How do I change my library?

How do I change my library?

PhotoStructure is designed for million-asset libraries, so you shouldn’t need to switch between libraries in most cases.

If you want to have a couple separate libraries, though, you certainly can.

  1. Click “Settings” from the navigation menu, or click the tray icon and select “Preferences…”.

  2. Scroll down to the Library path, and enter a new (or previously existing) PhotoStructure Library directory.

  3. When you click “Save” (at the bottom of the window, past the EULA), PhotoStructure will close the currently-open library, and open a new library in that directory.

Keep in mind:

  • Opening a new directory will not copy over prior assets. If it’s a new directory, the library will be empty.
  • If that directory had previously been a PhotoStructure library, all the assets in that library will now be visible.
  • If both libraries are set to import from all drives automatically, you’ll end up copying every one of your photos and videos into both the first library and the second directory.

📁 How do I move an existing library?

PhotoStructure libraries are designed to be portable.

For this example, our library is in /home/alice/PhotoStructure, but we have a new external drive we want to move our library to, /Volumes/Media.

  1. First, shut down PhotoStructure. This is really important: don’t move a library while PhotoStructure is running.

  2. If your library is small, just drag-and-drop the /home/alice/PhotoStructure to your external drive. If the library is larger, though, you may need to use a terminal command to have everything work. On macOS or linux, run cp -vra /home/alice/PhotoStructure /Volumes/Media/PhotoStructure.

  3. Start PhotoStructure. You should see a dialog that says “your library is missing!” Select the “Pick a new library” button.

  4. On the next page, change your PhotoStructure library to be the new location on your external drive, /Volumes/Media/PhotoStructure.

  5. Your prior library will be open and available.

🖥️ How do I change my library on a server or in Docker?

The Settings page hides the library picker when your library’s location comes from outside the app. On Docker that is always true: your library is whichever folder you map into the container as /ps/library, or whatever PS_LIBRARY_DIR points at. To use a different folder, change that folder mapping (or that variable) and restart the container.

If PhotoStructure remembers a library folder that no longer exists, or that you no longer want it to open, you can make it forget. Set PS_RESET_LIBRARY_DIR=true (see Using environment variables for where that goes on your system) and start PhotoStructure once. On startup, PhotoStructure erases the saved location, then deletes PS_RESET_LIBRARY_DIR from its own environment, so the reset applies to that one launch and doesn’t carry into the helper processes PhotoStructure starts.

Resetting doesn’t touch the library folder itself. Your photos and everything else in that folder stay where they are, and PhotoStructure only forgets which folder it was using. On Docker you land back on the standard /ps/library folder mapping. Everywhere else you get the welcome page, where you pick a library.

Take PS_RESET_LIBRARY_DIR back out once PhotoStructure is up. Deleting it from the running process doesn’t remove it from your docker-compose.yml, your .env file, or your shell profile, so if you leave it set, every restart forgets your library again.