Mac Photos Maximum Library Size

Mac photos maximum library size limit

Prepare your external 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.

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.

Photos offers several ways to control size and quality when exporting an image. In the library catalog and when you view an image, you see the modified version. This Mac 911 article is in. 12 April 2021: Added 50,000 item sharing limits note. 3 March 2021: Maximum file upload size updated to 250 GB. 16 September 2020: Updated info about OneNote notebooks to clarify that the 2GB file size limit applies to SharePoint as well as OneDrive. 31 August 2020: Updated the invalid or blocked file types guidance about.PST files when Known Folder Move is. Create a partition to the photo library dedicated, if you create a new photo library in there, and the maximum size is limited to the partition size. Of the 500GB of system drive, are using divided into partitions for the photo library of 50GB (10%). I have a picture of 200GB on icloud, are used without any problems with the above settings. ICloud Photo Library keeps eating my disk space, so after hearing this tip on ATP I decided to take action.

Move your Photos library to an external storage device

  1. Quit Photos.
  2. In the Finder, go to the external drive where you want to store your library.
  3. In another Finder window, find your library. The default location is Users > [username] > Pictures, and it's named Photos Library.
  4. 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 , 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.*
  5. After the move is finished, double-click Photos Library in its new location to open it.
  6. If you use iCloud Photo Library, designate this library as the System Photo Library.
Mac photos maximum library sized

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:

  1. Quit Photos.
  2. Press and hold the Option key while you open Photos.
  3. Select the library that you want to open, then click Choose Library.

Photos uses this library until you open a different one.

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.

No matter how much space you have on your Mac, one day, you may see a “Your disk is almost full” notification. Even if it seems like there is no app or program that would take a considerable amount of storage, the large files may be hidden deep down in your Mac’s memory. Keep reading to discover how to locate such files on your Mac and delete them for good.

Scan the most obvious place

When looking for large files on their Macs, users often start scanning a bunch of folders stored on their machines. But, usually, the most common destination of all large files is the Downloads folder. You may automatically download thousands of files and forget to remove them. So, checking the Downloads folder on your Mac may help you find lots of forgotten large files and documents that you don’t need anymore.

Looking for the large items may take some time. Free tools, like CleanMyMac X, can accelerate the process by scanning your Mac’s memory and detecting large files. The only task left for you will be to remove the found files all at once.

Find large files using Finder

Another way to search for large files is by using search filters in Finder. It can help you locate the biggest files on your Mac. Here’s how to find large files using Finder:

  1. Open Finder.
  2. Find the Search field in the top right and click it.
  3. Click the Settings symbol and select Show Search Criteria.
  4. In the list of search filters on the left, choose Other.
  5. In the window that appears, select File Size and click OK.
  6. In the second space, select Is greater than and enter the size in the third space.
  7. Choose KB, MB, or GB in a final filter field.

Remember to select This Mac to get a full list of results. You will then see all files which size is greater than you defined. Look through the found documents and remove unnecessary items that take too much space on your Mac.

Although, this method has certain disadvantages. Finder doesn’t give you a full picture of the large files stored on your Mac. It shows only single files, excluding large folders that comprise a lot of smaller items.

It’s also unclear which files you can safely delete without the risk of removing important documents. Finder neither provides any additional information about files nor shows which folder the file belongs to. So, it’s difficult to decide whether the large file is important or not.

Continue reading to discover how to find the largest files on your Mac using other methods.

Mac photos maximum library size

Find large files using the Storage Management app

Another solution is to use the built-in Storage Management app.

Mac Photos Maximum Library Size
  1. Choose Apple menu.
  2. Select About This Mac.
  3. In the window that appears, click Storage. Here you can see how much free storage you have and view the amount of space used by different categories.
  4. Click Manage.
  5. As the Storage Management app opens, select Documents.
  6. Browse the Large Files to delete those you don’t need.

Click any file to see its path at the bottom of the window. The Storage Management app also shows the exact size of each document as well as the date you opened it last.

Apple provides helpful recommendations at the top left to help you optimize your storage. Here you can choose to store all your files in iCloud, remove large files like movies and TV shows, turn on Empty Trash Automatically, and reduce clutter.

This method is great for those who don’t have a lot of large files on their Mac. But, if you tend to keep many files on your machine, you may consider using the Storage Management app tiresome.

How to find biggest files on Mac via Terminal

Another way to locate large files on your Mac is to use Terminal. Although some users find commands complicated, if you use them correctly, you can find anything on your Mac. So, you can locate the biggest files on your device, just like that:

Mac Photos Maximum Library Size

  1. Go to Utilities and open Terminal.
  2. Execute find command. If you want to locate all files bigger than 1G under the /home directory, for example, type find /home -size 1G.
  3. To delete the files enter
    find /home -type f -name *.avi -size +2G -exec rm {}
    This command will remove all AVI files that are greater than 2GB under the /home directory.

Using this command, you can also limit your search, setting size filters. Then your command will look like this: find /home -size +30M -size -100M. This command will locate all files that are greater than 30MB but less than 100MB.

Locate and remove large files using CleanMyMac X

If you have enough time, you can look through all data stored on your Mac using the methods described above. In case you want to speed up the process, CleanMyMac X can prove useful. Thanks to its Large & Old files feature, you can look at the bigger picture of all large files found on your Mac and delete them altogether.

Here’s a short instruction on how to find and delete large files using CleanMyMac X:

  1. Download the free version of CleanMyMac X and open the app once it’s installed.
  2. Click the Large & Old Files tab.
  3. Run a quick scan.
  4. CleanMyMac X will show you all files stored on your Mac. You can sort files based on their size, type, and access date, to see the large items that can be removed from your Mac.
  5. Check the boxes for the files you want to delete and click Remove.

Mac Photos Maximum Library Size Limit

Using CleanMyMac X, you can remove all unnecessary files quickly and make some space for more important documents.

How Big Can A Mac Photos Library Be

So, these were some simple methods of how to view all files on Mac and delete them. You can either use Finder, the Storage Management app, or Terminal to find the biggest files on your Mac and clean up your machine of them.

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