Hi, this is Gary with MacMost.com. Let me
explain how Smart Folders and Smart Albums work on your Mac.
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So I often get questions about Smart Folders in the Finder and Smart Albums in the Photos and
Music apps. Often people have a misunderstanding of exactly what these Smart Folders and Albums are
about. So, for instance, here in the Finder I'm just looking at my files here in the Documents
folder. I just see the files where they are at. Here are the folders in the Documents
folder. Here are files inside of folders in the Documents folder. This is where this
file is located. It's located in the Documents Folder in the Business Folder. That's the file.
But what if I were to create a Smart Folder. I go to File, then new Smart Folder, and then
with the Smart Folder you give it some criteria and then it will form a search and show you the
results. So I'm going to add something here and I'm going to say let's have the last modified
date within the last 7 days. It will give me a variety of files where that statement is true. I
can continue to add more here and modify this and create a complex set of criteria for this Smart
Folder. When I'm done I can click Save here and I can save the Smart Folder wherever I want. I could
add it to the special Saved Searches folder which technically tucks it out of the way and then you
have it in the Sidebar or I can put it somewhere else, like for instance I'lll just have it on the
Desktop here. I'll just call it New Smart Folder. Save and there's my new Smart Folder. When I
double click on it to open it it's going to show me all of the files that have been modified in the
last 7 days. So it may look different on different days because things will get older, new files will
be modified, and so on. But it's always going to show me the files that fit that description.
But, are the files actually in here. Like, for instance, is the Photo1.jpeg actually
in New Smart Folder. The answer is No. It's not in here at all. Where is it? Well, it's
in iCloud Drive.documents.images. In other words if I go to my Documents folder, look in Images,
that's where the file actually is. It isn't in the Smart Folder at all. The Smart Folder is
just showing me search results. Search results that are updated every time I look in there.
Here's another way to look at it. You can see here a list of all your files. You can
see they're arranged in folders and subfolders. So I have files 1, 2, 3, 4 and 8, 12, 13 all in
the Documents Folder. But I also have a folder in there called Folder A and there are 3 files
in that. There's another folder in there called Folder B and there are 3 files in that. This is
the actual location of all these files. Now if I were to create a Smart Folder and say the criteria
for that Smart Folder was Files Modified in the Last 7 Days, I might get this as a result. File 1,
4, 7, 12. That's because its those files that fit that definition. But the files aren't actually in
that Folder called My Smart Folder. They are not there at all. This is just showing me a list and
what I see there really can be defined as links to the actual files in their actual location. So none
of those four files are actually in that Smart Folder. They're in their actual folder in the
Documents Folder right where they were before you created the Smart Folder. The Smart Folder doesn't
move anything around. If you remove the Smart Folder, delete it completely, it doesn't change
these files at all. They are still there in their original locations where they have always been.
So it is not correct to say anything is IN a Smart Folder. To make it clearer
you may want to think of it as a files appears in a Smart Folder.
Another thing I'm often asked is how can I remove a file from a Smart Folder. So say you want to
remove file 4 from a Smart Folder here. Well, you can't because file 4 fits the definition
of that Smart Folder. It's been modified in the last 7 days. The only way it is going to
be gone from that Smart Folder is if you delete it entirely from your drive so it is just not a
file there anymore or it's last modified date becomes older than 7 days. Then it won't fit
that definition anymore. If you wanted to see File 1,7,12 together in a Smart Folder and not
4 then technically what you're looking for is a Smart Folder that says Give Me Files Modified
in the Last 7 Days but not named File 4 or some other thing that defines File 4. The fact that
file 4 has been modified in the last 7 days is just a fact about it and all Smart Folders
are doing is giving you a list of files that have certain facts that are true about them.
Now let's look at the Photos App. In the Photos App you have a library of photos. This is actually
a flat structure. All of your photos are just in the library. There are no folders inside of a
library. They are all just there at the top level starting with the earliest photo you've taken and
ending with the most recent one you've taken. It is just one big list of photos. Now before
we start talking about Smart Albums, let's talk about regular albums because photos and music
don't actually have folders. At least not these kinds of folders. In Photos you have something
called Albums. Albums are a lot like Smart Albums except you manually pick every photo or song that
goes in them. So you can create an album called My Album, for instance, and manually put photos 1,
4, 6, 8 in that album. Now just like Smart Albums those items aren't actually in that
album. The album is just like a list of links that actually refers to the different photos.
Now, of course, in the Music App these aren't called albums. Albums refer to the old term of
a record album. But in the Music App they are called Playlists. You can create Playlists in
the Music App just like you can create albums in the Photos App. Now you can have more than one
album or playlist. So here I've got Album A and Album B. In Album A I have 4 photos and in Album
B I have 3 photos. Just to drive home the point that the photos aren't actually in these albums,
they're just links to them, I can have one photo, Photo 8 that appears in both Album A and Album B.
This is impossible with, say, folders in the Finder. A file is in only one folder. It only
has one location. The same thing with Photos. It only has one location. That's in the big list of
Photos in the Photos Library. But an album in Photos can link to different photos and you can
link to the same photo from different albums. So in this case maybe Album A is my trip to Hawaii.
In Album B is pictures of sunsets. Photo 8 happens to be a picture of a sunset that I took during my
trip to Hawaii. So I placed it in both albums. But photo 8 is in neither Album A or Album B.
It just appears there. Photo 8 is really in the Photo Library. In just that one place.
Now, of course, in Photos you can have albums and in Music you can have playlists. But you
could also have Smart Albums and Smart Playlists in those places. In this case those work just like
Smart Folders. So here I've got a Smart Album and it is defined as the photo is a panorama. So that
applies to photo 10, 11, 14. So I've got my album that I've created where I've manually added Photo
1, 4, 6, 8 to it. I can take one of those out. I can add another one in. I can manually add and
remove photos directly from my album. But the Smart Album, that's a definition. The photo has
to be a panorama and the definition fits three photos. The only way I can add another one to
that Smart Album is if I took another photo that happens to be a panorama. The only way I
can remove one is to delete it entirely from the library. Because as long as it is in the
library and it is a panorama it's going to fit the definition of that Smart Album and appear there.
Now there is a fourth place that we're going to find Smart things. That's in the Mail App.
You have Smart Mailboxes there. Smart Mailboxes work just like Smart Folders and Smart Albums.
You define something about mail messages. Like they are from a certain person for instance.
Then they would automatically appear in the Smart Mailbox. But nothing is actually in it.
It just links to the location of that item. Regular mailboxes work differently depending
upon the service you use though. For instance gmail has the scheme known as Labels. Each
message can have one or more labels applies to it. So you can actually have one message
in gmail that has two labels and in the Mac Mail App it appears in two mailboxes,
because mailboxes really are labels. But if you're using, say, iCloud or maybe a
corporate email service then mailboxes are actual locations and a message can only be in
one mailbox at a time. But Smart Mailboxes work the same regardless. Just finding messages that
fit certain criteria and putting them in there. You can't remove messages from a Smart Mailbox
because it is just a definition. If that message fits the definition it's going to be shown there.
So before you had trouble with the concept of Smart Folders, Smart Albums,
and Smart Mailboxes. I hope this clears things up for you. Thanks for watching.