mw.overflow

Q: external drive for backups, internal for day-to-day

I own a macbook pro with limited space SSD and no other mac.  I use iCloud to store my photos.  I want my own backup of all my photos, full resolution, but I don’t want them living on my SSD, where for space reasons I need to "optimize photos".  Can I have it both ways?  Really, my goal is to have a backup of my photos while having the advantages of using Photos on my laptop without an external drive.

 

My idea, as yet unimplemented, is to have two Photos System Libraries.  On my laptop it says "optimize photos".  On my external I specify that I keep originals.  Every now and then I connect up my external to sync up my photos.  If my iCloud Photo Library ever goes south, my external has all my photos, at least up until the latest backup.  Good enough.

 

Here's my specific potential solution.  I plan to copy my Photos System Library to a spacious external drive.  Then, I follow the instructions here https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204414 to designate the external drive library as my Photos System Library.  On this library, I specify to keep full originals.  In the future, I normally run Photos with the System Library pointing to my SSD.  However, now and then I quit Photos, connect the external, and restart Photos with the option key to tell it to use the Photos System Library on the external drive.  When the photos have been synced to the external, I quite Photos, restart with the option key, and specify the Photos System Library on my SSD.

 

Full backup of my photos with little pain, if it actually works.  I can see it might fail though if the button about keeping the originals is not tied to the specific library (no originals on SSD and originals on the external) but instead to the Photos app itself, in which case every time I flip libraries it will have the wrong settings.  Sadly, my experience with flipping between the settings is that if you specify “optimize”, go to “download originals” for five seconds, and change your mind and go back to the other setting, it still does a mountain of work, possibly redownloading the thumbnails or even the originals, which is obvious unacceptable.

 

So in all, I don’t know if my plan is practical.

 

Any advice on downloading originals to an external drive while being able to use Photos on an SSD would be appreciated.

Mac OS X (10.7.1)

Posted on Jul 30, 2015 4:41 PM

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Q: external drive for backups, internal for day-to-day

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  • by Ralph Landry1,Solvedanswer

    Ralph Landry1 Jul 30, 2015 4:50 PM in response to mw.overflow
    Level 8 (41,782 points)
    Jul 30, 2015 4:50 PM in response to mw.overflow

    That is very practical - all you do is create a second library specified to be on the external drive, and import all of the photos you want to live there into that library.  Did the very same thing on one of my daughter's MacBook Pros - an external drive maintains all of the photos and select photos are then retrieved into the internal drive library when needed.  Just take your time and be patient as you work through the process.

  • by mw.overflow,

    mw.overflow mw.overflow Sep 15, 2015 8:07 AM in response to Ralph Landry1
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Sep 15, 2015 8:07 AM in response to Ralph Landry1

    I tried this myself, and it didn't work for me.  I created the second library, but since an account is only allowed a single Photos System Library, when I created one it got confused about the other.  I couldn't flip back and forth without having to re-download all my photos each time.  Maybe I was doing it wrong.

     

    Anyway, I found a solution that works for me.  I created a second user on my laptop.  That second had was configured to have my same iCloud account, though with all the other iCloud stuff (mail, calendars, etc) turned off to save space.  That account has its Photos System Library configured to point at an external drive.  When the urge strikes me to update a backup of my photos, I log into that account, connect the external, fire up Photos, and the new photos are downloaded within in a few minutes.  I can even continue using my computer as normal during that time.  Works very nicely with fast user switching enabled.

     

    To me, this is the ideal solution.