Did you know that Apple sold an estimated 22.6 million Macs in 2020 alone? That’s an incredible jump of 16.6% from its previous year’s sales. As a result, Apple held on to its ranking as the world’s fourth best-selling computer brand.
Those figures highlight how many folks prefer Macs even if they cost way more than the typical PC or laptop. After all, Macs aren’t just fancy; they’re also easy to use and work seamlessly with other Apple devices.
For the same reasons, it’s easy to organize photos on Mac both on the local level and on the cloud. You can even use your Mac itself to organize photos you have on your iPhone or iPad!
We’ll give you the deets below on how to save photos on Mac, organize them, and even delete duplicates, so be sure to read on.
Designate a Location for All Photos on Your Mac
To make organizing photos on your Mac simpler, choose a primary location to store them in. A good example is your Mac’s Desktop since it’s the first thing you see when you log in to your device.
Once you’ve decided where to put all your photos, create a primary folder in that location.
Let’s say your chosen location is your desktop. In this case, go to your desktop, tap your trackpad with two fingers, and select the New Folder option in the menu. Then, with your pointer over the new folder, do the two-finger tap again, select Rename, and enter a new folder name.
You can also create a new folder for your photos via a Finder window. To do this, open a Finder window, click Desktop on the left pane, and tap your trackpad with two fingers. Next, click on the New Folder option, and finally, rename that folder.
Use the Photos App to Manage All Your Photos
The Photos app is the photo management and editing tool built into all macOS and iOS devices. It even organizes your photos by date, people, places, or content. You can also create custom albums and edit photos and videos right from the Photos app.
Importing Photos to the Photos App Library
If you don’t want to use your desktop, you can import photos straight into the Photos app from an external device. To do this, connect the external drive to your Mac, and then launch the Photos app on your Apple computer. You should then see the name of the external device listed under the Devices field on the left pane.
Click on the name of that device so that the Photos app will start loading its contents. While waiting, click the drop-down menu labeled “Import to” on the center of the Photos window. You can then choose the specific folder or album you want to import the photos in.
You can then import all or only specific photos. If you only want to import a few photos, click on one of them, press the Command (⌘) key, and click on the other images. If you want to import everything, click the Import All New Items option on the right side of the window.
Creating Albums and Folders Within the Photos App
On the left pane of the Photos app window, click the + button beside the My Albums field. You can then select either Album or Folder.
Choose Album if the photos and videos are of a single theme, say, a birthday or a one-day event. Select Folder if you want to organize photos under multiple albums.
For example, you’d want to go with Folder if you took hundreds of photos during a multi-city trip. You can then create several albums within that folder for each city you visited.
Once the folders and albums are set up, click the “Import to” menu and select the folder or album. You can then import selected items or all the new items into those locations.
Deleting Duplicates and Unwanted Photos
Were you aware that an iPhone on burst mode can shoot 10 frames in one second? That’s an incredible technology right there, but not so much when it’s time to organize photos. What’s more, numerous burst shots take up a lot of storage space not only in your iPhone but your Mac or iCloud Drive, too.
Fortunately, you can delete duplicates and similar-looking photos straight from the Photos app. If they’re on iCloud, deleting them from any of your devices’ Photos app deletes them from iCloud, too. Highlight all unwanted photos, use the two-finger trackpad gesture, and choose Delete.
A faster way to find duplicate photos on Mac and delete them all together is with a third-party app. A few examples are Gemini 2, Duplicate Photos Fixer, and Photos Duplicate Cleaner. Best of all, these are free to download from the Apple App Store.
Add Your Mac Photos to Your iCloud Drive
iCloud, which had an estimated 850 million users in 2018, is Apple’s native cloud service. All owners of Apple devices, including Macs, get 5GB of iCloud space for free. So, as a Mac owner yourself, you should take advantage of iCloud, as it also lets you organize photos via the cloud.
However, you should first enable iCloud on your Mac and ensure your photos don’t exceed 5 GB. If they’re more than 5 GB, you can get a 50 GB paid plan that only costs $0.99 a month. If that’s still not enough, you can go with the monthly $2.99 200 GB plan or the $9.99 2 TB plan.
Once your iCloud account is set, open System Preferences on your Mac. Next, click the Apple ID button on the right side of the window and then the iCloud field on the left pane. From there, tick the boxes beside iCloud Drive and Photos.
After that, click the Options button on the right side of the iCloud Drive field. Then, place a checkmark on the box beside Desktop & Documents Folders.
Your iCloud Drive should then sync with your Mac’s drive. Once it does, you can start accessing, managing, and organizing your photos via iCloud.com.
Organize Photos on Mac Like a Pro
Whether you’ve got tons of photos on Mac, iPhone, or iPad, the Apple Photos app is one of the best tools to organize them all. Don’t forget to sync them through iCloud, though, so that you can access all your photos from Mac. From there, the changes you make via iCloud would reflect on all your synced devices.
So, as early as now, follow our tips so you can start organizing your precious memories.
Ready for even more tech hacks and tricks? Check out our recent posts for other informative guides like this!
