I am unable to access my photo library to add photos in Story Maps.

[KathrynBuckley]

I can only add a photo if I have copied to desktop first.  My iPhoto library is not accessible.  I read that, in the older version of Story Maps, the privilege level was an issue, but I am an administrator, so I don't think that is an issue.  Also, I cleared my cache and cookies and upgraded to Catalina from Yosemite (so I skipped a few OSs) in order to try to fix this issue.

I included two screenshots.  The first shows the inaccessible photo files.  Here the setting is "Custom" files format.

The second screenshot shows that the files appear accessible once I switch over to "All File" format.  However, when I click on a photo library, the window closes and I am back to square one in the Story Map.

[OwenGeo]

Hi Kathryn -- The Photo Library on a Mac is a proprietary format used by the Photos app on MacOS, and web apps are not able to browse its contents. However, if you open the Photos app and drag any photos you want to use to the Desktop, I believe this exports them as standard file types like JPG, and you'll be able to browse those image files and add them to your story map.

[KathrynBuckley]

Hi Owen, 

Thanks for your speedy response.  However, I just went on my husband's Mac, and was able to access the Mac Photo Library from Story Maps without issue.  If it was a proprietary issue, wouldn't I experience the same problem on his computer?  Also, I got some feedback from a friend of a friend who is at ESRI who uses a Mac and also has not issues accessing photo library.

For the time being, I will continue to drag photos onto desktop, but there has got to be a glitch somewhere on my Mac, but I can't figure out what it is.  I thought downloading Catalina would help, but that has just messed up all my Microsoft files.

Please keep me updated if you have any other information that might help.  Thanks again!  I appreciate your assistance!

[OwenGeo]

Kathryn -- thanks for the follow-up. I'm not able to browse the Photo Library on my Mac from the story map builder, but I guess I learned something new today that it might be possible under some conditions. I'm running Mojave (10.14.6). Maybe it's an account permissions thing? 

Anyway, I'm glad (we both) have a workaround for now).

[KathrynBuckley]

I am going to keep investigating.  My husband is running Mojave 10.14.6 as well on his Mac, and the photo library is accessible, so it is not the OS, especially now that I have turbocharged my laptop with Catalina.  I also don't think it is a permissions thing, as I can access photos from his Mac on both my public and organization account, but not mine.  It must be a random Mac glitch.