Having all your photos in one place is great, but sometimes you need to get a little more organized. By creating multiple photo libraries, you can separate - for example - work and personal photos. It’s simple to setup and although you can’t have two libraries open at the same time, it’s easy to switch between them.
Step 1: Quit Photos
In order to choose a new library, we need to quit the application. The shortcut for this is "command-Q".
Step 2: Hold Option and Open Photos
Hold the option key on the keyboard (sometimes labeled as Alt) and click the Photos icon in the dock. This will launch a dialogue box that asks you to choose a library. You should see “Photos Library” (or whatever you might have named it when you set up Photos) as the only option.
Step 3: Create a New Library
Next to “Choose Library” you should see an option that reads “Create New…”. Click this and label your alternate library. For this example, I used “Work Photos”. The library will save in your Pictures folder by default, but if you put your regular Photos library in another location, you might want to put the alternate one in the same folder. Click OK to save and Photos opens with your new, empty library.
Step 4: Switching Between Libraries
Now that you have multiple libraries set up, it’s easy to switch between them. There are two ways to do this:
- Quit Photos and hold the option key while re-opening Photos to open the choose library dialogue (which now should display both your main photo library as well as your alternate one).
- Double-click the Photos library directly from Finder, which launches photos with whichever library you selected. From here, you should be able to see the size of the library, indicating how much space it is taking up on your hard drive.
