Photos on Mac features an immersive, dynamic look that showcases your best photos. Find the shots you’re looking for with powerful search options. Organise your collection into albums, or keep your photos organised automatically with smart albums. Perfect your photos and videos with intuitive built‑in editing tools, or use your favourite photo apps. And with iCloud Photos, you can keep all your photos and videos stored in iCloud and up to date on your Mac, Apple TV, iPhone, iPad and even your PC.
If you visit the photos.google.com website with a computer you can quickly select multiple photos at a time by clicking the checkmark icon at the top left corner of the first thumbnail, pressing. You can connect a camera, iPhone, iPad, or other mobile device to your Mac and import your photos into the Photos app. You can also import photos from a camera’s memory card. See Import photos from storage devices and DVDs using Photos. Import photos from a camera, iPhone, or iPad. Click Save Image to 'Downloads'. It's in the context menu. This will prompt the photo to download immediately into your Mac's 'Downloads' folder, which is usually a folder literally named 'Downloads'. If you're using a browser other than Safari, you can click Save Image As instead. This option will allow you to select a name and a specific.
A smarter way to find your favourites.
Photos intelligently declutters and curates your photos and videos — so you can easily see your best memories.
Focus on your best shots.
Photos emphasises the best shots in your library, hiding duplicates, receipts and screenshots. Days, Months and Years views organise your photos by when they were taken. Your best shots are highlighted with larger previews, and Live Photos and videos play automatically, bringing your library to life. Photos also highlights important moments like birthdays, anniversaries and trips in the Months and Years views.
Your memories. Now playing.
Memories finds your best photos and videos and weaves them together into a memorable movie — complete with theme music, titles and cinematic transitions — that you can personalise and share. So you can enjoy a curated collection of your trips, holidays, friends, family, pets and more. And when you use iCloud Photos, edits you make to a Memory automatically sync to your other devices.
Download PhotoSync – transfer photos for macOS 10.7.4 or later and enjoy it on your Mac. It’s all about one thing – the best and easiest way to transfer, backup and share your photos & videos! Access Downloads Folder on Mac from the Home Directory. Of course you can also get to the Downloads folder on a Mac by navigating from the users Home directory, where the clearly labeled “Downloads” folder will exist alongside other default folders like Desktop, Documents, Pictures, Movies, etc.
The moment you’re looking for, always at hand.
With Search, you can look for photos based on who’s in them or what’s in them — like strawberries or sunsets. Or combine search terms, like “beach 2017”. If you’re looking for photos you imported a couple of months ago, use the expanded import history to look back at each batch in chronological order. And in the Albums section, you’ll find your videos, selfies, panoramas and other media types automatically organised into separate albums under Media Types.
Fill your library, not your device.
iCloud Photos can help you make the most of the space on your Mac. When you choose “Optimise Mac Storage”, all your full-resolution photos and videos are stored in iCloud in their original formats, with storage-saving versions kept on your Mac as space is needed. You can also optimise storage on your iPhone, iPad and iPod touch, so you can access more photos and videos than ever before. You get 5GB of free storage in iCloud — and as your library grows, you have the option to choose a plan for up to 2TB.
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Make an edit here, see it there. With iCloud Photos, when you make changes on your Mac — like editing a photo, marking a Favourite or adding to an album — they’re kept up to date on your iPhone, your iPad and iCloud.com. And vice versa — any changes made on your iOS or iPadOS devices are automatically reflected on your Mac.
All your photos on all your devices. iCloud Photos gives you access to your entire Mac photo and video library from all your devices. If you shoot a snapshot, slow-motion video or selfie on your iPhone, it’s automatically added to iCloud Photos — so it appears on your Mac, your iOS and iPadOS devices, your Apple TV, iCloud.com and your PC. Even the photos and videos imported to your Mac from your DSLR, GoPro or drone appear on all your iCloud Photos–enabled devices. And since your collection is organised the same way across your Apple devices, navigating your library always feels familiar.
Resize. Crop. Collage. Zoom. Warp. GIF. And more.
Create stand-out photos with a comprehensive set of powerful but easy-to-use editing tools. Instantly transform photos taken in Portrait mode with five different studio-quality lighting effects. Choose Enhance to improve your photo with just a click. Then use a filter to give it a new look. Or use Smart Sliders to quickly edit like a pro even if you’re a beginner. Markup lets you add text, shapes, sketches or a signature to your images. And you can turn Live Photos into fun, short video loops to share. You can also make edits to photos using third-party app extensions like Pixelmator, or edit a photo in an app like Photoshop and save your changes to your Photos library.
- LightBrilliance, a slider in Light, automatically brightens dark areas and pulls in highlights to reveal hidden details and make your photo look richer and more vibrant.
- ColorMake your photo stand out by adjusting saturation, colour contrast and colour cast.
- Black & WhiteAdd some drama by taking out the colour. Fine-tune intensity and tone, or add grain for a film-quality black-and-white effect.
- White BalanceChoose between Neutral Gray, Skin Tone and Temperature/Tint options to make colours in your photo warmer or cooler.
- CurvesMake fine-tuned contrast and colour adjustments to your photos.
- LevelsAdjust midtones, highlights and shadows to perfect the tonal balance in your photo.
- DefinitionIncrease image clarity by adjusting the definition slider.
- Selective ColorWant to make blues bluer or greens greener? Use Selective Color to bring out specific colours in your image.
- VignetteAdd shading to the edges of your photo to highlight a powerful moment.
- Editing ExtensionsDownload third-party editing extensions from the Mac App Store to add filters and texture effects, use retouching tools, reduce noise and more.
- Reset AdjustmentsWhen you’ve made an edit, you can judge it against the original by clicking Compare. If you don’t like how it looks, you can reset your adjustments or revert to your original shot.
Bring even more life to your Live Photos. When you edit a Live Photo, the Loop effect can turn it into a continuous looping video that you can experience again and again. Try Bounce to play the action forwards and backwards. Or choose Long Exposure for a beautiful DSLR‑like effect to blur water or extend light trails. You can also trim, mute and select a key photo for each Live Photo.
Add some fun filters.
With just a click, you can apply one of nine photo filters inspired by classic photography styles to your photos.
Share here, there and everywhere.
Use the Share menu to easily share photos via Shared Albums and AirDrop. Or send photos to your favourite photo-sharing destinations, such as Facebook and Twitter. You can also customise the menu and share directly to other compatible sites that offer sharing extensions.
Turn your pictures into projects.
Making high-quality projects and special gifts for loved ones is easier than ever with Photos. Create everything from gorgeous photo books to professionally framed gallery prints to stunning websites using third-party project extensions like Mimeo Photos, WhiteWall, GoodTimes, FUJIFILM and Wix.
Whether you’ve just taken a weekend trip up North or the European vacation of your dreams, you’re guaranteed to return home with a massive amount of photos, probably a handful of videos, and, if you were feeling particularly artsy, half a dozen time-lapses.
But now that you’re home, what are you going to do with all those pictures? Where are you going to keep them? How are you going to share them?
Enter the Photos app for Mac.
What is Photos on Mac?
The Photos app is a convenient home for all of your pictures and videos. Anything you shoot, Photos will store it and — better yet — organize it, so you can actually find said pictures when you feel like reliving the memories.
In this post, we’ll go over the basics of using Apple’s Photos app. We’ll talk about where to find photos on your Mac and how you can manage your ever-growing photo library. And of course, we’ll cover all the features Apple has built into this underrated app.
iPhoto vs Photos: What’s the difference?
Those of you familiar with iPhoto for Mac are probably wondering what makes its successor so special. And to oversimplify it, Photos is the next step in photo management — and a giant step at that.
Prior to Photos, Apple made two apps for managing pictures and videos. iPhoto, for those of us less experienced in photography, and Aperture, for the ones looking to do some heavier editing. Photos perfectly blurs the line between those two apps, combining the best of both while adding new features like iCloud Photo Library and iCloud Photo Sharing.
If you used iPhoto before, Photos will feel instantly recognizable. You’ll have your pictures, albums, and collections in the main window, a navigation sidebar to the left, and different viewing options at the top. However, a significant point of difference between iPhoto and Photos is the app’s performance. When working with larger libraries, iPhoto had the tendency to lag or choke up and had arbitrary limits that would restrict album and collection sizes. Photos gets rid of those limitations entirely and is able to handle much larger libraries than its predecessor. While the look of Photos may be the same, it feels like a faster and more powerful app.
Where are the photos stored on Mac?
The Photos app maintains pictures and videos in its own library, making it easy to view the content, but confusing to access the actual files. To find the photos on your Mac, you’ll need to find that Photos Library first:
- With the Photos app open, click on Photos in the menu bar
- Then go to Preferences > General
- At the top of the window, you’ll see Library Location. Click the Show in Finder button.
The first thing you’ll notice after you find the Photos Library file is you can’t do much with it. You can double-click it, but that opens Photos again. If you want to find the original files of your pictures and videos, you’ll need to:
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- Right-click on Photos Library to open the alternate menu
- Select Show Package Contents from that menu
- Open the Masters folder
- All of your pictures and videos live in this folder, organized by year, month, and date
If you only need master files for a few pictures, you can drag them out of the Photos app directly onto your desktop. Doing this will create copies of the pictures and won’t move or delete the original files. Just don’t forget to find and delete all the copies later, so they don't turn your Mac into a mess. A duplicate finder like Gemini 2 can help with that.
How to use Apple’s Photos app
When you open Photos for the first time, the app offers you a glimpse of what your library will look like with all your pictures and videos imported. You get a quick intro to some of the features and tools, and learn how you can make these memories tangible through printed objects like calendars, photo books, and more.
Once you’ve finished the tour of the app and gone through the initial setup, you’re all set to start importing your pictures and videos!
How to import photos to Mac
There are several ways you can import your media content to Photos, depending on where you’ve been storing it.
From your iPhone or a digital camera
- Connect your iPhone or camera to your Mac with a USB cable. You might need to unlock your iPhone with your passcode, and then tap Trust when prompted to Trust This Computer.
- On your Mac, if the Photos app doesn’t open automatically, go ahead and open it.
- The Photos app will show you an Import screen that has all the photos and videos on your iPhone or camera. If you don’t see the Import screen, click on your iPhone or camera in the Photos sidebar under Devices.
- From here you can either choose to Import All New Items or select a batch and click Import Selected.
From a folder or an external hard drive in Finder
You have a couple of options here. If your pictures and videos live on an external hard drive, you’ll want to make sure it’s connected first. Then, you’ll want to do one of the following:
- Drag the files from your drive into the Photos window
- Drag the files from your drive onto the Photos icon in the Dock
- In Photos, go to File > Import from the menu bar. Choose the photos or videos you want to import and click Review for Import.
An important thing to know about Photos is that the app copies the pictures and videos into the Photos Library we talked about earlier, leaving the original file either on your device or in its folder.
Because Photos doesn’t remove the original picture after you import, you may end up with duplicate pics taking up precious space on your Mac. And if you’ve taken multiple photos of the same thing from slightly different angles, those will waste even more storage. To keep your photo collection lean, scan your Mac for duplicates from time to time. Gemini 2 can help you find and delete duplicate and even similar photos, so you don’t have to go through hundreds of photos manually. Download it for free and try it out.
Tabs in Photos: Library, Albums, Projects
Have you ever been unable to find a specific picture because you couldn’t remember when you took it? You can remember everything else about the photo, things like where it was taken and who was in it, but not the one thing you need to navigate your files.
The Photos app helps you with this predicament by organizing your pictures not only by date, but also by event, location, and even by people’s faces. In the sidebar, you’ll find a number of tabs designed to make sorting through your pictures easier.
Memories. Photos creates “memories” based on who is in a series of images as well as when and where those pictures were taken.
Favorites. These are the pictures you’ve gone through and clicked the heart icon on, marking them as your favorites.
People. This is where you’ll be able to see all the pictures of you have of specific people.
Places. This is where you can see all the pictures you’ve taken in specific locations.
Shared. This section is where you’ll find all the albums you’ve shared with other people and the albums that have been shared with you. (Check out our guide to iCloud Photo Sharing for more info on Shared Albums.)
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Albums. If you want to group certain pictures for easy navigation, you’ll want to create a new album. This section is where you can access those albums.
How to tag people in photos
If you want to tag someone in a specific picture:
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- Open the photo in the Photos app
- Click the info button in the top right corner.
- At the bottom of the info window, you’ll see circles with faces at the bottom. Tap on one of those.
- The face will now be circled on the photo. Underneath the circle will be a text box labeled “unnamed.” Click on the text box and type the person’s name.
If the person you’re tagging has already been tagged in your Library, their name should appear under the circle on the photo.
How to share pictures from the Photos app
The Photos app on Mac has made it easier than before to share your pictures. Just select the photos you want to share and click on the Share button in the top right-hand corner. You’ll see a list of options:
- Shared Albums
- AirDrop
- Messages
- Notes
- and more, depending on what apps and accounts you set up on your Mac
Tap on your preferred option and proceed to send the pic or create a Shared Album.
Now that you’ve gotten a feel for how to use Photos on Mac, it’s time to give it a spin. Once you’ve got your library set up and organized, you’ll see how easy it is to relive and share your memories with Photos.