Photos in your System Photo Library are available in apps like iMovie, Pages, and Keynote. You can also sync them to iOS devices and view them on Apple TV. And if you want to use your own images as your desktop picture or screen saver, the images need to be in your System Photo Library before you can select them in System Preferences.
If you have only one photo library, then it's the System Photo Library. Otherwise, the first photo library that you create or open in Photos will become the System Photo Library. If you have more than one library, you might need to designate a System Photo Library, so other apps can access the photos and videos you want them to use.
Follow these steps to designate a System Photo Library:
- Quit Photos.
- Hold down the Option key and open Photos. One of the photo libraries is already designated as YourLibraryName (System Photo Library).
- Choose the library you want to designate as the System Photo Library.
- After Photos opens the library, choose Photos > Preferences from the menu bar.
- Click the General tab.
- Click the Use as System Photo Library button.
If you open a second or different library in the Photos app, and you haven't designated it as the System Photo Library, other applications will use photos from the original System Photo Library. Hold down the Option key when you open Photos to see which library is set as the System Photo Library.
iCloud and the System Photo Library
Jul 12, 2017 Apple’s new Photos application was released as part of a recent system update. By default, Photos creates its library in your Pictures folder, but it can be easily moved or newly created. There are any number of reasons you might want to create a new Photos library or move it to another location. Jan 26, 2018 I emptied the trash can and restarted the Mac. The Photos.app in Applicationsis part of the system and cannot be deleted, only the Photos Library in Pictures. If you created the Photos Library from and iPhoto Library, your Photos Library and the iPhoto Library are sharing the photos by hard links. You will have to delete both of them to free. Mar 18, 2020 Follow these steps to use the Photos library repair tool: Hold down the Option and Command keys while you open Photos on your Mac. Oct 26, 2016 I had these problems a while ago and couldn't do anything but to create a new library and let iCloud Photo Library repopulate it. One thing you could try is to create a new library, then right click and say Show Package Contents. Then do that for your original. 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, slo-mo, or selfie on your iPhone, it’s automatically added to iCloud Photos — so it appears on your Mac, iOS and iPadOS devices, Apple TV, iCloud.com, and your PC.
You can use iCloud Photos, Shared Albums, and My Photo Stream only with the System Photo Library. If you choose a different library in Photos without designating it as the System Photo Library, the iCloud tab in Photos preferences is disabled:
If you designate a new library as the System Photo Library and then turn on iCloud Photos, the photos and videos in the new library will merge with those already in your iCloud Photos. If you want to keep the contents of your photo libraries separate, don’t turn on iCloud Photos for more than one library in Photos.
Apple’s new Photos program in OS X 10.10.3 may have difficulty when migrating your old iPhoto library. When it first runs, Photos will create a new library, and do so by migrating from an existing Aperture or iPhoto library, if present. However, there may be a couple of issues where the program will be unable to do so.
The first is a problem where Photos will claim a system or hardware issue is blocking its ability to create a library. This means that either the source disk for the prior library, or the destination disk where Photos is creating the library is damaged. To overcome this, reboot your Mac into Recovery Mode (hold Command-R at startup when you hear the boot chimes) and then use Disk Utility to check for errors on every drive you have attached to your Mac:
- Select a drive in the sidebar.
- Press Command-A to select all drives and devices
- Go to the First Aid tab and click “Repair Disk”
If you are keeping the problematic library on a secondary disk, then attempt to copy it to another one (either external, or your internal drive), and then try importing your photos from it. To select the library, launch Photos with the Option key held down, and then choose your library from the new copied location.
An alternative is to attempt a repair of the library using iPhoto or Aperture, which can be done by launching the program with both the Option and Command keys held. This will bring up the Library First Aid panel, where you can repair various aspects of the library. The repair of both permissions and the database are the more relevant options here.
Holding the Option and Command keys when launching iPhoto will bring up this window, allowing you to repair your current library before you import it into Photos.
A final issue when importing your library to Photos is that it may not have permissions to access the locations on your system for importing photos and then saving them to its new library, in which case Photos will issue a permissions-related error. To overcome this, first perform the previously mentioned routine to repair permissions on your iPhoto library, or optionally copy it to an external hard drive. Then select the drive and press Command-i to get info on it, followed by ensuring the box to ignore ownership on the volume is checked.
Next, be sure your photo library destination is properly owned by you. By default, Photos will create the new library in your home folder, so try the following routine to ensure the folder’s default structure is readable:
- Reboot your Mac into Recovery Mode
- Choose Terminal from the Utilities folder
- Type “resetpassword” in the Terminal and press Enter
- Select your drive in the tool that opens
- Select your username from the drop-down menu
- Click the button to reset home folder permissions and ACLs.
- Reboot your Mac normally and try again
Url Error Messages
In addition to this approach, you can manually target the folder in which Photos is saving its new library, with the following procedure:
- Open the Terminal and type the following (do not press Enter yet):
- Drag the desired destination folder to the Terminal window (if you are unsure, then drag the Pictures folder in your home directory), then press Enter
- Now run the following two commands (you can copy and paste both lines from here)
Change Photo Library On Mac
When finished, again attempt to open Pictures and migrate your library. You may need to hold the Option key when launching Photos, to manually select your iPhoto library to import. How to make a library on a mac terminal.