mac move photos library to external drive

MAC MOVE PHOTOS LIBRARY TO EXTERNAL DRIVE FULL
MAC MOVE PHOTOS LIBRARY TO EXTERNAL DRIVE PRO
MAC MOVE PHOTOS LIBRARY TO EXTERNAL DRIVE MAC
MAC MOVE PHOTOS LIBRARY TO EXTERNAL DRIVE WINDOWS

To prevent data loss, Apple doesn’t recommend storing photo libraries on external storage devices like SD cards and USB flash drives, or drives that are shared on a network. I was just quoting from an Apple support doc titled “Move your Photos library to save space on your Mac”, which seems to say that the external disc must be APFS or HFS+.įirst, the tech note in question doesn’t recommend a managed library on a NAS: I was just quoting from an Apple support doc titled “Move your Photos library to save space on your Mac”, which seems to say that the external disc must be APFS or HFS+. I don’t have a NAS, and this is getting over my head. The filesystem of the client is unrelated to the filesystem of the server. This has the same problem as iCloud… it’s not an offload, because the entire photo library still needs to be local, for it to be backed up. I totally agree, and I have no interest in “always access” to all my photos, which to me is the main promise of iCloud Photos. Nothing requires you to always have access to all your photos in the cloud at a moment’s notice

MAC MOVE PHOTOS LIBRARY TO EXTERNAL DRIVE MAC

For that, it needs to be on my Macbook, or a local an external/nas, or Mac Mini, from which it can be included it in backups via Time Machine, Backblaze/Arq, Carbon Copy Cloner).

MAC MOVE PHOTOS LIBRARY TO EXTERNAL DRIVE FULL

Hmm, I don’t see iCloud as viable “offloading” because I want the full library backed up properly (existing somewhere other than just iCloud).

Even that’s not ideal because it’s putting a lot of eggs in a single local drive basket (with Backblaze as the backstop)… but one thing at a timeĪpple’s answer of course is offloading your image storage to iCloud Photos.

MAC MOVE PHOTOS LIBRARY TO EXTERNAL DRIVE WINDOWS

Serve as a networked drive for my wife’s Windows laptop to backup toĪnd the Mac Mini could run Backblaze all the time, including the physical attached drive, without me having to remember to turn on my MBP, connect the external drive, sync new photos, run Backblaze, etc.

Serve as Time Machine backup for the Mac Mini.

Serve as a networked drive for my Time Machine backup from my MBP.

Part of the reason why I may still lean towards a Mac Mini with an external attached drive is because I think I could attach a large drive with different partitions that would simultaneously: Once I have all my originals downloaded somewhere, then I can have a Time Machine backup that includes those images and set up a Backblaze account that can duplicate those files remotely. Totally agreed - what I didn’t say in my original post is that my main goal with all of this is to be able to actually create a backup. It does give you the opportunity to back up the entire Photos library to a cloud service, another HD, etc. I’m not opposed to that option, but I’d ideally like to find a fairly robust way to backup my photos without needing to buy a whole new Mac…Īlso, synching your Photos library (downloading all originals to external HD) is not backing up. It’s clear to me that the easiest (and most expensive) approach would be to have a Mac mini or other desktop Mac, attach external storage to that Mac, and have the originals stored there.

If I only connect the laptop to the external drive every few weeks, is that going to create issues with syncing?.

As long as I don’t open the Photos app on the laptop when the drive isn’t connected, are there any issues with storing the Photo library on an external drive?.

Some people on the MPU Forums have said that iCloud Photo Library only works on a local drive, does that include an external drive physically attached to the computer?.

So the next idea was to attach an external drive to my laptop, move my photo library to an external drive, set that library to be the “System Library,” and turn on “Download Originals” to that drive.

My first idea was to get a Synology and move my photo library to the Synology, but Apple’s KB on the topic seems to discourage that idea. But there are some conflicting pieces of advice, so I wanted to follow up. I’ve read a lot of the other posts on the forums here (for example here).

MAC MOVE PHOTOS LIBRARY TO EXTERNAL DRIVE PRO

My MacBook Pro SSD is unfortunately too small to hold all my originals, and because it is a laptop it is neither always on nor always plugged in. Hi All - I’d love some advice on backing up my photo library that is currently on iCloud Photo Library.

Mac move photos library to external drive