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␡- iCloud Photo Library Basics
- Mar 18, 2020 Your Photos library holds all your photos, albums, slideshows, and print projects. If your library is large, and you want to free up storage space on your Mac, turn on iCloud Photo Library and use Optimize Mac Storage, or move your library to an external drive. Before you start, be sure to back up your library.
- Jul 14, 2018 Solved: Hello, I just added some purchased presets to Lightroom and now all of my presets are greyed out. The + is also greyed out and not functioning. Any - 10010620.
- Dec 30, 2016 Hello, I store my photo library (Mac Photos) on an external hard drive and every time I try to open the library (by clicking FileOpenselecting the external hard drive) the photo library is greyed out. The library is set as my system photo library, so Im not sure where to go from here.
- Oct 31, 2018 Close iPhoto. Locate the iPhoto Library you are attempting to import. This is generally found in the Pictures folder. Select the iPhoto Library by clicking it one time. Push the Return key on your keyboard to edit the name of the file. At the end of.
- Apr 21, 2015 Hi, I can't import my iPhoto library to Photos. Every time I select the iPhoto library icon to be import to Photos, it doesn't give me the option since it is a grey-out icon. How can you do this? Also, I heard some people losing photos in the process. Does anybody confirm this?
Feb 03, 2020 What Files Are Included in System Storage on Mac? During my research, I found many people report that Apple counts iTunes backup files and app caches (e.g. Adobe video cache files) in the System category. Since it’s greyed out and we are unable to click on that category for deeper analysis, we’ll have to use a third-party app to assist.
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
Over the years, iPhoto got to be pretty creaky and slow, which by itself is reason enough to overhaul the whole thing. But Apple’s work to replace iPhoto with the Photos for OS X app was, I believe, less about modernizing iPhoto’s code and more about making cloud synchronization work.
Here’s the problem: We have thousands of photos, and we also have mobile devices that can’t possibly store them all. Even though we rarely, if ever, need entire libraries on our iPhones, we also don’t like monkeying about with manual syncing.
iCloud Photo Library is Apple’s grand attempt at making all your photos and videos available on any device, at any time. It’s easy to set up, and has genuinely changed how I work with my library and also changed my expectations for how photos should work on mobile devices.
iCloud Photo Library Basics
Before I get into how to use iCloud Photo Library, let’s cover just what it is, what’s involved, and other important things to know before you decide to set it up.
iCloud Photo Library is not required
When Photos for OS X was first announced, Apple emphasized iCloud Photo Library to the extent that many people assumed (and still assume) it’s required to use the new software. The feature is entirely optional. In fact, in some cases you may not be able to use it.
If you own a Mac and have no interest in viewing photos on mobile devices, you can ignore this feature. If you do own an iPhone or iPad and want the photos you capture with those to transfer easily to your Mac, you can enable My Photo Stream (see the next item).
Telling Apple’s cloud photo services apart
Apple offers three separate, but sometimes linked, cloud photo services, which were introduced at separate times.
iCloud Photo Library: The most recent service makes your entire photo library available via iCloud to iOS devices and the Web (when you log in with your Apple ID).
iCloud Photo Sharing: This service lets you create shared albums to which other people subscribe. When new photos are added to an album, everyone receives the images. For example, I created a shared album of recent photos of my daughter so family members near and far get to stay current with what she’s up to. Subscribers can comment and like the photos, and in some cases contribute their own photos for everyone else to see.
My Photo Stream: Apple’s first foray into cloud-based photo sharing, this service automatically transfers photos you capture using an iOS device to the cloud. Within a few seconds, the photos appear on other iOS devices and in Photos for OS X (if enabled). You can do the same thing with iCloud Photo Library, but there are restrictions you need to be aware of (see “My Photo Stream,” later in this chapter).
How iCloud Photo Library works
The key component is iCloud—it’s the central hub from which photos and videos are propagated to your devices (4.1).
4.1 iCloud Photo Library is the hub for all photos created in or imported into the Photos apps on your devices.
The images in Photos for OS X and in Photos for iOS on your devices are uploaded to the iCloud servers and stored as your photo library. From there, images that appeared in one location but not the others, such as photos you capture using the iPhone’s camera, are copied to the other destinations.

The result is the same library—including the same albums—on every device.
Here we run into a conundrum: Not all devices have the same amount of storage. If your iPhone is a 16 GB model, but your photo library is larger than that, how does your entire library show up on the iPhone?


The Photos apps store compressed, low-resolution versions of your photos on the mobile devices—and optionally on the Macs—so you can access your entire library. When you want to view a photo, a higher-resolution version is downloaded as needed.
iCloud storage requirements
Depending on the size of your photo library, you’ll need to pay Apple for iCloud storage. A free iCloud account includes 5 GB of storage, but that amount is used by all iCloud services, such as iCloud Drive and iOS device backups (if you back up to iCloud). If your photo library is larger than that, you need to pony up for a paid service tier:
20 GB for $0.99 a month
200 GB for $3.99 a month
500 GB for $9.99 a month
1 TB for $19.99 a month
That 1 TB plan is the largest option available. If your library is larger than 1 TB, you can’t use iCloud Photo Library.
Mac Use As System Photo Library Greyed Out Photos
Also, if you bump up against the limit of your current plan (say, you import a bunch of photos that push you past 20 GB), the Photos apps will stop updating until you either delete photos to make room or move up to another paid tier.
Mac Use As System Photo Library Greyed Out Iphone
To see how large your library is, do this:
In Photos for OS X, go to the Photos tab and make sure no images are selected.
Choose Window > Info and look at the size listed at the top (4.2).
4.2 See how much storage your Photos library occupies.
Library must be the System Photo Library
If you have multiple Photos library files (such as if you converted old libraries or created separate ones; see Chapter 3), only one of them can be used as the iCloud Photo Library. To set this up, open the Photos preferences, click the General button, and then click Use as System Photo Library. If the option is grayed out, it means that library is already set as the System Photo Library (4.3).
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Photos in your System Photo Library are available in apps like iMovie, Pages and Keynote. You can also sync them to iOS devices and Apple TV via iTunes. 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, then 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.
Photo Library Download
iCloud and the System Photo Library
Mac Photos Use As System Photo Library Greyed Out
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:
Mac Use As System Photo Library Greyed Outlook
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.