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annmarie253 Author

Level 1

12 points

I have my photos on my MacBook Air optimized for iCloud photos but its taking up over 150gb on my harddrive

How can I save more space on my hard drive when I already have it optimized?

MacBook Air (2020 or later)

Posted on May 27, 2022 8:06 PM

Top-ranking reply

léonie

Level 10

197,279 points

Posted on May 28, 2022 1:10 AM

Even an optimised library may take up at least ten percent of the original size of the library, as as Photos needs to store at least the optimised versions plus some databases, the shared albums, the faces etc.

And Photos will only optimise some of the photos, whenever you need additional free storage. You can force Photos to optimise the library fully by downloading a fresh copy from iCloud by starting over with an empty library. Initially it will be fully optimised. See: How to force Photos for Mac to Optimise the Storage Immediately

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I have my photos on my MacBook Air optimized for iCloud photos but its taking up over 150gb on my harddrive

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