Where Are Photos Stored on Mac – The Mac OS Photos software attempts to handle all photos contained inside the program, including photos copied from an iPhone or memory card through the Photos system, as well as images downloaded into the device. But have you ever wondered where the real images files on a Mac are stored?
Where Are Photos Stored on Mac – How to Find Photos on Mac
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We’ll show you how to locate the picture files found in the Photos app on Mac OS. It is unique to the Photos app, if you don’t use the Photos app to handle images on your Mac, then your pictures won’t be stored in the application package library and you’d probably find them in the General Pictures folder or elsewhere in Mac OS through Finder.
Photos File Location in Mac OS
Photos image files are stored in the following location in Mac OS:
~/Pictures/Photos Library.photoslibrary/Masters/
The ~ tilde represents the user’s home directory, if you’re going to use the excellent Go To Folder command to access that directory doesn’t skip the ~ prefix.
Obviously, this focuses on local picture files and not something saved in iCloud that is accessed through the iCloud Photo Library or the Images app.
How to Access Where Photos Files Are Stored in Mac OS
If you are using the Finder to manually navigate to the position of the Images tab, you can follow the measures below; open the Finder in Mac OS and go to your home directory.
Go to the folder labeled “Pictures.”
Locate the file called “Bibliothek Photos.photos.”
Right-click on “Images Library.photoslibrary” (or Control + Click) and pick “View Catalogue Contents”.
Open the “Masters” tab to locate the picture files in the Photos device.
The Master’s folder includes picture files arranged by date in subfolders per year, month, and day. The picture files from the particular date are stored inside every archive.
Notice that if you remove a photo from the master’s archive it won’t be visible in the Photos software anymore. For obvious purposes, this isn’t suggested. If you wish to edit a file, copy it from the directory.
This product folder is not meant to be user-facing, which is why it is secret, but should you so desire you can easily view your files.
If you are unsure, the following video illustrates the right-click / control-click solution to the images master picture files:
Another option to locate the original file from the Photos app on Mac is to use the “View Referenced” feature, which would open a Finder window directly to a file that was picked from the Photos app.
Read More:
Savvy Mac users can find that the photos software images are stored in the same kit type as other Mac apps and in the same parent directory as the location of iPhoto images and the location of Photo Booth data.