Why Multiple Image Libraries Are Helpful
It’s easy to organize your Photos library into albums and folders, and Photos also intelligently groups your photos into moments, collections, and years. If you’re using iCloud Photos, your photos are accessible and up to date on your Mac, iPhone, and iPad. But while Apple offers 5 GB of free iCloud storage, photos can quickly eat up that space, leaving you with a pricey iCloud storage plan. With multiple image libraries, you can choose which photos get backed up to iCloud in your System Photo Library, and create other libraries for photos that will remain local on your hard drive.
How to Create a New Photos Library
Your Photos app was likely set up with only a single library. To create a second Photos library:
Move Photos Into Your New Library
To move photos into your new library, you’ll need to export them from another Photos library and then import them into the new library.
Export From Another Library
Import the Exported Photos Into the New Photos Library
Choose Your System Photos Library
You can designate only one Photos library to be your System Photos Library. The System Photo Library is the only library that can be used with iCloud Photos, Shared Albums, and My Photo Stream. If you’d like to change your System Photos library to your newly created Photos library, it’s an easy process. (In this example, we’re choosing the original library because we want to add photos to our new library.)
