When Apple replaced iPhoto with the new Photos app in OS X Yosemite, we lost the ability to shuffle (randomize) the slide order. This was a big loss for those of us who have to quickly create slideshows from a large number of photos for a party or school event. Often we’ll have several photos of the same subject taken about the same time. If you play back the photos in the order they were shot, parts of the slideshow seem repetitive. By shuffling the order of the photos, you can make the slideshow more interesting without spending time sifting through the whole album to find the best ones.
Hopefully Apple will reintroduce that feature back into the Photos app sometime soon. Until then, here’s a quick way to randomly play back a collection of photos in your Photos library.
Use the screen saver
If you don’t have iPhoto installed on your Mac, the only way to shuffle the photos in a slideshow is to use the built-in screen saver. It’s not as full-featured as iPhoto as you lose the ability to control the slide time, transitions, titles and so on. However, if you need that kind of control in creating your slideshow, you can use iMovie instead.
Click the System Preferences icon on your dock,
or select it from the Apple menu.
Click on the Desktop & Screen Saver preferences.
Select the Screen Saver tab and then choose from one of the photo-related screen savers like “Ken Burns” or “Classic.”
Use the Source menu to choose a set of images in Photos (e.g. an album, moment, place).
If you don’t see “Photo Library…” at the bottom of the Source menu, you need change your Photos preferences to use the Photos library as the system photo library. To do this, launch the Photos app.
Then go to the Photos menu and select Preferences.
Make sure that you’re in the General tab, and click the “Use as System Photo Library” button. Afterwards, the button should become greyed out.
Go back to the Screen Saver preferences and click on the Source menu. At the bottom of the menu you should see the “Photo Library…” item. Click on it.
Now you will see all the collections from your Photos library. Select a collection and click the Choose button.
The last step is to check the “Shuffle slide order” box.
To start the slideshow right away, click the preview image.
Background music
The screen saver slideshow doesn’t have any options to play music, but you can make up for that by with iTunes. Before starting the screen saver, launch iTunes and start playing one of your playlists.
Limitations
This method isn’t perfect––the screen saver doesn’t give you much control. You can’t change slide duration and transition types. Nor can you fit the slideshow to the length of a song or playlist.
For quickly creating a random slideshow, though, this is the easiest (and cheapest) option available.
If you have any other tips and tricks, let us know in the comments.
I also have been very frustrated that Apple took out this feature on Photos. Some things Apple does brilliantly.
Others, not so much.
Hopefully they will fix this on the next update.
Agreed. Perhaps Apple is assuming people new to Macs won’t miss what they’ve never had. I’m not holding my breath though. Many features still haven’t been added back into the new version of iWork. I still have to keep Pages 09 on my computer so I can use mail merge to create my school’s student ID cards.
Thanks for reading Kelly!
Firstly, thanks. This was helpful. However, still not working; under Photos/Prefs/General my photo library shows up (Photo’s Master Library) but the “Use As System Photo Library” button is greyed out already. Does this mean it IS my system photo library? It should be. Although I did have to get some Applecare support to help me with how it was set up after moving to Photos from iPhoto (I had my photos so I could share the drive to enable me to back it up/move the library onto another macbook). But I think it’s standard now. Anyway, when I go to the screensaver section in Prefs under Choose Folder I do NOT see “Photo Library”. I can click on the menu and select a folder but I don’t have any folder with any proper collection of photo’s… it’s all compiled in the Photo Library. Any assistance gratefully received.
BTW, this might help with your “Mail Merge” – I did ask about printing contacts and labels when in the store once… they said go to “Print from contacts”, Show details ,Set labels, use image, Print to pdf (I tested it at the time and it made sense/worked but these are my notes so hope that helps!)./
Hi Graham. Yes, since the “Use As System Photo Library” button is greyed out, it should now be your system library. Since migrating your iPhoto library into Photos, have you imported any new images into the Photos app yet? If not, try it.
I tested a fresh user account, and I also couldn’t see the “Photo Library” option under Choose Folder. After I dragged a new image into photos, I was able to see the “Photo Library” option. In fact, when I deleted the photo so that the Photos library was empty, the ability to select the “Photo Library” option also disappeared.
Also, after you set the “Use as System Photo Library,” quit Photos and System Preferences. Restarting System Preferences makes sure the Screen Saver prefs recheck the status of the System Photo Library.
Hope this helps!
Terrific how-to guide. Thanks a lot!
Sure thing, Immo. Glad it helped!
I’ve made a small Mac utility that lets you randomize slideshows in Photos.app.
Not quite ready to release yet, but I’d love to have a few people test test.
Find out more here, https://www.electrollama.net/blog/2016/12/14/randomizing-slide-show-order-in-macos-photosapp
Thanks Devin. I’d love to help test it. I’ll email you.
My app that randomizes Photos slideshows is ready to go, you can get it here:
https://electrollama.net/photos-slideshow-randomizer
The app works great, thank you!