New to mac; Need help with the Photos app.

[monocheeze]

Hi,

As an all time Windows user I just recently switched to a macbook pro while still using my Desktop PC.
I have a lot of pictures to organize and I need some help on a few issues I've encountered so far.

On Windows 10 I just save my pictures in folders named like this f.e. "2016_12_24 Christmas". Then the native Windows 10 Photos App scans my photo folders and organizes them by date etc.
On Mac I found it to be quite similar only that when for example I try to import from my iPhone using the Photos App it saves them in the "Photos Library" and when I want to manually navigate to a certain file using finder it is just very crude and unorganized. So I've deleted them from that Photos Library and sorted them in folders using the same naming scheme I use on Windows 10.
Then I wanted to view them using the Photos App so I imported them all back just to find that now I have duplicates of all pictures, one file in my self-created structured photos folder and one (again) in that Photo Library. (Where it's impossible to find a certain file. Say I want to give my relatives that "2016_12_24 Christmas" folder I couldn't to so without having the photos organized by hand.)

So my question really is; what is the best way to sort large amounts of photos on a Mac and keep them for one in a folder structure that is organized and makes sense while also being able to view them through the Photos App? Is there any third party Apps that maybe do not create an extra Photo Library and effectively doubling all the space needed? (HD space is valuable on my Macbook)

I hope this makes sense to you and I am looking forward to hearing your thoughts on this.
Thanks in advance!

 

[Easttime]

I think it might be helpful for you to look up the two methods for managing photos: letting the Apple system organize the Photos library and working inside that (managed library), or using a referenced library (where you organize images manually in a folder system). Sounds maybe like you are trying to do the latter. Funny how little chatter there is on the forums about this since the Photos app came out.

When I moved from Windows a few years ago, I gave up trying to manually organize images in folders and just let Apple's software manage the organization for me. Instead of keeping images in folders using Finder in a referenced library approach, I let Photos manage the library then create albums within the Photos app and drag images into those albums. You can also create smart albums, and organize albums into what are called "folders" in the Apple Photos app, but those are not folders on the Windows Explorer sense.

I'm not even sure that referenced library works using the new Photos app. The referenced library approach was an option in the old iPhoto app. It's been years since I even thought about the referenced library approach.

Here is Apple's overview of how to use the Photos app:
https://help.apple.com/photos/mac/1.2/#/pht035bc2c35 - see the "organize" section for a discussion of albums and folders of albums. But it does not get into how the photo library is structured under the hood, which where old time Windows users are used to working with Windows Explorer.

Check out this thread:
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/photos-app-basic-questions-from-former-microsoft-user.1983539/

There are ways to deal with the duplicates situation that you have now, but I am not sufficiently knowledgeable to help out with that.