Sharing photos located on an external drive

[lbsimon50]

I did search the forums, and did not find an answer. I also spent a lot of time googling the issue, and also in vain. So I am asking it here:

I have a couple of hundreds photos from my last trip located on an external drive of my Mac. They have been edited using photo editing software. Now I want to share them with my friends who were with me on that trip. I would like to create a shared folder somewhere so that they could view the photos on their iPhones without downloading them to their devices. Are there any photographers here who have done that? Or just any expert?

Will appreciate your help.
Leo

 

[IWT]

Hi Leo,

Till I think of another way of doing this - one way would be via Dropbox. It would simply involve your placing the appropriate pictures in a Folder, putting that in Dropbox and using the share function with your friends.

Of course, you & they would need Dropbox, but this can be achieved via the free version of that product:

Dropbox Basic (free account) - Dropbox

Get a Dropbox free account. Sign up for 2 GB of storage, and start accessing and sharing photos, documents and other files from any device.

www.dropbox.com

If your friends have Apple Devices (iPhone, iPad, Macs) there is a easy way of sharing pictures, but I'm guessing that this might not be the case, hence suggestion above:

How to use Shared Albums in Photos on your iPhone, iPad and Mac – Apple Support (UK)

Share photos and videos easily with Shared Albums.

support.apple.com

Ian

 

[Jimmysb]

My family (children and grandchildren) share our photos (and other documents) via Dropbox (free version), where you can just view, and if the permissions are correct, others can also download if they want.

 

[lbsimon50]

Thanks guys, I am aware of Dropbox, I have an account there. But I am sure there should be a way to create a shared folder on Photos to add pictures that are already on my drive, albeit external. Particularly so if the other devices are also Apple, such as iPhones and iPads.

I know how to add pictures from iCloud or from an iPhone, but not how to do it in my case.

 

[pm-r]

Thanks guys, I am aware of Dropbox, I have an account there. But I am sure there should be a way to create a shared folder on Photos to add pictures that are already on my drive, albeit external.

You might want to have a look and a read-through of these articles but I don't think they go quite as far as you want them to, like out into the wild 'net for your friends access which can create a huge security risk for you and maybe your friends you want to share with, and maybe others that you don't snooping or anything.

Anyway, see if they suit your needs:

How to use file sharing on your Mac

File sharing is a click of a button plus many more subtle settings.

www.macworld.com

How to share a folder to your network in MacOS

Here are the steps for sharing a folder on your MacOS machine to your local area network, so others can access the content within.

www.zdnet.com

Sharing | Synology Photos - Synology Knowledge Center

Synology Knowledge Center offers comprehensive support, providing answers to frequently asked questions, troubleshooting steps, software tutorials, and all the technical documentation you may need.

kb.synology.com

- Patrick
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[lbsimon50]

Thanks, I will definitely look into the articles.

 

[pm-r]

Thanks, I will definitely look into the articles.

Here's another one I stumbled on awaiting your perusal:

10 Ways to Share Files From Anywhere in the World​

https://www.g2.com/articles/file-sharing

Five Ways to Access Your Computer’s Files Remotely

Remote Access Overview: Get Anytime Access Computer Files

Learn how Remote access empowers you to to log into your computer remotely to edit and delete files and apps from anywhere, anytime.

www.cgtechnologies.com

- Patrick
=======

 

[lbsimon50]

Thanks Patrick. In general I am good with this stuff, having worked in high tech for over 40 years. It is this particular case that stumble me. I thought that Apple should provide a simple way to share pictures located outside of Photos but still on the same Mac computer with other Apple devices such as iPhones. I still can create a shared folder in Photos and move my pictures from iCloud there, but not from the external drive.

 

[MacInWin]

I still can create a shared folder in Photos and move my pictures from iCloud there, but not from the external drive.

I'm sorry, but that is very confusing to me. Are you saying that you have pictures stored in iCloud somehow, that are NOT in the Photos app and that you can create a folder IN the Photos app and move pictures from this iCloud storage to that folder without importing them into the Photos app? And that the image files on the external drive cannot be similarly put in a folder in the Photos app? Are these files on the external drive imported into the Photos app at all? Are the iCloud images imported to the Photos app at all?

I'm confused how the Photos app can handle images that have not been imported to the library it keeps.

 

[lbsimon50]

Well, I know what I am talking about while you do not know what I am talking about!

Sorry for the confusion. What I meant to say that I have a lot of photos on my iPhone that are of course backed up on the iCloud. It is those photos that I can add to a shared folder of the Photo app on the Mac. What I cannot do is to add pictures that are not on the iCloud, those that are located on an external drive.

And just to provide a bigger picture (pun intended):

I shot a lot of photos with an iPhone during the travel. I moved these photos to the external drive in order to import them to LightRoom, a photo editing software. It is much easier to edit a large number of images using this software, way easier than on a phone. So I was able to select only the best shots and edit them on the external drive. These are the photos that I have a problem with.

Of course I can use one of those sharing services like Google shared drive, or Dropbox, or Amazon cloud, or even iCloud, but that would mean that I will have to actually upload the images to those service, while I hoped that Apple can do this easy from one Apple device to another.

I don't think I will continue to pursue it any further. Thanks everybody.

 

[MacInWin]

Well, I know what I am talking about while you do not know what I am talking about!

Sorry for the confusion. What I meant to say that I have a lot of photos on my iPhone that are of course backed up on the iCloud. It is those photos that I can add to a shared folder of the Photo app on the Mac. What I cannot do is to add pictures that are not on the iCloud, those that are located on an external drive.

And just to provide a bigger picture (pun intended):

I shot a lot of photos with an iPhone during the travel. I moved these photos to the external drive in order to import them to LightRoom, a photo editing software. It is much easier to edit a large number of images using this software, way easier than on a phone. So I was able to select only the best shots and edit them on the external drive. These are the photos that I have a problem with.

Of course I can use one of those sharing services like Google shared drive, or Dropbox, or Amazon cloud, or even iCloud, but that would mean that I will have to actually upload the images to those service, while I hoped that Apple can do this easy from one Apple device to another.

I don't think I will continue to pursue it any further. Thanks everybody.

Don't give up. I think I understand better now.

The problem is, I think, that the pictures on the external drive have never been imported to Photos.app, and are therefore not available in that app to put in a folder. If I have that right, then an easy fix is to import the images into Photos.app on the Mac, from the exernal drive, and then create the shared folder once they are in the Photos.app library.

For the background, the Photos app on the Mac has a storage area with the name xxx.photoslibrary, where the xxx is whatever you want, but the default is "Photos Library.photoslibrary." In that library is a database where the image data is stored, along with the metadata about the image file and all of the edits that you have made to the original file using Photos. When you take a picture on your iPhone it goes into the Photos app on the iPhone, and, if you have sync set up, then gets synced to Photos in iCloud and then synced from there down to the Photos app on the Mac. When you import those exernal files into Photos app on the Mac, the same process will occur in reverse, syncing back to your iPhone, assuming you have it set up for sync, as I said.

Now, as a fine detail, you should check something to make sure this works. Open Photos on the Mac, then click on where it says "Photos" in the upper left corner of the screen (not the window, the entire screen) and then choose "Settings." In the resulting window you will see a line with "Library location" that will tell you exactly what and where your system is set up to store the photoslibrary file. What you need to check is the line labelled "Importing," and make sure that there is a check in the box for "Copy items to the Photos library." That is the default. The reason you would want to do that is because when you open Photos, it opens the photoslibrary file and looks for the database, then opens that and looks for the images. If that option is NOT checked, all it finds is the location of where the image file was on the external drive at the time you imported it. If you try to open the PHotos app without that external drive available, Photos will tell you it cannot find your pictures. However, if you have the box CHECKED, then when you import the images, Photos will actually copy the image into the photoslibrary database as a Binary Large OBject (BLOB), and it will be available to you even if the external drive is not attached.

So, I think what you want is do-able, you just have to import the images from the external drive to do it.