new Photos app sharing library across users

Photos is designed to share. I've got mine uploading to the cloud and keeping files on my mac. It syncs with my iphone and ipad as well........it's much like an imap email account.

If all you want to do is for the others to have access to your photos, you can share it with them by using the share feature. If you want them to have full functionality, see here, but there are caveats:

iPhoto: Sharing libraries among multiple users - Apple Support

Have them access it via iCloud and download what they want.

Here is what i tried and seems to be working ok but probably requires a bit more testing so before you try this by yourself with your default Photos Library, maybe create a new Photos Library for testing purposes: Adjust the size of your Photos library to work with iCloud Photo Library - Apple Support

Start a new photo library

You can create a new Photos library to use with iCloud Photo Library. (...)

1. Hold down the Option key while opening Photos.
2. Choose Create New.
3. Import content from your previous library to create a new, smaller library.

Also, it won't be a bad idea to create a Time Machine Backup before you start messing with your photos. In case if something would go wrong, you can restore your library to the previous state: Mac Basics: Time Machine backs up your Mac - Apple Support

Here are the steps:

1. Use Disk Utility to create a Sparse Bundle Disk Image (Image grows in size when you are putting files in it but the catch is that you need to defined the maximum size of the Sparse Bundle when you are creating this image). To do that, open Disk Utility app and go to File > New > Blank Disk Image: Disk Utility 12.x: Create a disk image

For my testing i have used these settings for new Spars Bundle Disk Image:

Saves as: Photos Shared Library

Where: /Users/Library

Name: Photos Shared Library

Size: Custom (10 GB)

Format: Mac Os Extended (Journaled)

Encryption: None

Partitions: Single partition - GUID Partition Map

Image Format: sparse bundle disk image

2. Make sure that all users which should have access to Photos Shared Library have Read and Write access to Shared folder: Mac Basics: File Sharing - Apple Support

and that the /Users/Shared folder privileges are applied to enclosed items:

3. Mount (if it's not mounted yet) Photos Shared Library in Finder, open it and move your Photos Library to it: OS X Yosemite: Folder basics

4. Now, to make sure Photos app will open correct Photos Library (each time when application is open), you need to make sure that after each user will log in to his account Photos Shared Library Sparse Bundle is automaticaly mounted. The easiest way to do that is to add Photos Shared Library Sparse Bundle to Login Items and this needs to be done on each user account: OS X Yosemite: Open items automatically when you log in

Now... I did not test this setup for a long period but i am able to view/edit/add/remove photos and it seems to be working ok. Perhaps, if you have more time and would like to give it a try, you could share your thoughts.

Things that you will need to remeber with this setup:

- Now, with this setup you problably would have to disable photos in your iCloud Preferences Pane and forget about using this service and what is going with it (My Photo Stream and iCloud Photo Sharing). Unless on each user account you are signed in with the same Apple ID then you could test this setup and see how that will work for you.

- You can't use fast user switching. Only one user can use Photos Library at the time. What this mean is that you will need to make sure that one user is fully logged out before another user can log in to his account.

I would also like to know the answer to this problem. Our shared library resides on an external drive which we have set under info to "Ignore ownership on this volume". When attempting to open the library under my wife's username, I still get an error as seen below.

I would very much like to have the functionality we'd grown to rely on with iPhoto to maintain a shared library among the various users in our family.

I would very much like to have the functionality we'd grown to rely on with iPhoto to maintain a shared library among the various users in our family.

THIS X1000.

None of the replies this far are helpful to the original post, or to me, or to the currently 13 other people who have the same question.

There was one reply that linked the following page for us:

iPhoto: Sharing libraries among multiple users - Apple Support

But note that page is dedicated to the now defunct iPhoto, not the new Photos app. That remains true even if one contents the contents in some way apply to Photos. But also note that you must move your photos to an external drive. No matter how cheap and easy that is, some of us don't want to do that. The elegance of all "all in one" computer is that it is ALL IN ONE. If you like a rats nets of cables and external peripherals, more power to you. We already have those now with Time Machine HDs and scanners and the like. Some of us just don't like adding one more device ONLY BECAUSE Apple provides no good solution for one to share among multiple users on the same INTERNAL drive of a Mac.

The fact is that MOST OF US do NOT want to pay to use iCloud Photo Sharing. No way. Now how. No. Just no... Maybe someday when we all decide to stop paying stupid monthly cell phone fees so we can actually afford to feed our kids, but for now smartphones are draining bank accounts dry. Apple may want to sell you iCloud storage, but they are not stupidly oblivious to what I am saying. They ought to know MOST PEOPLE won't pay to use iCloud Photo Library (unless possibly if they drop fees to $10 or $15/yr for 1TB of storage, which is unlikely even when faced with competition by Google, Amazon and others for low cost cloud storage.)

All said, most people are like me. I am not rich or poor. I am married with kids. My wife and I share the same iMac with two user accounts. We both have Photos installed. I am responsible for shooting the photos (mostly) and edited them and importing them into Photos. I want her to be able to switch to her user account, launch Photos, and then see exactly what I see in Photos in my user account -- all WITHOUT having to pay for iCloud Photo Sharing.

Don't call me names and laugh. Just tell me and the numerous others out there like me how to easily and quickly accomplish this most commonly asked about and demanded need. Provide real solutions, not the "run around."

Thanks.

I've managed to have multiple users on the same Mac access the same photo library on my NAS. There are multiple posts saying that storing the photo library on a non-HFS partition is a bad idea but I never had an issue with my Synology NAS (formatted ext4), this applies to iphoto and photos library. This is relatively safe when working with multiple accounts on the same mac to avoid simultaneous access.

I completely with previous poster comments in that content sharing between multiple macs on a home network is really suboptimal. iCloud sync is a joke for large music,movie, photo libraries (mine are close to 500GB) and way too expensive.

In view of their closed eco-system, the only proper solution is that Apple sells a dedicated multimedia server for local storage of iTunes/Photos content and build support for multiple client access. iCloud can be used to interaction with IOS devices and laptops.

Did anybody figure this out?

Toothmans wrote:

Did anybody figure this out?

If they did, they didn't care to write back and let us know.

Honestly, I've been frustrated with Apple forums for a long time. When I post, either no one replies at all, or a zillion-point man chimes in merely to say the standard lines like "Send Apple Feedback." (And BTW, I send Apple a fair amount of feedback on a regular basis. But that doesn't solve my problems, of course.)

So either no one knows or no one cares or it's impossible.

I'm depressed.

LOL @ zillion-point man.

JDW, what are you currently doing to continue managing photos? Are you just using either your's or your wife's Photos library for now?

The fundamental problem for my family is that Apple released iCloud to get a cloud solution out to the market many years ago without any vision for the service. My family setup our devices, Apple IDs, and iCloud IDs based on the crappy initial architecture of iCloud, and we've been using that paradigm for years. My wife and I share an apple ID for app and song purchases, and we have a shared iTunes and shared iPhoto library, but different iCloud IDs for FaceTime, etc. The vision for iCloud is more clear now, and family sharing would solve most of the initial qualms we had that drove us to setup things the way we did. The paradigm Apple desires is for everybody in my family to have their own Apple IDs, own iCloud IDs, turn on family sharing, and pay out the wazoo for iCloud storage. I think we can only fight off this new paradigm for so long. Apple is gradually bullying customers into this usage model. My library isn't getting any smaller, but I suppose storage should continue to get cheaper. Even if I was willing to cave in and do this, it would be a lot of work.

I've contemplated exporting all my photos to a format that Adobe Lightroom can import, and just manage our photos there. I'm not positive if I can share a Lightroom catalog amongst users, but initial research seems to imply it's doable.

I don't want to move my iPhoto library to an external HD (which some folks say is the solution to getting iPhoto (or now, Photos) to use the same library via Multiple Users. So my wife can open iPhoto or Photos, but she can't see anything. We have to switch to my user account and then she can see them. So why do I even have a separate user account for her? Well, we live in Japan. My wife is Japanese. She prefers a Japanese UI and I prefer English. It's that simple. And when she uses iPhoto, she'd like that too to be in Japanese. So it would be nice if she could just switch to her account, launch Photos, then see exactly what I see.

And to repeat what I said earlier in this thread, oh sure, we can accomplish that WITHOUT an external HD. All we need to do is pay Apple to store our 10,000+ photos "in the cloud." Well, I don't want to do that at this time.

Like you, I share the same Apple ID with my wife. That hasn't been a problem for us insofar as I end up doing the app buying, maintenance, etc.

I've thought about Lightroom, but it's not as friendly for my wife to use as iPhoto was or Photos is.

By the way, if you shoot RAW photos, you will be blown away by Capture One. I've been using the trial of version 8.x. The new version has catalogs similar to Lightroom, but the capabilities just blow Lightroom away. It doesn't replace Photoshop, but man, the default settings in Capture One look far better than iPhoto, Aperture, Lightroom or Photoshop Camera RAW. And when you start tweaking in Capture One, you really can come up with an outstanding photo. I am not affiliated with them in any way. I just tell it like it is.

But back to the topic at hand, I am displeased with the situation just like you are. Apple needs to make Photos "usable" for married people who share the same Mac with multiple users, offering us a local storage option that doesn't require iCloud or an external HD. If they tried, they could do it.

This solution presented by iW00 seems the way to go. I at least can now see the fotos in the shared library in the Photos app.

So, thumbs up! Thank you iW00!!!

What I cannot yet do is sync them onto my iPad via iTunes. Any suggestions here?

Ziegenhorn, take note of the caveats of that trick, as per iW00:

Things that you will need to remeber with this setup:

- Now, with this setup you problably would have to disable photos in your iCloud Preferences Pane and forget about using this service and what is going with it (My Photo Stream and iCloud Photo Sharing). Unless on each user account you are signed in with the same Apple ID then you could test this setup and see how that will work for you.

- You can't use fast user switching. Only one user can use Photos Library at the time. What this mean is that you will need to make sure that one user is fully logged out before another user can log in to his account.

That's why we need Apple to come up with a BETTER solution.

True... but at this point I am more worried about accessing the family Photo Library than the the Fotostream, etc.

What I still have not worked out how to access that Photo Library in iTunes, I only get the foggy Library icon (see below)