Photos Library Masters Vs Originals

Posted By admin On 15.09.21

The process will appear the same as always, with one important exception: instead of copying the original file to the iPhoto Library database, iPhoto will create an alias for each photo.

We tend to think of SharePoint as strictly a repository for business-type/Office documents, like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, PDFs. However, even in the business world, it is not just about the office documents. More and more, visuals, like photos and videos become a necessary content in the daily business life. Previously, I blogged about various options to store videos. Today, I want to explain the different options for storing pictures, photos and different types of images in general.

In other words, Photos is able to keep the originals intact while remembering all your edits as scriptable commands without wasting huge chunks of precious storage space. Your non-edited originals are safely stored in the Masters sub-folder inside the Photos library bundle.
With the upgrade to Photos, many Mac users have been left with a duplicate iPhoto library on their Macs. Here’s how to delete iPhoto library and clear out some clutter. IPhoto used to be the standard photo editor and photo management system on Macs, at least for the average computer user.

Option 1: Modern Document Library

Yes, this was no typo. The old document library did not have anything special to accommodate photos, and they were stored just like any other documents in a list format, which was boring:

The new modern document library allows for awesome photo viewing capabilities. Built-in Tiles View allows viewing thumbnails of images right within a document library, without a need to click on each image!

Tiles View

Image thumbnails once you click on a Tiles View

Option 2: Picture Library

Picture library is a separate web part that is available in SharePoint to store images.

Up until the modern library experience, it has been the dedicated place to store images, as it allowed for some of the picture-specific functionalities, like thumbnail preview. Now that the modern document library has those features, a separate picture library is almost not necessary.

That said, a Picture Library, unlike a Document Library, does have some superior image-specific functionalities that might tip the scale in its favor:

It defaults to Tiles/Thumbnails view by default, unlike Document Library, which defaults to a list view
It contains some default, image-specific metadata you can use like Date Picture was taken or Enterprise Keywords for metadata tagging
Another benefit of a picture library is that you can tie it to a Slideshow web part and display photos from the picture library in a slideshow on a page. I listed step-by-step instructions on how to do this here.

Option 3: Insert on a Page

Any time you insert an image or images on a classical or modern page, Images end up being stored in a Site Assets Library.

When you insert images via Modern Page…

… or Classical Page

They all end up in a Site Assets Document Library.

These images are stored in Site Assets Library once uploaded to a Page

Recommendation

I suggest that you stick to the Modern Document Library to store pictures. Unless you need that metadata I mentioned above or need to create a slideshow, using a document library would make the most sense. Quite often, you need to store images alongside other documents, so having a separate library would not make sense. For example, one of my clients, they are in Real Estate, so they have different office type documents, alongside property/property maintenance images. They all store them in one library with a subfolder for photos. Makes total sense!

With the upgrade to Photos, many Mac users have been left with a duplicate iPhoto library on their Macs. Here’s how to delete iPhoto library and clear out some clutter.

iPhoto used to be the standard photo editor and photo management system on Macs, at least for the average computer user. Like it or not, however, that all changed when Apple first introduced the software, nearly a year ago. If your Mac came from Apple with Photos already installed, you don’t need to worry about old iPhoto libraries.

A Mac that was upgraded to a new version of OS X that added the Photos app, however, can end up with what look like duplicates of their photo libraries. The first time you start up Photos after upgrading, your Mac will copy over your photo library into the new software (if you explicitly set up more than one old iPhoto library, you’ll have to copy them over yourself). It doesn’t go back and delete the old one, though.

Here’s where things get a little bit confusing: you don’t actually have two copies of your photos. Thanks to the way OS X (the software that powers your Mac, like Windows powers a PC) works, your pictures aren’t actually stored in those libraries. Instead, they’re stored somewhere else on your hard drive, and each library has what Apple calls a “hard link” to the pictures. As a result, each library can access the photos, but store separate information about them. You can delete either library safely; only if you were to delete both libraries would you lose access to your pictures.

While having a second copy of your photo library doesn’t take up that much extra space on your computer, it can still be confusing – first of all, each library reports that it’s a certain size, which can make it difficult to figure out how much room is left on your Mac. Additionally, if you need to back things up, it can be hard to figure out where your files are.

Still with us? Let’s recap:

if you upgrade your Mac from iPhoto to Photos, you’ll get a second photo library
if you had multiple iPhoto libraries (you would know if you did), you’ll need to copy them into Photos manually
the libraries each link to a single copy of your photos, rather than storing each photo twice
it can appear that your libraries are taking up more space than they are, thanks to the way hard links work
you can safely delete either photo library – only if you delete both of them will you lose access to your photos

How to delete iPhoto library on your Mac

Now that you understand why you might want to delete an old iPhoto library, and why you don’t necessarily have to, let’s talk about how to actually do it.

Before you do anything like this on your Mac – that is, delete something potentially important – you should back up your software with something like Time Machine.

Read: How to Backup Your Mac with Time Machine

That way, if you accidentally delete something important, or something else goes wrong, you can always roll things back to how they were when you started. This is really easy, and there’s nothing to be concerned about; it’s just good practice to back things up (and keep them backed up) before you muck about in your computer.

First, you’ll need to open a Finder window: you can do this by clicking on the Finder icon (it looks like a square face) on the dock, or by clicking on your Mac’s desktop background and hitting ⌘+N (Command + N) on your keyboard.

Next, look at the left-hand column in the new window. You’ll see a list of locations around your Mac; find the one that says Pictures and click on it. You’ll be taken to that directory, which contains libraries for Apple’s image-related apps (Photos, iPhoto, Photo Booth, etc).

In the list of files on the right, scroll down and look for your iPhoto library – it’ll be a little iPhoto icon, and the name will read, unsurprisingly, iPhoto Library. Don’t worry about accidentally deleting your Photo Booth or Photos libraries; you’ll be able to see which one is which.

To actually delete the library, you can do one of three things: