Organising iPhotos

[Mikeo512]

My iPhotos are in a bit of a mess - to say the very least!
I'm trying to organise things.
As I understand it, every new image goes into the Library in date order.
But in the Albums section, I also have a number of so-called "My Abums". These have got various names such as "Party 2018" and "Party 2019". They are scattered all over the place but I can drag them up and down.
I've created a new folder in iPhotos and called it "Parties". This is sitting in the Albums section.
I'd like to move into this new "Parties" folder, Party 2018, and Party 2019.
But when I try to drag them into this new folder, they don't go in - instead they pop straight out again!
I hope the above is clear and that someone will be able to suggest a fix for me.
Thanks in advance - M

 

[IWT]

Thanks M for your post.

To be absolutely clear - you are using iPhoto, not the current Photos app?

You can't add an Album to an Album; but what you can do is create a FOLDER and call it Parties.

Then, you can add any number of Albums to that Folder.

Just FYI: An Album contains photographs. A Folder contains Albums. (You cannot add photographs to a Folder, only Albums).

Another tip: consider creating Smart Albums instead of Standard Albums. The advantages are:

1. You have more options and control over the inclusion criteria
2. All new photographs added to your Library which meet the inclusion criteria, will be automatically placed in the appropriate Albums. That way, your Albums are always up to date.

Hope the above helps. Come back if you need more help.

Ian

 

[badshoehabit]

The hierarchy IS confusing. I forget all the time.

 

[Mikeo512]

Thanks to 'IWT' for the helpful comments.
Mistake on my part: I am using Photos and not iPhotos. Does this make any difference to your remarks?
I've seen 'Smart Album' in the menu but never used this. How about transferring the pix in my existing 'My Albums' to 'Smart Albums'? Can I just create 'Smart Albums' and drag the pix into them?
M

 

[IWT]

I am using Photos and not iPhotos. Does this make any difference to your remarks?

No, not really. The comments I made apply even more to the Photos app.

How about transferring the pix in my existing 'My Albums' to 'Smart Albums'? Can I just create 'Smart Albums' and drag the pix into them?

No, I don't think so. Standard Albums and Smart Albums work slightly differently.

Bear in mind, that Albums and Folders do not take or generate more space on your Mac. They are aliases.

So, given that fact, why not start again and create Smart Albums. Then when finished, delete the old Albums you have now.

In theory, you could keep all your original Albums and the Smart Albums. They would not take any more space.

Go for it, Mike!

Ian

 

[MightyGem]

Smart Albums automatically store photos according to a set of conditions.
This one is for photos taken in the last month:


This one for any photos taken on my iPhone:


This one is very useful for showing any photo that is not in any of my Albums:

 

[Mikeo512]

Thanks to all but I'm still stuck.
I can create a folder in Photos.
But I cannot move any of the existing albums into this folder.
Going back to my original example with "Parties", I can create a folder called "All Parties" and this duly appears in the pane to the left of the display in "Photos". But I cannot move any of my existing albums into this folder. I'd like to move the albums "Parties 2019" and "Parties 2020" into this new folder called "All Parties" but they pop straight out!
M

 

[Mikeo512]

Well, I've managed to do it. But it's seem the only way is to move pix from the Library into new folders. I'm treading carefully for fear of deleting anything. There's a command in one of the menus in Photos that says "Add 10 pictures to such-and-such an album".
M

 

[IWT]

I'm sorry. I cannot duplicate your problem.

I have created some ordinary Albums and many Smart Albums. All I have to do is drag an Album on to a named Folder and it's there.

Folders won't accept pictures, only Albums. I feel impotent to help you Mike

Ian

 

[Mikeo512]

OK Ian thanks for your help ... I've managed to achieve what I want. But still fumbling. The breakthrough was when I discovered, "Add 10 pictures to such-and-such an album" in one of the menus. I realise now that pix in albums are aliases and have deleted any albums that appear elsewhere now that I'm getting them nicely into folders.
M

 

[Rod]

I too am having trouble replicating your problem, see if this article helps: Group albums in folders in Photos on Mac
According to this article you can, like apps on an iphone, drag an Album to another Album to create a Folder which the asks you to name it.
Personally I go to the File menu > New Folder then Name it. I drag it to near where the album's I want are then drag them into it. The new Folder now gets an arrow on the right, clicking it shows the Albums I've put in it.

 

[Mikeo512]

Thanks for your input.
Yes, the matter is just about cracked here but as I said in an earlier process, I'm still fumbling a little.
M

 

[badshoehabit]

I would have gone into the album: Edit> Select All, dragged them to the new folders then deleted the old album.

 

[Mikeo512]

Yes, this is more or less what I'm doing. But the muddle in Photos is horrendous and it will take me a while.
M

 

[Rod]

Well, I owe you a personal debt of gratitude for making me revisit my own Photos libraries. I've discovered a few things which I was not aware of.
Mostly I work in my recent photos but thanks to your question I was motivated to explore some of my older albums in my default library (3). To my surprise I found that many of my older albums were empty or only contained one photo. The single photo albums had names like %17AzuU7SZyVbzUBM2q4yg.
I realise many of these were originally iPhoto albums and after looking in the proceeding library (2) I found all of those files intact but not in albums or folders. Obviously this has occurred over many upgrades and restorations.
So I set about deleting the empty albums and folders and it occurred to me that I should think about combining my two old libraries into the currently empty system created Photos library.photoslibrary
This actually looks like quite a big job. The easy way would seem to be to upload all my photos to iCloud Photos Library then download them all again to one default library.
I have a few problems with that, not least the iCloud storage I would need to do that.
So if anyone has some advice on this I be grateful to them.

 

[MacInWin]

You could export all of them to an external drive, then create a new library and import them all from that external drive. Faster than using iCloud, and you have the external drive as a backup to the new library (although unorganized).

 

[Rod]

Thanks Jake, in my search for solutions I discovered something I did not know, I can add it to the existing long list if things I did not know I suppose.

Seriously though, I came upon this page from Apple: Import photos from another library in Photos on Mac. In short it says;
"In macOS Monterey, you can import photos and videos from another Photos library, as long as the library you want to import from doesn't have iCloud Photos turned on". It goes on to describe the fairly simple process.

Now correct me if I'm wrong but I didn't think that was possible before Monterey. In fact working between multiple Photo libraries has always been a pain because you could only have one library open at a time.

The upshot is I have successfully imported all my "New" photos from library 2 to library 3 and after a bit of checking deleted library 2. The CPU PECI 2 Maxed out at 100 deg C for most of the import process with the internal fan at 6200 RPM. Poor old girl, that's the hardest this MBP has worked for a long while. I will probably be doing the final import on my new M1X (I hope).

I will edit out the empty and unnecessary folders in My Albums (over time) creat some more complete and logical ones and do a general clean out of duplicates before eventually importing the whole lot into the Photo Library.photolibrary created by the system and currently empty.

 

[MacInWin]

Now correct me if I'm wrong but I didn't think that was possible before Monterey. In fact working between multiple Photo libraries has always been a pain because you could only have one library open at a time.

Ah, but it doesn't say to "Open" both libraries, just that you can import from a different library. I think that's been possible for a while, but I do admit I haven't tried it after the first conversion from iPhoto to Photos back whenever that happened.

 

[Rod]

The article makes it sound like this is a new development, "In macOS Monterey, you can import photos and videos from another Photos library" All of the other earlier articles on the topic 2019-2020 suggested either a long involved manual process or the Upload then Download from iCloud method. What puzzles me is that I haven't seen it mentioned in any articles about new features of Monterey.

Yes you're right Jake, the other library doesn't have to be opened and that's the significant thing I think. In the past you could only do stuff with an open library.
The other thing that puzzles me is the significance of, "as long as the library you want to import from doesn't have iCloud Photos turned on". I am simply not knowledgeable enough to understand the importance of that.

I remember years ago having an app that allowed transfer of photos between iPhoto libraries and as I recall it was all about preserving metadata as well as the image. This current process does that with the exception of "names" see the asterixed statement in the article.
It also allows you to view the other library to selectively choose the photos you want to import, or "Import all New" like importing from an iPhone, I'm sure that was not possible before.

So, I think this is a pretty big thing for amateur photographers and long term users alike who have accumulated multiple libraries and wish to sort and consolidate them.

 

[MacInWin]

Rod, I don't think it's new in Monterey. I imported my iPhoto library way back when Photos first came out. So the ability to import from existing libraries has been around for a while. And I seem to have read about the ability to import from one Photos library to another about that same time when people mucked up the iPhoto to Photos transition and ended up with multiple libraries. I seem to recall that you could merge the separate libraries as one of the potential solutions to the issue.

I think the iCloud reference is somehow tied to the sync process. If you think about it, if the source library is synced to iCloud and the new library is also synced to iCloud, then you could get a conflicting sync process going on for the same image. But I'm not sure of that.