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If you need a way to display a group of photos in a movie-like presentation, Apple’s Photos app can do this trick for you. Here’s how.

Apple’s Photos app on a Mac contains the powerful functionality to organize your pictures into collections and then display them as “Memory Movies,” complete with photo zooms and transitions. The app does this on its own to generate unexpected and often delightful photo-montage movies from your photo archive.

But you can also put the Photos app to work to create a Memory Movie using your own (human-directed) collection of pictures.

It’s simple to do, and with a couple of clicks, you can also add music and a title graphic.

How to Make a Memory Movie
The trick to quickly creating a Memory Movie is choosing one of your existing albums of photos. But it’s also not hard to create a new album for this use. The bottom line is the album feeds your movie structure.

Once you’re in your album, you’ll see the option on top to click on “Show as Memory” or “Slideshow.” (The difference is Slideshow doesn’t contain the photo moves and zooms.)

On the next page that appears, you’ll see your Movie Memory ready to start.
Click the play icon.

That’s it!

To adjust your music choices, click on the tools icon on the right side of the playback controls.

Fast and Good Enough
Once you understand the easy steps to creating a Memory Movie, you can pull one together in minutes by using one of your existing albums.

It’s a much faster process than importing your photos into a video editing program and then manually setting up all of the photo transitions before exporting your video file.

Sure, a manually-edited version would be more creatively precise. (AI-directed photo moves and transitions can sometimes be a bit off balance.) But I’d say for most uses, letting your computer do the work is just fine.

A Memory Movie is also an especially simple way to quickly pull together and share a collection of photos for a Zoom meeting.

A couple caveats: You can’t create a Memory Movie using a shared album. It needs to be one that lives locally on your Mac. And you can’t actually export your Memory Movie into a separate file. The movie experience is generated and remains within the Photos app.

Display your Memories
There are any number of ways to display digital photos these days. But if you’re already using the Photos app for your photo management, this quick and easy presentation trick is a no-brainer.