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User profile for user: steveofmaine
steveofmaine Author
User level: Level 1
29 points

Is there a way to force Photos to optimize?

Hi,

My situation is that I have full res photos in my system library and they're taking up more space than I anticipated. No problem I think, I just change the preference to keep optimized photos rather than the full res versions. Unfortunately, while I think they take up too much space, Apple apparently disagrees as it has not optimized anything. Is there any way I can force optimization to happen? I'm soon going to encounter a similar issue with iCloud-based documents, but I realize that'll be another thread for a different community. :)


Thanks for any thoughts/suggestions.


MacBook Pro 13", macOS 10.15

Posted on Jan 7, 2020 3:33 PM

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User profile for user: léonie
léonie
User level: Level 10
197,071 points

Posted on Jan 7, 2020 3:51 PM

iCloud will only optimize storage, if you are needing storage for other tasks. It will not needlessly remove downloaded photos and videos, to save you from having to download them again. So it will take a while. But you can get everything quickly optimized, if you are sure, that all photos and videos are already in iCloud.

  • Simply make a backup copy of your Photos Library on an external volume, just in case something should go wrong.
  • Then delete your Photos Library.photoslibrary from your Pictures folder.
  • Now create a new, empty Photos Library. (see: Create additional libraries)
  • Make this new library your System Photo Library in the Photos Preferences > General,
  • then make it the iCloud Photos Library in the Photos > Preferences > iCloud and enable Optimize Storage.

This new library will initially be very small.



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User profile for user: léonie
léonie
User level: Level 10
197,071 points

Jan 7, 2020 3:51 PM in response to steveofmaine

iCloud will only optimize storage, if you are needing storage for other tasks. It will not needlessly remove downloaded photos and videos, to save you from having to download them again. So it will take a while. But you can get everything quickly optimized, if you are sure, that all photos and videos are already in iCloud.

  • Simply make a backup copy of your Photos Library on an external volume, just in case something should go wrong.
  • Then delete your Photos Library.photoslibrary from your Pictures folder.
  • Now create a new, empty Photos Library. (see: Create additional libraries)
  • Make this new library your System Photo Library in the Photos Preferences > General,
  • then make it the iCloud Photos Library in the Photos > Preferences > iCloud and enable Optimize Storage.

This new library will initially be very small.



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User profile for user: léonie
léonie
User level: Level 10
197,071 points

Jan 8, 2020 5:17 AM in response to steveofmaine

You're welcome 😊


I would make a backup copy of your library, while it is still a full library. It is incredibly difficult to backup an optimised library. because the optimised originals will be missing from the backup. And iCloud is no help, if you ever need to recover an accidentally deleted phots or video, because it will have been deleted from iCloud as well.


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Is there a way to force Photos to optimize?

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