Photos - organizing

What is the best method to organize these photos on my MacBook should I use Finder and set up a file structure there or should i use the Photo App on the MacBook ?

It depends on how you want to work. Do you like to organize the files that hold the images, or do you want to organize the images in the files.

If the former, use the Finder. If the latter, use Photos or some other photo organizing software package.

iCloud isn't a backup.

With Photos, you can store your photos in both iCloud and locally on your Mac. You can then keep the same library across all your Apple devices.

should I use Finder and set up a file structure there or should i use the Photo App on the MacBook ?

That is up to you - what do you want from a photo manager?

• The Finder is perfect, if you want to organise files. As long as your photos are for you just files, you can use the Finder to manage them. The Finder can show you the file attributes, format, size, creation date, etc.
• A Photo Library, as managed by Photos for Mac, will help you to organise photos and the relations between photos. For example, if you add adjustments to a photo, Photos will keep track of the edit versions and you can evert the adjustments individually. You can organise and search the photos by photo specific tags, create albums based on the camera model, the use if the flash, search for photos showing certain kinds of objects or scenes.

I like the photo centric organisation I can get by using the Photos.app. For me, a photo is more than just a file, and so a file manager would not suffice for my needs, and I like easy access to related photos and need a photo database. - a relational database modelling the relations between my photos.

Yes, the Finder and Photos.app are not connected in any way. Photos iorganising the photos in a package with related database files and folders with images. This structure is not human readable (at least no longer in Photos 5 on Catalina). Photos has a mode where you can keep the photos in the original location in the Finder, but it is not safe to use - a disaster waiting to happen, if you ever need to move the library to a new volume. I would not risk to use such a setup. What I am doing is storing my photos twice - as a Photos Library in Photos, and additionally the original image files on a separate volume. This way I an access the original image files quickly and have the added bonus of a separate backup of the original image files. We can never have too many backups.

it gives me peace of mind that all my photos are in one place etc.

They will be in Photos. They are all inside the .photoslibrary package. Ctrl-click on it and Show Package contents. The filing structure is not human readable, though.

You can use the files containing the photos from within Photos pretty much as you would a file in the Finder.

You can export, drag and drop, upload to a website, etc.

About the only thing you can't do is rename the files. You can Title the images, but that is just metadata relating to the photo, not the file wrapping the photo.

But, that's why I said if you like to manage files instead of images, use the Finder.

EXIF data can tell you which device took the photo.

Many of those fields are available when you do a SMART folder in the Finder.

When you do a smart folder, select the Kind popup menu, and change to other.

Then pick Device Model as an option to search by.

If Managed correctly

iCloud is a synchronization platform. It is not a backup. Imagining that it can be used as a backup is a recipe for a world of hurt.

If Managed correctly, iCloud has backup options, but you have to be careful if it is just leaving the content in the cloud, or making a copy on your local machine as well.

That said, it offers very limited space for free. 5 GB doesn't cut except for very small libraries.

OneDrive offers more free, and so does Google Docs. The most economic cloud backup option I have seen is Carbonite.