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MacOS Catalina photos and pictures confusion

Why have both "Pictures Folder" and "Photos Folder": whatever the technical reason for this duplication/overlap it is a total pain.

MacBook Pro 15″, macOS 10.15

Posted on Sep 15, 2021 4:11 AM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Sep 15, 2021 5:08 AM

The system is only creating the folder "Pictures" automatically. The Pictures folder has a special icon in the Finder sidebar and is the default folder, where applications are looking first for the Photos Library or saved photos. Th4 name of the folder Pictures depends on your primary system language. If the system language is set to English, the folder will be named "Pictures", but if the language is German, it will be called "Bilder". Try to change the system language and you may see the name of the folder change correspondingly. The same goes for other folders created by the system - their name will change according to the system language.

But as far as I know, the system will not create a folder called "Photos", only an application called "Photos", or a package called "Photos Library" (again, the names will depend on the primary system language). If you are seeing a folder "Photos" instead of the app "Photos", or the Photos Library, you may have created the folder yourself, or the app or library may have become damaged.


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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Sep 15, 2021 5:08 AM in response to Bob Rol

The system is only creating the folder "Pictures" automatically. The Pictures folder has a special icon in the Finder sidebar and is the default folder, where applications are looking first for the Photos Library or saved photos. Th4 name of the folder Pictures depends on your primary system language. If the system language is set to English, the folder will be named "Pictures", but if the language is German, it will be called "Bilder". Try to change the system language and you may see the name of the folder change correspondingly. The same goes for other folders created by the system - their name will change according to the system language.

But as far as I know, the system will not create a folder called "Photos", only an application called "Photos", or a package called "Photos Library" (again, the names will depend on the primary system language). If you are seeing a folder "Photos" instead of the app "Photos", or the Photos Library, you may have created the folder yourself, or the app or library may have become damaged.


MacOS Catalina photos and pictures confusion

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