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Please help with photo library on external drive that I want to view on iPadPro

I have recently purchased the new iPadPro and want to access my photo library 60K+ photos are saved on an external hard drive but I don't want to save them to icloud. How can I open & view my photo library on my new iPadPro that I previously accessed on iMac and MacBook Pro via the external hard drive?

iPad Pro 11-inch Wi-Fi, Cellular

Posted on Jul 24, 2020 8:49 PM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Jul 24, 2020 8:59 PM

Hi Chubba70,


They should show up in the Files app.

You might need an separate adapter to connect your hard drive to an external drive.


More info about connecting external devices to iPad here - https://support.apple.com/guide/ipad/connect-external-devices-or-servers-ipad1c415e32/ipados


Good Luck!

2 replies

Jul 25, 2020 9:34 PM in response to Chubba70

The version of Photos that runs on an iPad cannot understand a library created on the Mac version of Photos, as far as I have heard. The only tool that Apple provides to sync the photos, videos, metadata, and album/album structure is iCloud Photos, which you say you don't want to use.


The iPad could view the photos and videos via the Files app if you stored them on the external drive as separate files in a Finder-level folder structure.

Please help with photo library on external drive that I want to view on iPadPro

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