MAC SOFTWARE

Resolving restrictions with your Mac apps

Sharing a Photos library

QI don’t keep my Photos library in iCloud, and have ended up with different libraries on my iMac and MacBook Pro. What’s the best way to keep them in sync?

AIf you were only ever to use your Macs when they’re connected to one local network, and never at the same time, you could possibly keep your images in a single Photos library on a shared disk, such as on networked storage. However, the moment that you wanted to access Photos away from that, on your MacBook Pro, you’d end up having to create another Photos library for it, and then face problems keeping them in sync.

The simplest solution is to merge your existing libraries into one, then set that as the

library for iCloud Photos. Unless your merged library is so huge that isn’t practical, that will leave Photos and iCloud to ensure they’re kept in sync. This will take a long time for the first syncs, but once they’re completed its only demand is on iCloud storage cost.

Alternatively, make the Photos library on your iMac the master, and then use My Photo Stream over iCloud to sync between that and a smaller library of current images on your MacBook Pro. That won’t make older images available to your MacBook Pro, of course, but doesn’t require storage in iCloud, nor large initial syncs. My Photo Stream has a maximum monthly upload rate of 25,000 photos, but doesn’t update edited images.

Apple explains My Photo Stream at bit.ly/mfmphotos and the differences between it and iCloud Photos at http://bit.ly/mficpmps.