Prepare your drive
You can store your library on an external storage device, such as a USB or Thunderbolt drive formatted as APFS or Mac OS Extended (Journaled). However, you can't move your library to a disk that's used for Time Machine backups. Find out how to check the format of your external storage device. How to take a screenshot mac desktop.
To prevent data loss, Apple doesn't recommend storing photo libraries on external storage devices like SD cards and USB flash drives, or drives that are shared on a network.
- Plugable Thunderbolt 3 NVMe External SSD The Plugable Thunderbolt 3 NVMe External SSD is a solid state drive that offers one terabyte or two terabytes of external storage for those who like to.
- Why you might see a new 'Data' disk in Catalina MacOS now splits the operating system and data files into two volumes, but they should never appear on the desktop.
Move your Photos library to an external storage device
The LaCie 2big Dock Thunderbolt 3 is much more than just a hard drive. To start, it contains two drives, not just one. We are using the top-end config, which has two 10TB IronWolf Pro disks. Seagate has evaluated current product lines to determine which ones will be supported in macOS 10.15. Older drives that are not listed here may work, but have not been tested.
- Quit Photos.
- In the Finder, go to the external drive where you want to store your library.
- In another Finder window, find your library. The default location is Users > [username] > Pictures, and it's named Photos Library.
- Drag your library to its new location on the external drive. If you see an error, select your external drive's icon in the Finder, then choose File > Get Info. If the information under Sharing & Permissions isn't visible, click the triangle button , then make sure the 'Ignore ownership on this volume' checkbox is selected. If it's not selected, click the lock button to unlock it, enter an administrator name and password, then select the checkbox.*
- After the move is finished, double-click Photos Library in its new location to open it.
- If you use iCloud Photo Library, designate this library as the System Photo Library.
Delete original library to save space
After you open your library from its new location and make sure that it works as expected, you can delete the library from its original location.
In a Finder window, go back to your Pictures folder (or whichever folder you copied your library from) and move Photos Library to the trash. Then choose Finder > Empty Trash to delete the library and reclaim disk space.
Open another Photos library
If you have multiple libraries, here's how to open a different one:
- Quit Photos.
- Press and hold the Option key while you open Photos.
- Select the library that you want to open, then click Choose Library.
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How to scan a file for viruses on mac. Photos uses this library until you open a different one.
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Learn more
If you have a permissions issue with your library, you might be able to resolve the issue by using the Photos library repair tool.
* If the volume isn't formatted APFS or Mac OS Extended (Journaled), or has been used for Time Machine backups but hasn't been erased, this checkbox will either not be present, or won't be selectable after unlocking. Erase and reformat the drive for this option to be available.
