Hi, My Photos are on iCloud but it seems they are also stored on my iMac which is taking up a lot of my hard drive space. Is there away to have the photos centrally link to iCloud so thats the main storage centre? I'm dont want to delete all my photos from my iMac and lose everything...please help
Hi
You have two options.
1 (easiest). Turn on "Optimise Mac Storage" in iCloud settings. This will mean the mac only stores small previews locally and full size images in the cloud. It will dramatically reduce the space used by your library.
There are two provisos with this - The first is that it won't immediately remove full size images from your mac - it will only do that when it thinks you are running out of space. There is a way to force it to remove the local copies, I'll try to come back on that.
Backups become a problem, since the full size images are not stored on your mac you can't copy the library to a backup drive, and time machine cannot back them up. So if you go this way, you really need to set up an additional user account also synced to iCloud but with the library on an external disk - and fully syncing (not optimising storage). Then you have an additional local copy of the full library which can now be backed up. (you would need to periodically log into that account, and allow it to sync with iCloud) (See also option 2)
2 - Your other option is to completely move the library to external storage with the disadvantage that you must have the external storage connected whenever you want to use photos.
To correctly prepare the external drive:
It must be formatted APFS or MacOS extended (journaled) (preferred for spinning drives)
It Must not be (or have been) used for time machine.
It must have the 'ignore ownership" checkbox ticked.
It should not be on a memory stick, SD or similar.
It must also not be a network drive (a direct connection is required - eg USB or Thunderbolt).
File sharing services such as iCloud Drive, Drop box, Onedrive etc are not compatible with Photos libraries.
It stands to reason that if you want any sort of reasonable performance it should be a fast drive with a fast connection.
It must also not be a network drive (a direct connection is required - eg USB or Thunderbolt). File sharing services such as iCloud Drive, Drop box, Onedrive etc are not compatible with Photos libraries.
See
Hi
You have two options.
1 (easiest). Turn on "Optimise Mac Storage" in iCloud settings. This will mean the mac only stores small previews locally and full size images in the cloud. It will dramatically reduce the space used by your library.
There are two provisos with this - The first is that it won't immediately remove full size images from your mac - it will only do that when it thinks you are running out of space. There is a way to force it to remove the local copies, I'll try to come back on that.
Backups become a problem, since the full size images are not stored on your mac you can't copy the library to a backup drive, and time machine cannot back them up. So if you go this way, you really need to set up an additional user account also synced to iCloud but with the library on an external disk - and fully syncing (not optimising storage). Then you have an additional local copy of the full library which can now be backed up. (you would need to periodically log into that account, and allow it to sync with iCloud) (See also option 2)
2 - Your other option is to completely move the library to external storage with the disadvantage that you must have the external storage connected whenever you want to use photos.
To correctly prepare the external drive:
It must be formatted APFS or MacOS extended (journaled) (preferred for spinning drives)
It Must not be (or have been) used for time machine.
It must have the 'ignore ownership" checkbox ticked.
It should not be on a memory stick, SD or similar.
It must also not be a network drive (a direct connection is required - eg USB or Thunderbolt).
File sharing services such as iCloud Drive, Drop box, Onedrive etc are not compatible with Photos libraries.
It stands to reason that if you want any sort of reasonable performance it should be a fast drive with a fast connection.
It must also not be a network drive (a direct connection is required - eg USB or Thunderbolt). File sharing services such as iCloud Drive, Drop box, Onedrive etc are not compatible with Photos libraries.
See
OK - here is the user tip on how to immediately get an optimised library...
There is an alternative approach of having two libraries. One on your system synced with iCloud and an archive on an external disk:
Here is what I do.
I run two libraries. I pay for 200GB of iCloud, and have a "main" library holding all my recents, that is synced with iCloud and resides on my system drive. All these photos are available on all my devices. Currently I have a year of photographs there, taking up about 1/4 of my iCloud space.
I also have an archive library which holds everything older. It is on a separate drive (correctly formatted and prepared - see link below). I use powerphotos to periodically copy photos from my main library to my archive library.
I am very very rigorous about backups. Both libraries are backed up to time machine. In addition both libraries are regularly copied to a second external drive. Finally I periodically export all original images (so that I have the actual image files separately from the photos library) and copy those to a network drive backup. I have a copy of these stored away from home also (mitigate risk of fire/theft).
Photos - iMac - Storage...HELP!
