Can I use iCloud photos to automatically download photos/videos from my Apple devices, into my macOS photo library, downloaded to store on the local HDD, and not worry about the free 5GB storage filling up? I want to utilize my Mac Pro 2TB Raid and NAS backup to store my photos and not the paid iCloud service.
iCloud will certainly sync your devices and download from your phone to your Mac, but it will use iCloud storage space. If you're not using Photos on the Mac as a library, you can still enable iCloud photos, download through photos, and then move/delete those photos from the Photos app which will then remove each from iCloud.
thank you, sounds like what i want can’t be done through iCloud then. What i plan to do now is use Synology to automatically backup my photos to the DS, create a cloud sync to my Mac Raid drive, then an Automator workflow to import those new photos/videos into Photos. It’s too bad apple can’t make this an option through iCloud, offloading cloud storage onto local drives, for people who actually have ample physical drive space!
iCloud photo automatic download to Mac library
