Some users want to know how to Find All Photos on Mac. When they use Mac for the first time, you make a new library. When you add photos or other things to Photos, they are saved in the Photos library. This library becomes your System Photo Library automatically, and Photos uses it every time you open the app. Only the photos in your System Photo Library can be sent to you by iCloud Photos. The System Photo Library on your Mac is found in the Pictures folder by default.
You can also make more photo libraries on your Mac and on other storage devices. To get to the photos in a Photos library, you should always use the Photos app. Even though the iCloud and Photos app does a great job of managing and showing your photos, it’s harder to figure out where they are stored on your Mac. You’ll need to find your photos on your hard drive before you can copy or change them.
How to Find All Photos on Mac
The easiest way to do this with Spotlight is to use a Finder-based search. For this, you can create a Smart Folder so you can do it again later without losing the window settings. To get the fields you need, you have to go through a few steps:
- By pressing Command, Option, and the space bar, you can open a search window in Finder Spotlight.
- Click the plus (+) button in the upper right corner.
- Now, hold down the Option key, and the plus button next to the new entry (which starts with “Name” and “matches“) turns into an ellipsis (…). That link.
- The ellipsis button makes a “Any of the Following Are True” entry, which is what you need to search for images using more than one set of criteria at the same time. Any is the right choice, so don’t worry about that.
- Change the drop-down menus under Any to Kind, Image, and JPEG.
- Click the plus sign at the end of that line to make a new field with the words Kind, Image, and TIFF.
- Step 6 is repeated for GIF and PNG (and BMP, if you think you have any of that format, primarily used in Windows).
- Click the Save button in the upper right corner so you can remember these criteria if something goes wrong. Use a name like “Find all images of a certain type.” (When you click Save after giving the folder a name, the criteria disappear and the icon and name of the Smart Folder appear at the top of the window. You can see them by clicking the Action (gear) menu and selecting Show Search Criteria.)
- Set up where you want all the images to go, like a folder or hard drive.
- Click in the results window and then press Command-A or choose File > Select All.
- Move the selection to where you want it to go.
You can manage your library in a few different ways with the Photos app. You can use Photos in its default mode, which is how the vast majority of people do it. In this mode, every photo and video you add to the app gets copied to the library automatically.
Or, you can save space on the hard drive of your Mac by telling Photos to link to files instead of copying them. If you’ve tried all of these solutions and you’re still having the same problem in your iPhone, you should go to their official Apple support website for more information.
FAQ
How do I find all the Photos on my Mac?
The System Photo Library on your Mac is found in the Pictures folder by default. You can also make more photo libraries on your Mac and on other storage devices. To get to the photos in a Photos library, you should always use the Photos app.
How does photos work on Mac?
In a nutshell, iCloud Photo Library automatically adds all the photos you take with your iPhone to the new Photos app on your Mac. It then stores all those photos in iCloud Drive and makes them available on all your devices.
