Syncing Photos with Photo Library on external hard drive

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keeema Author

Level 1

11 points

Syncing Photos with Photo Library on external hard drive

I read a post about possibility to have Mac Photo Library located on my external hard drive.

How can I connect such library from my iPhone and iPad (without using iCloud)?

iPhone XS

Posted on Oct 29, 2020 8:34 AM

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Answer 1

Best reply

léonie

Level 10

195,447 points

Oct 29, 2020 9:11 AM in response to keeema

Move the photos library on your Mac to an external volume as described here: Move your Photos library to save space on your Mac - Apple Support

Then you can still use the Mac to sync the photos from this library to the iPad or iPhone using iTunes (on older Systeme versions) or the Finder on macOS 10.15 Catalina.

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Answer 2

keeema Author

Level 1

11 points

Oct 29, 2020 9:22 AM in response to léonie

Thanks for the answer.

Yes, I thought about this way of syncing. This solution would probably work and it has one big disadvantage. It doesn't offer possibility of optimizing Photos. I will always have all photos from Library downloaded on every device in full resolution. Am I right?

And this is why I am looking for some way how to sync straight with the library on external drive as iCloud sync does.

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Answer 3

léonie

Level 10

195,447 points

Oct 29, 2020 11:33 AM in response to keeema

I will always have all photos from Library downloaded on every device in full resolution. Am I right?

When you sync manually with iTunes or the Finder you can select which albums you want to sync.

Only when syncing with iCloud Photos the complete library will be synced to your devices.

I prefer to use iCloud syncing. I moved all large Photos libraries to an external volume to archive my Photos, and then create a new library on my system volume, with only my favourite photos, that I want on all my devices.

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Answer 4

keeema Author

Level 1

11 points

Oct 29, 2020 12:37 PM in response to léonie

Understand. I also have full library on external hard drive and the selection in iCloud. My selection contains photos from many years so it is also quite huge.

So it is big advantage to have storage optimization provided by iCloud - I have all photos available in the device from cloud but they are downloaded on demand if there is no space.

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Syncing Photos with Photo Library on external hard drive

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