How to exclude iPhone Photo Library from local backup to MacBook?

Short story:

Any way to exclude photo library on iPhone from local backups?

While they are synced with iCloud Photos there's just no need to duplicate the back up! All photos are already in the cloud!

They just consume local space at local backup location @ my MacBook!


Long story:

Connecting iPhone to iCloud Photos flooded my Phone free space with pics from cloud library. And I can't make a local back up anymore! MacBook 256GB i was making local backups onto now says "Not enough freespace".


The thing is that my iCloud Photo library is about 800GB (while iPhone and MacBook have 256GB and that's more than enough.

And - yes - "Optimized iPhone storage IS turned on. And even "smaller, deviced-sized" pics flooded memory of my iPhone almost to the cap.


So. GUYS, ANY WAY TO EXCLUDE IPHONE PHOTO LOCAL CONTENT FROM LOCAL BACKUPS?

There's just no need in it! It's already backed up to Photos iCloud! While on the other hand I can't make local backups to my 256GB MacBook anymore due to the lack of space.



iPhone 14 Pro

Posted on Sep 9, 2023 10:05 AM

Reply
4 replies

Sep 10, 2023 10:07 AM in response to Alejandro_64

This should be automatic. The iCloud backup of your iPhone does not include any items that are in Cloud Photos. It is even hard to get a backup of your iCloud items.

And the local backup of your iPhone on a computer will only include the items that have currently been downloaded to your iPhone, not the optimized versions of your photos.


You wrote "Optimize iPhone Storage is turned on". But you did not mention the similar setting on your Mac. Is "Optimize Mac Storage" enabled on your Mac as well?


Is it necessary to have such a huge iCloud Photos Library? I would not let the library grow so large, that even the optimized version of the library is too large for your devices. even fully optimized the iCloud Photos Library will need a lot of local storage on your devices, depending on the format of the image files and videos roughly 10% to 20% of the size in iCloud.


Sep 10, 2023 5:55 PM in response to léonie

Yep! That's exactly the problem - the local backup to my 256GB MacBook fails with "Not enough free space" since Photos iCloud flooded my iPhone with pics from Photos iCloud almost up to the cap.


Whether optimized or not - pics shouldn't be included onto local backup. They are already backed up to iCloud Photos - why should they? While they ARE.


So. ANY WAY TO EXCLUDE LOCAL IPHONE PIC FROM LOCAL BACKUP?


And yes, "Optimize Mac Storage" on MacBook is also turned on. And it has about 70GB free out of 200+ in total while iPhone free space flooded almost to the cap. Out of logic of "Optimized Mac Storage" shouldn't it clean up more space by the expence of Photos library when it needs more for iPhone backup?



And yes - it IS necessary to have iCloud Photos library that large. I wouldn't bother myself with wasting time to clean up photo library while I can just pay a little more for an extra space in iCloud - it's just not worth it. I didn't have any problem while I didn't turn ON the iCloud Photos on my iPhone device after Apple discontinued Photostream.


It's not so large after all in comparison with other people of my profession.

Sep 22, 2023 3:49 AM in response to Alejandro_64

UPD: incorrect iCloud Photos work ruined my iPhone software and iMac backup also:


iPhone one moment just started to display a rolling sun (or a daisy - i dont know ho to describe this) and after hard reset was stuck at the display of apple.


Trying to recover from the backup - even after full erase! - tells that "There's not enough free space to recover this iPhone from that backup". The very same iPhone the backup was made from!

How to exclude iPhone Photo Library from local backup to MacBook?

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