Photos - "slideshow/random view"

We are all forum members just like you and have no way to convince Apple, other than using the Bug Reporter or the feedback form. perhaps one of the developers will come across your post - occasionally they are browsing the forums.

For the time being, you can use the Screensaver to show your Photos albums as a random slideshow. There is no need to export the albums to a folder on your Desktop.

Just access your Photos Library using the Media Browser in

System Preferences > Desktop & Screensaver: Scheensaver

Pick one of the slideshow screensaver templates in the left pane and and set the "Source" to Photolibrary in the right pane of the panel. Then select your Photos Library and the album you want to show. Click "Shuffle Slide Order" and you will see your album as a shuffled slideshow, but without music.

Or try this AppleScript to show a shuffled slideshow of the currently selected photos: Script: Shuffle Photos for an Instant Slideshow in Random Order

Anyone that have migrated back to iPhoto? How?

(I know, it is old and discontinued but i works for all our purposes.. and by now we deeply regret migrating in the first place)

Do you have iPhoto 9.6.1 installed? YOu need this version on Sierra.

A Photos Library cannot be converted back into an iPhoto Library. SO you will need a backup copy of your iPhoto Library and then import all newer photos into this iPhoto Library.

This User Tip describes, how to update iPhoto to 9.6.1, if it is possible at all:

Can't Update iPhoto because it is not available in the App Store

Only reinstalling iPhoto will work, updating is not possible.

Your suggestion is appreciated but quite slow as well.

I clocked 1min 20sec just to read in sources in screensaver and addtly 1 min 35 sek before slideshow started (34 pics face view). By then we have started to talk about somebody else already.. 😁😉

Must be a heavy operation, because starting screensaver from a disk folder is more or less instant.

The system screensaver is usually very fast. Only the first time you use a new album it will need some time to set it up. If you want to show slideshow to guest, you may want to set up the screensaver slideshow in advance. If you define a hot corner for the screensaver, you just need to bang the cursor into the hot corner to launch the slideshow.

I have an extensive backup of my whole fruit basket but not back to when I migrated to Photos..

So, if there was a script pealing of the difference btw Photos and iPhone library it would be helpful.

Else I am as stated above locked in the dependence.

That is difficult. PowerPhotos or iPhoto Library Manager can only compare libraries of the same kind.

But you could try to find the newest photo in your most recent iPhoto Library, you could then export all newer photos from Photos - create a smart album "date is after ..."

Then import these newer photos to iPhoto.

Just a side note. I'm having the opposite problem to Your problem. When I present my slides, I want a fixed order and titles. The classic theme and Ken Burns are the only themes that do not move the photos around to fill the templates. And when slides are moved, the text slides also move, but not fixed to the slide. Photos cannot use the titles that are in the metadata tags. We have to copy them manually to the title slides. And do that over and over again, when we use the same photo in a different slideshow. Another problem - many themes do not respect the aspect ratio of a photo. Even with so much new artificial intelligence in Photos for categories and face detection, it will cut off head or feet of the person to fit the photo into the frame.

l am now using Keynote to do my photo slideshows. Or switch back to Aperture.

I have never spent much time with Keynote. I need to check that out. Wish Aperture was still an option for me. 😟

Ken Burns is fun sometimes and often effective, but just as often cuts off the portion of the picture I wanted seen.

My titles are all out of whack, although not in the way yours is. I used to used the flexible batch rename to label the batch in sequence for Christmas 2001 - 001, etc... I finally accidentally saw the newer batch title naming (note by accident, not clear for common user IMO) and tried using it, but it has a tendency to name them out of photo sequence. The sort seems to always default to by date added. Even if I remember and it uses the filename, sometimes those pesky ASCII/number sorting issues come into play and my album is all goofy. I guess I need to look again, but I didn't see the old manual sort option for an album. Tiresome, but would work. Thus I assume it is probably gone as well...

Good luck, hope they implement your feedback suggestions...

léonie wrote:

The system screensaver is usually very fast. Only the first time you use a new album it will need some time to set it up. If you want to show slideshow to guest, you may want to set up the screensaver slideshow in advance. If you define a hot corner for the screensaver, you just need to bang the cursor into the hot corner to launch the slideshow.

The planned slideshows are of course helpful. My gatherings seldom work out that way. Depends on how you run your gatherings. I had a friend who had an itinerary for her friendly get together parties. Seriously. We got into a bit of a argument when she insisted I come outside for the Backyard Olympics that started at 2:30 (no, it was not just one scheduled "event") time for lunch, snack break, water volleyball... I ramble a lot obviously.

I sympathize more with the scenario where I have people over and we start discussing a topic/person/get together. Suddenly, "hey don't you have pictures from that?". Yes, but I can't get a random slideshow going. Not to mention I flip on the AppleTV 4 and it decides iTunes isn't available for my computer again (daily issue, varies which of the ATVs are impacted). Run back to the computer to recycle iTunes. Back to ATV. Start blah slideshow. I miss my slideshow options. And they were options, you know. Options didn't impact users that wanted basic slideshow, because all they had to do was hit the start slideshow. If I chose options I could change them.

I know exactly what you are talking about and I am equally frustrated by the removal of the shuffle (random view function). There is an app available called Slideshow Plus that allows random view but without photo effects except fade from one image to another. But unfortunately it does not allow viewing the the entire phone library unless all photos are in one album. This is to say you can choose the album and then see all photos in that album in random order. And you can choose the time for each slide. There used to be a wonderful app called Picmatic by Team Whisky Beavers. That was great with multiple transitions and allowed for random of the entire library but for some reason Apple pulled it. Maybe you can find a way of getting that app.