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vihurricane Author

Level 1

5 points

Migrating photos from Google Photos to local NAS Storage and iCloud+

I am in the midst of migrating all of my photos from Google Photos to iCloud+. I've found a number of tutorial online explaining how to do this, and I have already used takeout.google.com to download all of my photos stored on Google photos to a zip file on my MacBook. Now, I want those photos to be stored on an external NAS drive, but also synced to the cloud.

I read online that the Photos app does support storing photos in a separate location from the Main Photos Library as referenced files. However, it's not possible to sync referenced files to iCloud. I don't want to keep the photos I downloaded from Google on my MacBook as the storage is limited.

Does anyone know a way to store the photos on the NAS drive, have them viewable in the Photos app, and still have them sync with to iCloud so I can view them on all of my devices?

Posted on May 21, 2022 8:25 AM

Top-ranking reply

léonie

Level 10

197,327 points

Posted on May 21, 2022 8:41 AM

To have your photos on a n external volume and sync to cloud, you would have to store the Photos Library on the external volume. But you as a Photos Library cannot be on a network volume, you have to use an external volume with a wired connection. See this support document: Move your Photos library to save space on your Mac - Apple Support

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Migrating photos from Google Photos to local NAS Storage and iCloud+

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