How can I share Photos across multiple users on Apple Photos, without paying for iCloud?

Me and my wife have separate Itunes accounts and have separate users on our Mac computer. Once we upload our photos to our computer to our own accounts we delete them from our devices.

Is there a way that we can view each other's photos without having to switch between accounts? Since I have tons of photos I wouldn't want to pay for ICloud to have them sync. For example I have tons of pictures of our son and she wants to print some of them.

FYI I am using the new Apple Photos App and we have tons of pictures.


I guess this is what you're looking for:

  1. Enable iCloud's Family Sharing and iCloud Photo Sharing

    If you have iCloud's Family Sharing and iCloud Photo Sharing enabled, you'll see a special album called "Family" in the Shared tab of the Photos for OS X app, as well as the Shared section of the Photos app on iPhone and iPad. This album will automatically sync with all members within your Family Sharing group.

  2. Share your photos

    To add photos to the shared stream, select them and click the Share button. From there, choose iCloud Photo Library, and select the
    Family album. The images will then sync over to your family member's device.

If you need a deeper explanation: http://www.imore.com/how-use-iclouds-family-sharing-photos-os-x


To share the same Photo library between multiple users on the same Mac, do the following :

  • Move the existing library into "/Users/Shared/Pictures/PhotoLibrary"
  • Select the library parent directory (eg "Pictures") and click "Get info"
  • Click on the padlock icon on the bottom right and enter an administrator password
  • Click the "+" icon and select the second user which must have access to the photo library, for instance "user2"
  • Click on the row "user2" and select in dropdown "Read and write"
  • Click on the row "user2" and click on the "gear" icon at the bottom, and select "Apply to Enclosed Items" in the drop-down menu.
  • Click "OK".
  • Launch iPhoto with the Option key held down, select "Other library", and choose the photo library.

Tested under MacOS 10.11