Hi Peter,

You might find this handy to check you did everything correctly when originally 
transferring the Photos Library to the external and setting as System Photo 
Library.

https://www.imore.com/how-use-photos-mac-external-hard-drive?utm_source=im&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=social_share&utm_content=

Regards,

Ronni

 Ronni Brown’s iPad Pro 12.9-inch 256GB 


> On 6 Jan 2019, at 1:53 pm, Peter Crisp <petercr...@westnet.com.au> wrote:
> 
> Thanks Ronni, the external drive is formatted as Mac OS Extend journaled and 
> used exclusively for the Photos library and nothing else currently. The Time 
> Machine Backup of Joanne’s MBP (with External drive included in the backup) 
> is wirelessly to the Time Capsule onboard 3TB internal drive. 
> 
> In contrast as well, my own MBP which has my Photos library also stored on my 
> own external drive, does not have this weird behaviour. 
> 
> It’s not a big deal to force it via Option key but just curious about how I 
> might correct this
> 
> I’ll have a read of the link soon. Thanks for comments.
> 
> Regards
> 
> 
> Pete
> 
>> On 6 Jan 2019, at 1:40 pm, Ronni Brown <ro...@mac.com> wrote:
>> 
>> Hi Peter,
>> 
>> I’m not sure what has happened here.
>> The System Photo Library is the only library that can be used with iCloud 
>> Photo Library, iCloud Photo Sharing, and My Photo Stream.
>> 
>> Photos may have problems to remember the location of your system Photo 
>> Library, if it is on a drive with an incompatible file system or if the 
>> drive has been used with Time Machine. 
>> 
>> “If a Photos library is located on an external drive, don’t use Time Machine 
>> to store a backup on that external drive. The permissions for your Photos 
>> library may conflict with those for the Time Machine backup.”
>> 
>> After moving your photo library to another location such as an external 
>> storage device, making it your new System Photo Library lets you continue 
>> using iCloud Photo Library and other iCloud services with photos in that 
>> library.
>> 
>> Keep in mind that in order to use iCloud Photo Library, iCloud Photo Sharing 
>> and My Photo Stream, the external storage device must be formatted using Mac 
>> OS Extended (Journaled) format, also known as HFS+.
>> 
>> Apple on its parts warns that enabling iCloud Photo Library after 
>> designating a new System Photo Library will merge the photos stored in 
>> iCloud with those in the new System Photo Library.
>> 
>> https://support.apple.com/en-au/HT204414
>> 
>> Regards,
>> 
>> Ronni
>> 
>>  Ronni Brown’s iPad Pro 12.9-inch 256GB 
>> 
>> 
>>> On 6 Jan 2019, at 12:02 pm, Peter Crisp <petercr...@westnet.com.au> wrote:
>>> 
>>> Hi Mac users. A few months back I did a change from HDD to SSD for my 
>>> wife’s Macbook with a RAM upgrade at the same time. That has been very 
>>> successful like a number of other previous occasions for other family 
>>> members. There is one annoying thing that has started since then relating 
>>> to how the Photos library gets called up when opening Photos. The Photos 
>>> library is on an external drive. I have gone through the process of using 
>>> Option when opening, directing it to the externally located Photos library, 
>>> then in Prefs, making sure it is selected as the System library. 
>>> 
>>> Now though, if I open Photos (without holding Option key), the Mac thinks I 
>>> am a first time user and brings me to the ‘Get Started’ screen. If I 
>>> proceed, it opens Photos and eventually locates the Photos library (on the 
>>> external) but this leaves Photos in a state where the iCloud Shared albums 
>>> are not seen. In this arrangement upon checking Prefs, it seems to infer 
>>> the Photos library on the external drive is the System library.
>>> 
>>> If I close and then reopen Photos holding Option key, I can force it to 
>>> open the Photos library on the external drive, BUT the Shared folders now 
>>> do present themselves and all sharing functions that normally work all do 
>>> in fact work. It also indicates that the selected Photos library (ext 
>>> drive) is the System library. 
>>> 
>>> Next time I open Photos (no Option key), it reverts to the First User 
>>> state. Is there a stored file (plist or some other) that I can blow away to 
>>> restore this to the correct System library for every time? It’s fine for me 
>>> to workaround this but my wife doesn’t want to have to do this as a 
>>> constant workaround. 
>>> 
>>> Regards
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Pete
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