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User profile for user: biodieselchris
biodieselchris Author
User level: Level 1
4 points

Photos synched to iCloud but images remain on mac taking up memory

I have low memory on my Macbook (<3 GB out of 128 GB). I've run through the memory management task a number of times but I can't free up any more space except for Photos. I have a my Photos synced in iCloud (Photos -> Preferences -> iCloud Photos (checked) -> Optimize Mac Storage (radio button selected)). Instead of freeing up space, Photos is now downloading more from the cloud (13.8 GB is now over 20 GB). I've been in the forums and all over the internet trying to figure out why Photos is not doing what it's supposed to and moving all images to the cloud. I need forum help to get this to sync properly and maybe find the folder where all of these ghost images are and manually delete them? Kill Photos and reinstall? Reinstall the OS from scratch and re-sync my AppleID?


OS Mojave 10.14.5

iCloud storage enabled with 116 GB of 200 GB used (and it's $3 per month for this frustration)

MacBook Pro 13", macOS 10.14

Posted on Apr 5, 2020 8:47 AM

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User profile for user: markwmsn
markwmsn
User level: Level 6
15,035 points

Posted on Apr 5, 2020 10:22 PM

Before you enabled Optimize Mac Storage, was iCloud Photos enabled, or did you just turn both options on?


If you did not have iCloud Photos enabled previously, enabling it should have caused both an upload of any pictures not yet in the cloud and then a download of those pictures in the cloud but not on the Mac. The latter would come down optimized, but they would come down (given enough space). The pictures already on the Mac would be optimized over time as space was required.


If you did already have iCloud Photos enabled, there should not have been a rush of new photos to download had there been enough storage. However, as your Mac storage was already essentially full, that may have been preventing downloads, and the optimization of existing photos may have been freeing storage just to have it filled immediately by photos awaiting download.


If you are certain that all of your photos and videos are in the cloud, you could consider deleting the entire library and creating a new empty one. The cloud library should populate the new disk library with optimized copies of the contents in the cloud.

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User profile for user: markwmsn
markwmsn
User level: Level 6
15,035 points

Apr 5, 2020 10:22 PM in response to biodieselchris

Before you enabled Optimize Mac Storage, was iCloud Photos enabled, or did you just turn both options on?


If you did not have iCloud Photos enabled previously, enabling it should have caused both an upload of any pictures not yet in the cloud and then a download of those pictures in the cloud but not on the Mac. The latter would come down optimized, but they would come down (given enough space). The pictures already on the Mac would be optimized over time as space was required.


If you did already have iCloud Photos enabled, there should not have been a rush of new photos to download had there been enough storage. However, as your Mac storage was already essentially full, that may have been preventing downloads, and the optimization of existing photos may have been freeing storage just to have it filled immediately by photos awaiting download.


If you are certain that all of your photos and videos are in the cloud, you could consider deleting the entire library and creating a new empty one. The cloud library should populate the new disk library with optimized copies of the contents in the cloud.

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Photos synched to iCloud but images remain on mac taking up memory

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