If you take lots of photos, or you want to keep specific photos separate, you can set up and use multiple libraries.

Whether you want to break up an incredibly large library into more manageable parts, or you want to keep personal and professional pictures and videos separate, or iPhone vs. DSLR, or you want each family member to have their own library, you can easily set up and use them in Photos for OS X.

How to create a new library for Photos for OS X

1. Hold down the Option key on your keyboard.
2. Double-click on Photos.
3. Click the Create New… button in the Choose Library window.
4. Name your library.
5. Click OK.

Unfortunately, there isn’t a one-step way from within Photos to migrate pictures and videos to the new library. So you’ll need to export the content you want to use in the new library, then import them back in once you’ve opened the new library.

How to switch between libraries in Photos for OS X

1. Hold down the Option key on your keyboard.
2. Double-click on Photos.
3. Click on the name of the library you want to open.

Your local Photos library may be larger than your computer’s hard drive permits, but you can still view it if you have an external drive.

We take a lot of photos these days. The iPhone, with its dazzlingly-good camera, is largely to blame for this, but there are plenty of other technology improvements that have led to the proliferation of digital photographs on your hard drive. If you don’t want to use optimize storage with iCloud Photo Library, and you’re finding your computer short on space, don’t panic: You can still use Photos for OS X, and keep local copies of all your original pictures and videos, with an external hard drive.

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Microsoft’s Gabe Aul just dropped the news that the next build of the Windows 10 Preview for Windows Phone is due this Friday at 10 am PT (1 pm ET).

The news was announced on the Windows Weekly podcast, which is currently being broadcast on TWiT.

Microsoft announced today their plans to release a stripped-down version of its Windows Server operating system titled, appropriately enough, Nano Server. The new OS has been made to run “born-in-the-cloud applications and containers.”

What’s the difference between iCloud Photo Library and My Photo Stream?

With iCloud Photo Library, you can store all your photos in iCloud with no limits, unlike the traditional Photo Stream we’ve been accustomed to for the past few years. As long as you have enough iCloud storage, iCloud Photo Library will save all your photos. But what happens to your regular Photo Stream when you enable iCloud Photo Library? And more importantly, where did all your synced albums go? We’ve got the answers to these questions and more!

An overview of the differences between iCloud Photo Library and Photo Stream

There are a few key differences between iCloud Photo Library and Photo Stream that you need to remember. Before we start: It’s important to note that at this time iCloud Photo Library is still in beta form; as such, we recommend always backing up any photos you plan to store on the service. That caveat over with, it’s time to break down what each service offers and how they differ. Here’s a brief overview:

Regular Photo Stream:

• Only stores your most recent 1000 photos or the last 30 days of images, whichever is greater
• Does not use your iCloud storage allotment
• Compatible across all devices including iPhone, iPad, Mac, and PC
• Stores web-optimized versions of your photos, which may degrade quality
• Does not upload and sync videos
• You can still sync photos and albums from your Mac or PC via iTunes when Photo Stream is enabled

iCloud Photo Library:

• Stores all your photos and personal video and has no limits as long as you have the iCloud storage space to support it
• Uses your iCloud storage allotment
• Accessible on iPhone, iPad, Mac, and online via iCloud.com
• Stores full-resolution photos on the server and on your devices and supports many file formats including JPG, RAW, PNG, GIF, TIFF, and others
• Uploads and syncs videos as well as photos
• You can not sync albums and photos from your Mac or PC via iTunes when using iCloud Photo Library, and any existing albums will be removed when you enable the service

I’ve enabled iCloud Photo Library, my Photo Stream is completely gone! Why?!

Your Photo Stream isn’t technically gone. Since iCloud Photo Library now stores all your photos instead of just the most recent 1000 or last 30 days, it’d be confusing to divide up your Photo Stream and Camera Roll. As such, anything that appears in All Photos is backed up to iCloud Photo Library and available on any iOS device with iCloud Photo Library enabled.

If you switch on the “Upload to My Photo Stream” option in Settings > Photos & Camera, your last 1000 photos/last 30 days of images will still get uploaded to Photo Stream, and will display on a Mac, PC, or iOS device (with iCloud Photo Library enabled). Note: If you have multiple iOS devices, make sure to turn iCloud Photo Library on for all of them or none of them — if you have one device with iCloud Photo Library enabled, but another with just Photo Stream enabled, those devices won’t talk to each other, and you won’t see photos from one on the other.

• How to enable or disable Photo Stream on iPhone and iPad

You can tweak a few settings as to how your iPhone or iPad handles your iCloud Photo Library images on device. Currently, you can choose to either store web-optimized versions (thus saving storage space), or download and save high-resolution copies to your device. If you aren’t sure where to find this setting, you can follow our guide:

• How to save space on your iPhone or iPad with iCloud Photo Library

Can I still access photos on my Mac or PC if I enable iCloud Photo Library?

Yup! You can access your entire iCloud Photo Library on the new Photos for OS X if you’re running OS X 10.10.3 or later, or via iCloud.com. As with your iOS deices, if you’re going to use iCloud Photo Library, the best way to keep your images in sync across platforms is to make sure you have both iCloud Photo Library and Photo Stream enabled on all your devices.

So how do I get the photos on my Mac or PC to iCloud Photo Library?

You can use Apple’s Photos for OS X app, if you’re running OS X 10.10.3 or later. You can read more information about this in our Photos for OS X Ultimate Guide, linked below.

Updated at 4/8/15 to address Photos for OS X’s release.

Karelia Software has released version 2.10 of their website-building app Sandvox, which brings support for their freshly-launched Sandvox Hosting service.

The major update with Sandvox 2.10 is the addition of Sandvox Hosting. To set up the hosting service, you’ll just need to enter your name, email address, a password, and web address. If you already have a host for your site, you can choose “Alternate hosting”, where you can manually enter things like the server address.

After setting up Sandvox Hosting, you’ll be able to use it for 14 days for free. After the trial period, you can pick from four available plans. For $7.99 a month, you can set up a site at a .sandvox.net domain, with 2GB per month for data transfer, and 1GB of storage. The more expensive plans, which start at $99 per year and can cost as much as $199 per year, get you more storage, higher data transfer limits, custom domains, and more.

Sandvox 2.10 can be downloaded from Karelia for free with a limited trial, while the full version can be purchased for $79.99.

• $79.99 – Download Now

Source: Sandvox Hosting

Use Slack for group chat and want to know how to get even more out of it?

For those not already familiar, Slack is a group chat tool of sorts. You can join as many teams as you’d like, which makes it a great resource for smaller businesses and even developers. Organizations can even set up different channels and chat groups to fit their specific needs. It’s actually what we use here on Mobile Nations to communicate with each other throughout the day. If your organization uses Slack, Dave Chartier over on Finer Tech posted a great list of super useful Slack shortcuts.

Whether you want to quickly mark a DM as read without having to toggle between views or you want quick access to emoji, Dave has most aspects covered. I never really bothered to poke around the settings panel of the Slack app for Mac. Therefore, I never even realized you could set custom themes.

I also never would have figured out how to set unread points either, and that’s an awesome feature I didn’t know I needed until I actually started using it. So props to Dave for sharing these awesome tips. Be sure you check out the entire list via the link above!

Messenger has launched as a standalone web site, but it won’t be disappearing from Facebook’s core site.

Messenger, Facebook’s messaging platform, is now available as a standalone service on the web. In the past users had to use Facebook’s website to message their friends and family, but starting today they can do so without all the extra distractions. Facebook recently held a conference in which they detailed various ways they planned to further tap Messenger as a platform of its own.

The new web address for the Messenger is pretty simple to remember, Messenger.com. When users access this page they will log in with their Facebook credentials and then have access to a list of conversations. Breaking it out this way allows you to message and stay in touch with the people you need, without having distractions of event notifications and various timeline posts.

Facebook does not have any plans at the current time to remove the messaging capabilities from the main site as they did on mobile. With the focus that Facebook has been putting on Messenger as a platform, the move of this to its own domain is not a huge surprise.

Source: Messenger

Messenger, Facebook’s messaging platform, is now available as a standalone service on the web. In the past users had to use Facebook’s website to message their friends and family, but starting today they can do so without all the extra distractions.

Images and videos eating up all the storage on your iPhone, iPad, or Mac?

With iCloud Photo Library you never have to worry about running out of space again. Thanks to “optimized storage”, Apple can intelligently keep track of and manage your free space, ensuring your recent, favorite, and frequently accessed images and videos are immediately available on your device, while your older, less frequently accessed one are kept safely off your device and up on Apple’s servers, just a download away. It’s not magic, but if you’re tight on space, it’ll absolutely feel that way.

Best of all, “optimize storage” is really “set it and forget it”. Once you turn it on, you can turn off that part of your brain that worried about how many photos and videos you kept on your iPhone, iPad, or Mac. The part that constantly stressed you’d run out, or need to delete older content to make way for new.

From now on it’ll just work, so all you have to do is just shoot!

How to turn on optimize storage on your iPhone or iPad

For most people, most of the time, turning on “optimize storage” for iCloud Photo Library is an excellent way to both save space on your iPhone or iPad, and keep a backup of your images and videos on Apple’s servers.

Once that’s done, iCloud Photo Library will start managing the images and videos on your iPhone or iPad. To make sure you save space, it’ll move original, full-quality media to Apple’s servers and only keep screen-sized versions of recent, favorite, and frequently accessed photos, and thumbnails of older, seldom-accessed photos on your device.

1. Launch Settings from your Home screen.
2. Scroll down and tap on Photos.
3. Make sure iCloud Photo Library is toggled On.
4. Tap on Optimize iPhone/iPad Storage (you’ll see a check mark appear to its right).

How to turn on optimize storage on your Mac

If you only have one Mac and it has a ton of storage, you may not need to worry about “optimize storage”. If you have a MacBook you use for travel, or don’t have a lot of storage, you’ll also want to consider turning on “optimize storage” to save space and keep an online backup.

1. Launch Photos for OS X on your Mac
2. Go to the Photos > Preferences menu (or type Command + ,)
3. Click on the iCloud tab
4. Click on Optimize Mac Storage