - Thunderbolt is fine

2 - the subject of this thread is sharing a library across multiple users - not across multiple machines - when you threadjack other people's threads you cause confusion for you, the volunteers who are helping people here and other users reading this later

3 - Internet drive or NAS (Network Attached Storage) drives are no suitable for holding or sharing an iPhoto or Photos library

Please read this Writing an effective Apple Support Communities question and start your own thread with your question if you want more information - although the only current answer to your question is to use iCloud Photo Library with the same iCloud log in for both of you

LN

Old Toad wrote:

The way Photos and El Capitan is setup you have two options:

1 - and external HD correctly formatted and connected by USB/Firewire to the Mac.

2 - a disk image large enough to hold your library ...

I'm not sure I get the point. Do you mean that our best bet is checking Ignore property on this volume?

Do you mean that our best bet is checking Ignore property on this volume?

"Ignore ownership on this volume" is essential. Apple recommended it in this document for iPhoto Libraries, the same goes for Photos Libraries. iPhoto: Sharing libraries among multiple users

If a Photos Libraries is accessed from a different user account and the library is not only read but modfied, the ownership will change for some of the internal databases. And then the original owner can no longer open the library without repairing the library with the First aid Tools. The "Ignore ownership on this volume" flag prevents this. A shared folder does no longer suffice.

Thank you 🙂 I'm no big iPhoto/Photos user and I was missing the point. And yes, ownership and not property; you certainly guessed English is not my native language 😊