Backing up photos onto external hard drive

Digital Chickster Said:

”Backing up photos onto external hard drive: Hi all! I'm trying to set up a system for backing up my photos. I have two external hard drives. One I use for time machine and back up my entire computer.[...]”

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Transfer this:

1. Go Here: Move your Photos Library to Save Space on your Mac
2. Scroll to: Move your Photos library to an external storage device
3. Proceed from there as necessary

Since you are not using the Photos app, where are your photos? I don't use Photos either - mine are in a folder named (what else?) Photos and it is in my Documents folder. There are also many subfolders within that folder. In any case, not using Photos liberates you from the Apple/Photos/Library/filing system; just having a folder allows you to simply drag + drop for a backup. There are two ways: one is to use something like CarbonCopyCloner (which makes bootable clones) and just exclude everything but Photos and can be set up with any schedule, or - the method I use because I don't have that many changes to that folder - i simply throw out/empty trash the entire folder on the external and then drag 'n drop the updated folder from the internal drive. There may be other methods, but these two are the simplest to keep up with.

If you use the method mentioned to move a Photos library, you will no longer have the photos on your internal - instead of backing up, you just moved them. And you have to pay attention to any updates or moves so they don't suddenly disappear.

Remember that you need to empty the trash while the external is plugged in or it will remain on the external.