How to Create and Manage a Shared Library in Photos on the Mac

In this video, we’re going to look at the new shared library we have with iOS 16. Basically, what we’re able to do is create a shared library with our photos. So then any of our photos that we have, we can share with other people. And this isn’t a shared album, it’s a shared library. So they’re going to be able to edit the photos or even delete the photos, let’s take a look at the shared library on the iPhone. Now, the first thing is, is you do need to have at least iOS 16 running on your iPhone, I have iOS 16. Here, this will not work with previous versions of iOS. Now what we have to do is set it up. So how do we set it up? Well, basically, we go over to our settings app here. And then we swipe up until we find our photos settings. So I’m going to swipe up here, we have our photos here. This is where we have all of our different settings for the photos, this is nothing new. But what is new is we have a shared library. And again, with a shared library, other people share that library and they’re going to be able to edit the photos, delete the photos, or even add their own photos. So I’m going to tap on this to set it up. Get started, I add the participants, I’m going to add Abigail here. And now all I do is tap on Add, I tap on Add, I go to next.

And then I can select how I want to share my photos by default, do I want to share all of my photos and videos do I want to share my whole album, or maybe I just want to share photos from specific people or a date. And again, this is not an album, this is a shared library. Or what I could do is select them manually. So I’m just going to go with all my photos and videos. Right now I just want to share all of my photos and videos. So I tap on this.

And now we go over to next we can preview the library. So I’m going to preview this, it’s going to give me an idea of what photos are going to be shared, you’re gonna see I have to earn 77 photos with 21 videos. Let’s go ahead and share this. So I tap on Continue. And now all I have to do is just invite Abigail. And now once she accepts that invitation, she will be able to see this library on her iPhone on her iPad. Now we’re not finished yet, we do have to go up to set up here. And we have to set up how we want to share from the camera. So we’ve set up how we want the library to be shared. But what about the camera happens when we take a photo? Well, we can have it share manually, so then I have to share it manually or I can have it share automatically. So if you want all of your photos to be in this album, then you would go share automatically. But if you want to select specific photos, then what you do is you go to share manually, I’m going to go with share manually. So I tap on it.

And now what I’m able to do is take a photo and I can share that with the library, it’s not going to go into that shared library by default. So now how do I change it to my different views, I have two different libraries, right, I have a shared library, and then I have my own library. Well, to switch between these two different libraries, what you do is you go up to the little silhouette in the upper right hand corner. And then what you’re able to do is select which library you want to see, you can select both libraries, you’re gonna see all of the libraries, you can select your personal library, or just the shared library. So right now what I’m doing is I’m seeing only the shared library, I want to view the personal library, I tap on personal library. Now I’m looking at my personal library, I go back to the icon, and we go to share and you’re gonna see that the icon changes right now it’s a silhouette of a single person. When I go to the shared, we have two people there. And if I want to view all of them, I go to both libraries. Now I’m viewing all of the photos. So that’s how we can easily switch between our different libraries. Now, what about when we take that photo, I’m going to take a photo here. So let’s just swipe up, and we’re going to go to my camera, you’re going to get a picture of my desk here. And basically to select which library is going to go to you’re going to see we have this little silhouette up here in the upper left hand corner. And from here, what I’m able to do is select which library.

So now it’s going to the shared library, tap on it again, it’s going to the personal so I just keep tapping on it to go through my different libraries. So when I take this photo now you can see has a little line through it. What it’s going to do is go into my library, not the shared library. So let’s go ahead and take that photo. And now we’re going to go back over to my photos app. We can see that that photo is there. I want to change the You, what I do is I go up to the three dots here. And now I’m able to change the view. So let’s go with my personal library, we can see that I have my desktop there. Now, this should not be in my shared library, when I tap on this, you’re going to see that it is not there. Because it is only in my personal library. When I view all of my libraries. Let’s go ahead and close that there. When I view all of my libraries, you’re going to see that we have a little silhouette here in the upper right hand corner of each photo, if it has that silhouette, that means that it’s in the shared library. If it doesn’t have it, you can see that this one doesn’t have it. That means that it is in the personal library, so you’re able to see which library a photo is in. So let’s move this photo to the shared library. How do we do that, let’s say I want to have that in the shared library. Well, all you have to do is just tap and hold onit and then you’re going to see move to shared library, that’s all we have to do. So I’m going to tap on it. And now it is moving it to the shared library. So now Abigail will be able to see that photo, she’ll be able to edit the photo, she’ll be able to delete it, because it’s shared library.

Let’s go and move this photo here to just the personal library, I tap on move to personal library. And now that folder will be moved to my personal library. So that’s how shared libraries work. Now we do have a few settings for let’s go back over to my settings app, I swipe up, and we go over to my settings app, we need to make sure that we’re in our photos setting. So I’m going to go back the way I found that was by looking at all of my different settings here. And then I went to photos. Now what we need to do is go to shared library. From here, what I’m able to do is add more people to this library. I can also remove people, you’re gonna see that Abigail is still invited, look to the left of my pointer there, you’re gonna see it says invited she hasn’t accepted her invitation yet. I tap on this. And what I’m able to do is resend the invitation as well as remove her from the shared library.

I go back, I can also set if I want shared library suggestions. When this is on, it’ll give me suggestions of who I can share my library with. And then I can set my sharing from camera options. You remember how I had it set where it’s manual? Well, when I tap on this, I can set it for automatically. So any photo that I take will automatically go into the shared library, I’m going to leave it at manual and then move them over manually. And then our last option here is share when at home. What this will do is it will always add your photos and videos from the camera to the shared library even when the other participants aren’t there. I like to have full manual control. So I’m just going to leave that off and leave it at share manually. So that is the new shared library that we have with iOS 16. This actually works with iOS 16, iPad os 16 and Mac OS Ventura. So that’s how shared libraries work in iOS 16 on the iPhone