glnorrisjr
Level 1 (4 points)
Photos for Mac

Q: Need help in understanding Photos in Apple OS

I am a recent entrant into the Apple OS X world after having been a long time user of Microsoft products.

 

I'm running a mac mini (mid-level w/ 8G ram and 1T hard drive). We also purchased same for my wife, who is already happier over the interface. I, on the other hand am interested in the substructure. Here's why. I want to be able to share photos I take with my wife on our external hard drive, and I'm having difficulty figuring out how to do that and use IPhotos effectively.

 

Up to now, we have used an external 1 TB drive hanging off my machine (formerly laptop, now mac mini) as our shared storage, with backups of documents and pictures and such going to the external drive. Heretofore, it has been our responsibility to build the directory/folder tree for organizing all of this, with only the occasional nod to M/S's method of defining libraries (ITunes files were in a /Temp folder for better backup purposes, etc.).  Our photos/videos section is fast approaching 100GB of data and the folder structure is ... involved.

 

In the past, I could direct new picture imports in M/S to go to a directory tree with a new date for new picture imports, and overnight the new files would be copied to the external drive. Occasionally one of us would go to the new picture dump area and transfer the imported pictures to their appropriate place in the picture reserve structure, with appropriate names, etc. While it was a task, it was what it was, and more importantly, we both had access to all of our pictures.

 

In the OS X world, I am uncertain how I can manage my picture imports from my IPhone so that a copy of them will be placed onto the external drive so that my wife can access these pictures. I would also want to set my wife's new mac to do the same. I thought about using rsync to pull the files from Masters (I assume "originals"), but that looks... hairy.

Mac mini, OS X El Capitan (10.11.5), null

Posted on Jul 17, 2016 8:33 PM

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glnorrisjr

Q: Need help in understanding Photos in Apple OS

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  • by LarryHN,

    LarryHN LarryHN Jul 17, 2016 9:02 PM in response to glnorrisjr
    Level 10 (84,857 points)
    Photos for Mac
    Jul 17, 2016 9:02 PM in response to glnorrisjr

    TO start details are critical - do you have Photos (the current product) or iPhoto which you state (the discontinued product)?  The answers are very different for the different products

     

    And with either they are SQLite databases and you never do anything with the actual files inside the database Package

     

    LN

  • by glnorrisjr,

    glnorrisjr glnorrisjr Jul 17, 2016 9:26 PM in response to LarryHN
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Photos for Mac
    Jul 17, 2016 9:26 PM in response to LarryHN

    Apple Photos. Sorry about the confusion. As for your second comment, I'm not exactly sure where that's coming from, but it is because I'm not understanding the underlying structure of Photos.

  • by LarryHN,

    LarryHN LarryHN Jul 17, 2016 9:47 PM in response to glnorrisjr
    Level 10 (84,857 points)
    Photos for Mac
    Jul 17, 2016 9:47 PM in response to glnorrisjr

    With Photos for Mac you never access the files and it is not a multi user program - to share libraries you use iCloud Photo Library

     

    iCloud Photo Library - Apple Support

     

     

    LN

  • by Rysz,

    Rysz Rysz Jul 17, 2016 9:55 PM in response to glnorrisjr
    Level 7 (20,569 points)
    Mac OS X
    Jul 17, 2016 9:55 PM in response to glnorrisjr

    The major difference from MS is that you leave all the database maintainance tasks to Photos. You should access your images only thru the Photos interface, not directly.

     

    Photos User / Help guide:

    https://help.apple.com/photos/mac/1.0/?lang=en

    iMore has a very detailed, well illustrated article on iCloud Photo Library:

    http://www.imore.com/how-use-icloud-photo-library-ultimate-guide

  • by glnorrisjr,

    glnorrisjr glnorrisjr Jul 17, 2016 10:08 PM in response to Rysz
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Photos for Mac
    Jul 17, 2016 10:08 PM in response to Rysz

    Thank you for your responses, but I appear to not have stated what I'm trying to accomplish in my original post.

     

    I understand that Photos is supposed to be my interface for all my photos and videos that are imported, but at issue is how to get these newly imported pictures/videos to my external drive for my wife to have access to them. If iCloud is the only solution for any type of sharing of photos in the Apple OS, then it would seem to be a step backward.

     

    I believe that there has to be a method for me to put pictures onto my computer, have them backed up on the external hard drive, and import them into Photos. I am simply seeking pointers to the tools needed to accomplish those objectives. Having studied the iCloud solution the little bit I have, it is less set up for sharing files for different users and more for sharing files across different devices.

  • by LarryHN,

    LarryHN LarryHN Jul 17, 2016 10:34 PM in response to glnorrisjr
    Level 10 (84,857 points)
    Photos for Mac
    Jul 17, 2016 10:34 PM in response to glnorrisjr

    You can export photos (file menu ==> export) to any valid location

     

    A backup is not a place to acces photos - it a backup in case of problems

     

    Photos is not a multi user package - multiple users can not access the same database of photos

     

    LN