Apple Photos

David wants to know why iCloud won't backup more than one iPhoto library. Leo says that iPhoto morphed into Apple Photos and will only backup the main library by design. What he recommends is to merge the libraries together by importing. Press the option key and hold on the library you want to open. Then go into file, and then import. From inside the apple photos folder, there's a data folder. R/C and select show package contents. That will open the original folder. Then, drag them into your master Photos folder.

Adam has an old 2007 iMac that still runs well, but it's not very good for the Internet. He wants to use it as a secondary computer next to his newer iMac.  Leo says to make sure both computers are attached to the same iCloud account. That will make sure that the older Mac is synced properly. Leo also said that it's likely running iPhotos, the older version of Apple Photos. So it may have iCloud turned off. So turn that on. 

Frederick wants to create a central location to house all the photos and videos for everyone in the family. Leo says if he wants to be responsible for it all, then Apple Photos can handle it. But everyone may want to keep their own accounts. Google Photos has similar features to Apple Photos, but it's cloud-based. And he can share unlimited free storage up until June 1st. Then each person can upload to a family album from their own account. Then everyone can upload and see the album. It's a great way to do it without having the burden just on the creator.

Brent has photographs in a whole bunch of different locations online and on his computer and wants to get them all together into a central location. He wants to get a desktop computer that can really help him to organize and back it up. Leo says that a good Windows computer is Dell. But really, desktop computers are a commodity. So it almost doesn't really matter what kind of computer to get. Leo would recommend Mac over Windows though, and a new  5K iMac is a good solution for this. Then buy Apple's iCloud storage for the backup. Or Dell and Microsoft One Drive.

Charles is noticing several of his recent photo files aren't as large as they should be on his Mac Mini. Leo says that if Charles is using Apple Photos for an App to store his photos, to r/c on the photos library, and then select Show Package Contents, he'll see photo folders, including the "originals" photo folder. That'll verify his originals are there.

Gary has an iMac, and there's a large percentage of JPGs he can't preview. What is that all about? Leo says if the dimensions read "0" by "0", then the Mac thinks that the files are damaged and need to be repaired, even though Gary can read them on a PC. He should try opening them in Preview first. If he can read them there, then he can export them. Gary can also open them in Picasa, and so Leo suggests exporting them out from there. That can fix them and the Mac apps should be able to open them from there.

John is frustrated that he can't delete the pictures on his phone without deleting them from iCloud. Leo says that if he selects "optimize phone storage" in settings, it will delete it on the phone without deleting it on iCloud. But he'll have to select "Keep Originals" on his Mac so it doesn't delete there.

Scott has a Windows 7 laptop and he's tired of dealing with all its problems. As a result, he got a MacBook Air for Christmas. How does he transfer all his data from the Windows laptop to the MacBook? The Migration wizard didn't really work for him.

Leo says to bypass all of that and just move it over manually. It's the best way to do it. He should just plug in an external drive, formatted for Windows. Then drag and drop his "My Photos" folder over. Then he can connect it to his Mac, open Apple Photos, and import them.