Photos in your System Photo Library are available in apps like iMovie, Pages, and Keynote. You can also sync them to iOS devices and view them on Apple TV. 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:

• Deleted photos from MacBook but storage space not reclaimed. This is really frustrating as I searched my entire MacBook drive for any remaining photos, yet I can't find a single one even though it says that Photos are taking up about 50 GB of space on my MacBook hard drive. Then close Photos. With Finder, delete the old 'Photos Library.
• Or do you delete some photos but when you check, the photos are still on your iPhone? This is actually a common problem, and the fix is fairly simple. Why Are Your Photos Not Deleting from iPhone. There are two main reasons why photos will not delete from iPhone: The photos are synced from iTunes.
• Aug 15, 2018 Photo albums synced from a Mac or PC If you've plugged your iPhone or iPad into your computer in order to transfer existing photos via iTunes, these are the albums that you can not delete. If you want to delete them, or specific photos within them, you'll need to go through iTunes again.

1. Quit Photos.
2. Hold down the Option key and open Photos. One of the photo libraries is already designated as YourLibraryName (System Photo Library).
3. Choose the library you want to designate as the System Photo Library.
4. After Photos opens the library, choose Photos > Preferences from the menu bar.
5. Click the General tab.
6. Click the Use as System Photo Library button.
   

Jun 07, 2015  You may be tempted, based on what you're seeing in the Finder, to delete your old iPhoto or Aperture library once you've migrated to Photos. Photos actually manages your photos very effectively, so even though it looks like you're wasting gobs of disk space, you're really not. Jan 26, 2018  The Photos.app in Applicationsis part of the system and cannot be deleted, only the Photos Library in Pictures. If you created the Photos Library from and iPhoto Library, your Photos Library and the iPhoto Library are sharing the photos by hard links. You will have to delete both of them to free storage. Yes I emptied the trash can. May 07, 2015  A window will pop up with a number, which in my Mac’s case was over 236GB between a number of different photo libraries — Apple’s Photo Booth, Aperture, iPhoto, and Photos, just to name a.

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.

iCloud and the System Photo Library

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:

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.

Deleting photos from Mac is easy, but there are some confusions. For example, does deleting photos in Photos or iPhoto removes the photos from hard drive space on Mac? Is there a convenient way to delete photos to release disk space on Mac?

This post will explain everything you want to know about deleting photos on Mac and introduce a convenient way to clean up Mac hard drive to release sapce - FonePaw MacMaster, which can delete photos cache, duplicate photos, photos or videos of large size and more to free up Mac space.

How to Delete Photos from Photos/iPhoto on Mac

Apple discontinued iPhoto for Mac OS X since 2014. Most users have migrated from iPhoto to Photos app. After importing your photos into the Photos app, don't forget to delete the old iPhoto library to regain your storage space.

Deleting photos from Photos on Mac is similar to deleting them from iPhoto. Since there are more users using Photos app on macOS, here is how to delete photos from Photos on Mac.

Delete photo(s) on Mac

Step 1 Open Photos.

Step 2 Select the photo(s) you want to delete. To delete multiple photos, press Shift and select the photos.

Why Can't Delete Photo Library Mac To External Hard Drive

Step 3 To delete the selected pictures/videos, press the Delete button on the keyboard or right click Select XX Photos.

Step 4 Click Delete to confirm the deletion.

Note: Select photos and press Command + Delete. This will enable macOS to directly delete the photos without asking for your confirmation.

Another point to note is that deleting photos or videos from Albums doesn't necessarily mean that the photos are deleted from Photos library or the Mac hard drive. When you select a image in a album and press Delete button, the photo is merely removed from the album but still remain in the Photos library. To delete a photo from both the album and the Photos library, use Command + Delete or the Delete option in the right-click menu.

Permanently delete photos on Mac

Photos for macOS has Recently Deleted library to save the deleted photos for 30 days before the photos are permanently deleted. This is thoughtful and allows you to undelete the deleted photos if you are regret. But if you need to regain the free disk space from the deleted photos right away, you don't want to wait 30 days. Here is how to permanently delete photos on Photos from Mac.

Step 1 On Photos, go to Recently Deleted.

Step 2 Tick the photos you want to delete for good.

Step 3 Click Delete XX Items.

Delete Photos library on Mac

When MacBook Air/Pro is having low disk space, some users choose to delete the Photos library to reclaim disk space. If the photos are important to you, make sure you have uploaded the photos to iCloud Photos Library or saved them in a external hard drive before cleaning up the entire library. To delete Photos library on Mac:

Step 1 Go to Finder.

Step 2 Open your system disk > Users > Pictures.

Step 3 Drag the Photos Library you want to delete to the Trash.

Step 4 Empty the Trash.

Some users reported after deleting the Photos library, there is no significant change in the storage when checking About this Mac. If this happen to you, too, don't worry. It takes time for the macOS to delete the entire Photos library. Give it some time and check the storage later. You'll see the free space is regained.

How to Delete Photos from Mac Hard Drive

Deleting pictures from Photos only remove the pictures in the Masters folder of Photos Library. There are more pictures in the disk drive that are not imported into Photos. To delete photos from Mac, you can go through all the folders that have images and videos and delete those that you don't need. Or you can use FonePaw MacMaster, which can detect duplicate images and large photos/videos on Mac to free up your disk space. If you need more free space, MacMaster can also clean system junks such as cache, logs, mail attchments, app data, etc. to give you more free space.

Remove duplicate photos on Mac

Step 1 Run MacMaster.

Why Can't Delete Photo Library Mac Pro

Step 2 Select Similar Image Finder.

Step 3 Select a location to search for duplicate photos. To delete duplicate photos in the whole hard drive, select your system drive.

Step 4 Click Scan. After scanning, select all the duplicated photos you want to delete and click Clean.

Step 5 The photos will be deleted from the disk.

Delete photos/videos of large size

Can't Delete Photos Library Mac

One of the most effective way to free up space on Mac is to delete photos or videos that are large in size. MacMaster can help you with that.

Step 1 Click Large & Old Files.

Mac Photos Delete After Import

Step 2 Click Scan.

Step 3 All the large files on your Mac, including photos and videos will be found.

Step 4 Select those you don't need and click Clean to remove them.

Clean photo cache of Photos/iPhoto Library

Photos or iPhoto library create caches over time. You can delete the photo cache with MacMaster.

Step 1 Open MacMaster.

Step 2 Click Photo Cache > Scan.

Step 3 Select all items and click Clean.

That's how to delete photos on Mac. If you have any question, let us know in the comments.

Mac Delete Photos Library

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