Photos Library on external drive

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Level 1

17 points

Photos Library on external drive

Could you hypothetically re-route the photos library to a removable external drive? Follow up Q: Could that external drive be used on multiple macs (assuming the macs are all configured the same)?

ex. scenario 1a: Having a mac mini with an external drive. The mac mini has been told that the System Folder for the photos will be on the external drive.

scenario 1b: Then, could a macbook air be told that IT'S system photo library could be found on that same folder that is on the external hard drive in scenario 1a? Thus, having one drive house the photo libraries for 2 computers?

Mac mini (Late 2012), OS X Yosemite (10.10.1)

Posted on Jul 26, 2016 1:40 PM

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Answer 1

JimmyCMPIT

Level 7

29,306 points

Jul 26, 2016 1:44 PM in response to kujo2all

See this document

Use Photos and iCloud Photo Library on multiple Mac computers - Apple Support

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Answer 2

LarryHN

Level 10

106,142 points

Jul 26, 2016 5:32 PM in response to kujo2all

1 a - yes - the drive must be formatted Mac OS extended (journaled) connected with a fast wired connection like ThunderBolt, USB or FireWire, always available prior to Photos being launched and not used as a TimeMachine bakcup volume

1 b - Not sure and not sure how you can connect one hard drive to two Macs via a wired connection -

LN

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Answer 3

kujo2all Author

Level 1

17 points

Jul 27, 2016 6:17 AM in response to LarryHN

1a- That's great news!

1b- I should clarify. The external photo library wouldn't be connected to two macs at the same time. Rather the desktop mac would be for at home use, and the laptop while I'm away. The external drive could accompany me no matter where I am, and I could always update a single photo library (instead of having 2 separate libraries: one of the desktop mac, and one of the laptop mac).

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Answer 4

LarryHN

Level 10

106,142 points

Jul 27, 2016 8:26 AM in response to kujo2all

1 b then yes - be sure you always have a good backup

LN

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Answer 5

léonie

Level 10

200,699 points

Jul 27, 2016 8:40 AM in response to kujo2all

If you plug the drive alternately into two different Macs, you might encounter permission problems.

In addition to Larry's advice to formate the drive MacOS Extended (Journaled) enable the "Ignore Ownership on this volume" flag. See: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201517

Select this drive in the Finder.
Choose File > Get Info.
In the Info window, find the Sharing & Permissions section. You may need to click the disclosure triangle to see the details for this section.
Click the lock in the lower-right corner of the Info window. Enter an administrator name and password when prompted.
Select the option to Ignore Permissions on this volume (usually selected by default).
Copy your library to this drive.

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