How to share photos library on home network

I would like to share my Apple Photos library within my home network. When I go to file sharing, I am able to select virtually anything on my home computer except the Photos library. That icon is greyed out and not selectable for sharing. Is there a reason for this?

imac

Posted on Feb 24, 2018 7:40 AM

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Posted on Feb 24, 2018 7:47 AM

Yes because you can not share a Photos library on a network - the only way to share a library is using iCloud Photo Library which keeps a synchronized copy of the library on each system - Photos is a single user program and the Photos library must be on a local drive with a fast wired connection like USB, ThunderBolt or FireWire to the Mac -- Where is it safe to store a Photos Library? Requirements for the external drive


Photos is a free, consumer level program - you can purchasethird party DAMs (Digital Asset Manager) software that does support multiple users and networks


LN

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Feb 24, 2018 7:47 AM in response to rich3500

Yes because you can not share a Photos library on a network - the only way to share a library is using iCloud Photo Library which keeps a synchronized copy of the library on each system - Photos is a single user program and the Photos library must be on a local drive with a fast wired connection like USB, ThunderBolt or FireWire to the Mac -- Where is it safe to store a Photos Library? Requirements for the external drive


Photos is a free, consumer level program - you can purchasethird party DAMs (Digital Asset Manager) software that does support multiple users and networks


LN

Feb 24, 2018 10:42 AM in response to rich3500

You can keep your librarry local on one Mac, and then use it from a different computer using Screen Sharing.

The advantage of screen sharing is, that the Photos.app will run on the same computer, where your library is located. The library will be stored only on one Mac.


See: https://support.apple.com/kb/PH25596?locale=en_US&viewlocale=en_US


With iCloud Photo Library you would have a separate library on each synced devices, iCloud would keep the separate libraries in sync.

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How to share photos library on home network

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