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how can I access to my photos located in external hard drive via Photos app and Windows OS (when I need it)

Hi all,


I am kind of new to the MacOS. I have an external hard drive which has all my photo archives, which has been created in Windows. I want to use both operating systems to access my photos, MacOS and Windows. Windows is essential, since I might share my photos with my friends or relatives, whose use mostly Windows.


I just want to use Photos app to view my photos which are located in my external hard drive and also access my photos via Windows computer. And by doing that I don't want any duplication. Is this possible? Or if I start to use Photos app, will it convert all of my photos to the format that it needs? Or will it build duplicates, which is a serious problem, for both sync and size. What is the method that Photos app uses?


Thanks in advance,


MacBook Pro 14″, macOS 13.1

Posted on Jan 30, 2023 1:55 PM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Jan 31, 2023 1:56 AM

For a lot of reasons: Photos is not the app for you.


Photos formats - jpeg. tiff etc - are OS agnostic. They're the same on every OS. You don't have to use Windows to share with Windows users.


Photos is not a photo viewer, it's a manager and parametric editor. It's built around a database, and like any database it can only work with data that has been imported to it. If you use Photos in the default configuration it will copy the files into the database - but that means you will be duplicating, and you don't want that. The other possibility is that you use Photos in referenced mode, which will not copy the files. But Photos is very unreliable in that mode, and is missing most of the tools you would need. Don't do it.


So, if you want a photo viewer for Mac then check the App Store, but Photos is not the app for your usage scenario.



4 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Jan 31, 2023 1:56 AM in response to beatlemaniac84

For a lot of reasons: Photos is not the app for you.


Photos formats - jpeg. tiff etc - are OS agnostic. They're the same on every OS. You don't have to use Windows to share with Windows users.


Photos is not a photo viewer, it's a manager and parametric editor. It's built around a database, and like any database it can only work with data that has been imported to it. If you use Photos in the default configuration it will copy the files into the database - but that means you will be duplicating, and you don't want that. The other possibility is that you use Photos in referenced mode, which will not copy the files. But Photos is very unreliable in that mode, and is missing most of the tools you would need. Don't do it.


So, if you want a photo viewer for Mac then check the App Store, but Photos is not the app for your usage scenario.



Jan 31, 2023 4:58 AM in response to Yer_Man

Thank you Yer_Man for your detailed and guiding answer. Photos app looks tempting, so some further questions/points :)


1- I have approximately 700-800 gigabytes of photos/video (some of them are junk, needs to be organised, deleted etc. but that's the situation right now). If I use the photos app by importing the photos, will its database use nearly the same size as the originals?


2- If I import all of my photos/videos and delete the originals, I suppose they are secure in the database of the Photos app.


3- If I want to share my photos (or transfer all of them to a windows computer etc.), I have to export all of them first, and then they can be seen on a Windows computer, right? (They had extensions like jpeg, tiff etc. before, but since they are stored in a database, I suppose they can not be reached without an export action, or can they?)


4- I use iCloud Photo Library on my iPhone. Will all of my imported photos (from my external drive) be available on iCloud? Or should I select which albums to be stored in iCloud? (Maybe I should expand my iCloud storage)


Thanks,

Jan 31, 2023 8:17 AM in response to beatlemaniac84

While I understand why Photos looks tempting, don't bend yourself all out of shape to use it. It's fine at what it does but there are far more powerful apps in the same field, many of which are cross platform.


If you use Photos in the default setting then it will double the space used.


They are as secure in the database as they are now in the Finder. Of course, you do need to back up important data.


Photos has no cross platform capability. But yes, when you export you export to standard photo formats, like jpeg, tif, png and so on. They can be reached without export, for instance, they can be easily shared to other apps, like emails or word processors. But they cannot be accessed from a Windows box without first exporting.


You can have multiple libraries in Photos, but only one can be designated the System Photo Library, and only the contents of that cab be shared across devices.


I would suggest that you explore two apps, both have cross platform ability, and both are more capable than Photos - though they do require payment (doesn't everything have a downside :) )


Mylio and Adobe Lightroom. Mylio would work with your current images on that external. Lightroom would upload them all to the Cloud, and then make them available wherever you want.



how can I access to my photos located in external hard drive via Photos app and Windows OS (when I need it)

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