Browse photos in your library

The iPhoto library holds all the photos you’ve transferred from your digital camera or imported into iPhoto from other sources. Your photos are organized by date into Events, which makes browsing the library more efficient.

To browse photos by Event:

  1. Click Events to select it in the Source list, or click the Events button in full-screen view.

    The Events view shows the key photo for each Event.

  2. Do one of the following:

    • To quickly skim the photos in an Event, move your pointer over the Event. The photos in the Event appear in succession.

    • To open an Event, double-click it.

      To return to Events view, click the All Events button at the top of the main viewing window.

To see all your photos with or without Event groupings:

  1. Select Photos in the Source list.

    If you’re in full-screen view, click the All Albums button, and then double-click the Photos album (in the top-left corner of the view) to open it.

    Photos in this view are organized by Event groups, but you can choose whether to show the dividing lines between Events.

  2. To show dividing lines between Events, choose View > Event Titles. (If you are in full-screen view, move your pointer to the top of the screen to make the menu bar appear.)

    To hide the dividing lines, choose View and make sure Event Titles is not checked.

    Note:  If Event Titles is dimmed, your photos are set to be sorted manually. To change this, choose View > Sort Photos and choose a different sort option from that menu.

To change the display size of the photos:

  • Drag the zoom slider at the bottom of the iPhoto window.

To scan for specific photos by date:

  1. Select Events or Photos in the Source list.

  2. Use the scroll bar to move up and down through your Events or photos.

    To help you scan for specific photos, an overlay showing the date of those photos appears in the middle of the window.

    Image of Scroll Guide

    Note:  You may not see the overlay if you’ve set your Events or albums to be sorted manually. To check this, choose View > Sort Events (or View > Sort Photos). (If you are in full-screen view, move your pointer to the top of the screen to make the menu bar appear.) You can also change or hide the overlay.