Mac Guides

Beginner

4 min read 6 stepsApril 19, 2026Verified April 2026

How to Use the Photos App on Mac to Organize and Share Pictures

The Mac Photos app stores all your pictures in one place and can auto-sync with your iPhone. Learn to create albums, find people, and share memories.

At a Glance

Open the Photos app on your Mac

~26s

Click the colorful pinwheel Photos icon in your Dock (the bar at the bottom of your screen) or press Command + Space to open Spotlight, type "Photos," and press Enter. Your photo library will open. If this is your first time, it may take a few minutes to load all your photos.

Quick Tip

If iCloud Photos is set up on your iPhone too, new photos will appear on your Mac automatically within a few minutes of taking them.

Browse your library by date

~16s

In the left sidebar, click "Library" to see all your photos. At the top, you'll see tabs for "Years," "Months," "Days," and "All Photos." Click "Years" to see thumbnails grouped by year, or "All Photos" to see every photo in order from newest to oldest.

Create an album to organize photos

~21s

In the left sidebar, look for "My Albums." Click the small plus icon next to it and choose "New Album." Give your album a name (like "Grandchildren" or "Holiday 2024"). Then find the photos you want to add, select them by clicking the first one and holding Shift while clicking others, then drag them into your new album in the sidebar.

Explore the People feature

~27s

In the left sidebar, click "People." Photos will show you clusters of faces it has detected in your library. Click on a cluster and type a name to identify who that person is. From then on, clicking that person's name shows every photo they appear in. This is one of the most useful features for finding photos of specific family members.

Quick Tip

It may take a while for the People feature to finish scanning all your photos, especially if you have thousands of them.

Watch Memories

~16s

Click "Memories" in the left sidebar. Photos automatically creates mini slideshow videos from groups of related photos — a road trip, a birthday, a particular season. Click any Memory to watch the slideshow. You can also edit the music by clicking the music note icon while a Memory is playing.

Share a photo

~22s

Click a photo to select it. Then go to File > Share in the menu bar, or right-click the photo and choose "Share." Options include Mail (sends as an email attachment), Messages (sends via iMessage or SMS), AirDrop (sends wirelessly to a nearby Apple device), or "Export" to save a copy to your Mac. For sharing multiple photos, hold Command while clicking each one before choosing Share.

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The Photos app on your Mac is designed to be the home for all your pictures. If you use iCloud Photos (which is on by default when you sign into your Apple account), every photo you take on your iPhone automatically shows up in the Mac Photos app — no cables or manual transfers needed.

The Photos app organizes your pictures in several ways:

Library

— This is everything in one place, sorted by date. You can scroll back through years of memories.

Albums

— You can create your own albums to group related photos (Grandkids, Vacation 2024, Garden, etc.). A photo can be in multiple albums without taking up extra space.

People

— Photos uses face recognition to identify the people in your photos and groups them together. Once you name a face, Photos will automatically group future photos of that person. This makes it straightforward to find all photos of a specific grandchild, for example.

Memories

— The Photos app automatically creates short slideshow videos from your photos — organized by trips, seasons, or events — and presents them as "Memories." These are found in the sidebar under "Memories."

Editing

— You can edit photos directly in the Mac Photos app. Click a photo to open it, then click "Edit" in the top right corner. You'll find the same tools as on iPhone: Enhance, Adjust, Filters, and Crop.

Sharing

— To share a photo, right-click on it (or hold Control and click) and choose "Share." You can share via Messages, Mail, AirDrop to a nearby Apple device, or export to a folder on your Mac.

If you don't see your iPhone photos on your Mac, check that you're signed into the same Apple account on both devices and that iCloud Photos is turned on (go to System Settings > Apple ID > iCloud > Photos).

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Official Resources

Apple Support How-To Geek — Mac Apple Support YouTube

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