Photo Library on Desktop too large no way to manage it through preferences

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Photo Library on Desktop too large no way to manage it through preferences

My photos library is 40gigs. It shouldn't be near that large considering its preferences options, which I have come to believe either don't work or are worded in such a way that they don't do what they imply.

In the Photos iCloud preferences, I have selected iCloud Photos > Optimize Mac Storage, yet the original files are still downloaded to my computer. The Photos library on both my iMac and the iCloud are the same size. I "show package contents" to confirm that the original files are on my computer's hard drive..

In General preferences I have selected "Copy items to the Photos Library" BECAUSE it says "Only items copied to the library will upload to iCloud Photos" This seems to be completely contradicting the Optimize Mac Storage setting.

So the questions is, what settings do I choose if I want the Master files in iCloud ONLY, and the smaller proxy/thumbnails on my computer?

My next option, and maybe the only actual way to make this work, is to copy my library to an external drive.

iMac Line (2012 and Later)

Posted on Dec 8, 2018 4:29 PM

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Answer 1

Best reply

léonie

Level 10

195,113 points

Dec 13, 2018 1:17 AM in response to newplasticmachine

So the questions is, what settings do I choose if I want the Master files in iCloud ONLY, and the smaller proxy/thumbnails on my computer?

This process is fully automatic. Photos will optimize the storage, when you need storage, but keep the originals stored locally, if you are having enough free storage.

If you are sure, that all originals have been uploaded to iCloud Photos, you can force the optimisation

Quit Photos, if it is running.
Make a copy of your Photos Library on an external drive. This is necessary to save your projects.
Delete the current Photos Library from your system drive.
Now launch Photos again, while holding down the options key ⌥. Select to create a new library on your system drive.
Enable the new library as your System Photo Library in Photos > Preferences >General. Enable it as your iCloud Photos Library.

This new library will start of with all originals only in iCloud.

@mark: I reported your duplicate for removal. Currently it is hard to avoid duplicate post, because we are frequently logged out while writing a reply.

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Answer 2

markwmsn

Level 6

15,023 points

Dec 12, 2018 10:24 PM in response to newplasticmachine

How much free space do you have on the volume that contains the System Photo Library? Photos are only optimized if space is tight; the actual algorithm and parameters are not documented.

The "Copy Items" setting only applies to photos you manually import into the Photos application on your Mac (perhaps from a separate digital camera or storage card). It has nothing to do with iCloud Photo Library's storage optimization setting.

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Answer 3

Dec 13, 2018 2:51 PM in response to léonie

Thank you!

Since my internal hard drive is an SSD, and I use DropBox... space is crucial.

I'd much prefer if Apple made their automatic processes a preference instead.

I do like to keep an eye on things.

But this worked perfectly, much appreciated.

-e

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Photo Library on Desktop too large no way to manage it through preferences

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