Photos

All your photos on all your devices. With iCloud Photos, you can browse, search, and share all the photos and videos from all your devices that are signed in with the same Apple ID. When you use your iPhone to take a photo, it automatically appears on all of your devices. And if you edit photos, those edits appear on all of your devices. To get started, open System Settings, click your Apple ID in the sidebar, click iCloud, then turn on Photos. To learn more, see the Apple Support article Set up and use iCloud Photos.

Set up iCloud Shared Photo Library. Share photos and videos in a separate library so that everyone in the family can enjoy more complete memories. Content in the Shared Library appears seamlessly alongside your personal content in the Photos app. When someone adds a photo or video to the Shared Library, or makes an edit, these changes appear for everyone who is part of the library. You can participate in one shared library that is shared with up to five other people.

To set up iCloud Shared Photo Library, you must be signed in with your Apple ID and have iCloud Photos turned on. Go to Photos > Settings, click the Shared Library tab, then choose Get Started. You can add participants right away, or choose to add them later. Select which of your past photos and videos you want to add to the Shared Library: all your photos and videos, photos and videos with certain people or taken after a certain date, or select photos and videos manually. After the Shared Library is set up, you can toggle between viewing your Personal Library, the Shared Library, or both libraries at once in Photos.

Add photos and videos to your Shared Library. To move individual photos or videos to your Shared Library, Control-click the photo or video in your Personal Library and choose “Move to Shared Library.” To use suggestions for photos or videos you may want to add, go to Photos > Settings, click the Shared Library tab, then check Shared Library Suggestions and choose “Add People” to receive suggestions of photos or videos with selected people.

Shared with You. When friends in your Contacts send you photos in Messages, they automatically appear in your Photos app, in the Shared with You section. Photos that you’re most likely to care about, such as events you attended, appear in your library. When you’re viewing the photos in the Photos app, you can click the message bubble on a photo to open Messages and continue the conversation.

Edit like a pro. Create standout photos and videos with powerful but easy-to-use editing tools. Use the editing buttons above your photo or video to improve it with just a click. For more powerful editing tools, click Edit, then use Smart Sliders to get professional results. You can add filters, rotate, increase exposure, and crop both photos and videos.

Interact with text. Live Text recognizes text in images on your computer and on the web. You can copy text from a photo to paste into any file on Mac, or click a phone number or website in the image to call the number or open the website. To translate text, select the text, Control-click it, then click Translate. Not all languages are available. See Translate on Mac in the macOS User Guide.

Relive meaningful moments. Photos highlights important moments like birthdays, anniversaries, and trips. Your photo library comes to life with Live Photos and videos that begin playing as you scroll. Click Memories in the sidebar to have Photos create a memorable movie—complete with music, titles, moods, and transitions—that you can personalize and share. Your Memories are available on all your other devices that use iCloud Photos.

Find what you’re looking for. Photos showcases the best shots in your library and hides duplicates, receipts, and screenshots. Click the buttons at the top of the Photos window to view photos by year, month, or day—or click All Photos to quickly view your entire collection. Photos identifies objects, scenes, and people in your photos and videos so you can search your photos based on what’s in them, the date they were taken, people you’ve named in them, captions you added, and their location—if provided. You can also use Spotlight and Siri to search for photos.

People, places, and things. Visual Lookup recognizes many objects in your photos. Swipe up on a photo or click the information button on a photo to highlight recognized objects and scenes. Learn more about popular art and landmarks around the world, plants and flowers, books, and breeds of pets. To have photos of people important to you always appear at the top of the People album, click the Favorites button  that appears on their photo. Use the Places album to view all your photos with location data on an interactive map. Zoom in on the map to reveal more photos from a specific location.

Get creative with Live Photos. With Live Photos, use the Loop effect to continuously loop the action, or use Bounce to play the animation forward and backward. For a professional DSLR look, use Long Exposure to blur motion in your Live Photos and turn an ordinary waterfall or flowing stream into a work of art.

Use the Touch Bar with your 13-inch MacBook Pro. The Touch Bar displays a scrubber with all the photos and videos in your library, which you can use to speed your search for just the right photo. You can tap to mark a selected photo as a favorite , rotate it , or add it to a new or existing album.

When you edit a photo, tap buttons to crop, apply filters, adjust light, color, and other settings, or retouch your selection. Use additional options, such as enhance , compare , and more, depending on your selection in the previous Touch Bar.

Learn more. See the Photos User Guide.