Where are photos in the app Photos stored?

except i already exported them to my computer from my iphone and now i shouldn't have to go through them again and export them one by one if i want to use them for something. what the **** are you talking about.

Are you are trying to save space on your system disk? (the system drive /user folder IS an annoying default location for big collections of images. 😐) At the time of this writing the following solution doesn't seem to be syncing with the icloud Photo Library. Which is a bummer. But it's given me a local instance of photos I can access on my local machine without filling up my system disk. I feel like this is the beginning of a solution, maybe someone else can help with working out the bugs?

After reading some scary procedures with symlinks and the terminal app to trick apps into saving libraries to other locations, I found this simple, "for Dummies" solution:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/problem-with-symlinks-for-moving-mail-data- folders-to-an-external-drive.2041423/#post-24488301

I did this in Photos v.2 in OS 10.12 with iCloud Library:

Copy your Pictures folder (under Users/YOURUSERNAME) to another drive (I created a dropbox folder on a fast non-system drive ) THEN...

HOLD DOWN THE OPTION KEY--hold it down hard and keep holding it until you see a window where you can select a new library to use. You may have to select "Other" and navigate to your new instance if it doesn't show up in the window. select the file Photos Library.photoslibrary in your NEW location. It may throw up a scary message(see below) If your photos are already in the cloud you probably don't have to worry. If you COPIED and didn't MOVE the library I think you are also safe. Make sure you have a backup of the original and hit "Delete Incomplete Items."

Check and see if all your photos, videos etc are in the collection, open up Photos Preferences/General from that app and make sure the path to your new library is correct. If so, you can delete the Pictures folder inside inside your Users folder. I recommend compressing it and saving it as a backup just in case.

i shouldnt have to look around on the internet for hours for help to try and use my photos. i am more than proficient with a computer and i already figured out the export and share functions. what is even the point of this photos app?

i am more than proficient with a computer

Obviously an incorrect statement or you would understand the power and convenience of using a database to manage photos

LN

PS the answer is very simple - and self evident from the name

what is even the point of this photos app?

to manage photos

It's always amazing to find someone who is apparently "more than proficient with a computer" but is unable to master basic tasks.

You chose to send the photos from your Phone to the Photos.app. Why did you do that if you did not want the images managed by Photos? Doesn't your proficiency stretch to Image Capture? No? Here's a hint: it's in the Applications Folder.

I am less than proficient with a computer and I'm puzzled about where photos are stored. This is my conundrum: I have a folder on my "Desktop" area of my computer with some photos that were imported from elsewhere and have not yet been imported to Photos. When I import them to Photos are they copied at the same size into the Photos folder or is there just a "pointer" in Photos that references the images in the folder on my "Desktop"?

The reason I ask is I want to save space and will delete all the images on "Desktop" if they are safely living in Photos.

Thanks

When I import them to Photos are they copied at the same size into the Photos folder or is there just a "pointer" in Photos that references the images in the folder on my "Desktop"?

And that depends on undisclosed information about your personal settings

By default your Photo are stored in the Photos library in the pictures folder and are copied to it when imported so the source photo can be deleted - you can change this at any time so only you know what your settings are

LN

By default Photos saves its library in your Pictures folder. If you want to know the exact location you can open Photos and navigate to Preferences / click on General tab and it will show you the location.

Take a look at this article: http://www.howtogeek.com/214569/how-to-move-your-apple-photos-library-to-another -location/

No, you can't have a Photos Library on iCloud Drive. Why would you want to with the iCloud Photo Library?

Nope. The location mentioned there is just the "Photos Library," which is just the database alias. It just opens the app. It's impossible to figure out where the actual images are stored. Command + I? NOPE! Show in finder? NOPE.

Again, Apple makes it difficult for regular users to do regular things.

Nope. The easy way is to either export or share the photos.

See, regular folks do regular things really easily, and in any of multiple ways.

Photos stores the original/master image files inside the Photos Library package. The contents of the Photos Library package is not designed for the user to have access to it. If you want the image files outside of the library for use with other apps or to share read this user tip by Terence Devlin: How to Access Files in iPhoto It's applicable to Photos libraries as well as iPhoto libraries.

what is even the point of this photos app?

Photos is a database for photos. A photo is more than the image file your camera produced. The Photos.app is storing and managing the relations between the different versions of a photo, derived from your original photo. It is managing the metadata you apply, you can see which adjustments you applied, remove the adjustments individually, compare versions of the photos, organize them in albums, It is more than the Finder could do for you The Finder is dealing with files, Photos is modelling the specific attributes of photos and how the different versions of a photo relate and how they are used in projects. It makes working with photos much easier. The newest version of photos is even filing the photos automatically by categories. I do not need to assign keywords like "sunset" any longer. Photos recognizes such categories by looking at the date and time and by analysing the picture and can retrieve most of the sunset pictures if I type sunset into the search field.