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import photos to macbookpro but not to devices

I had an older MacBook Pro die and it has all our vacation photos on it. They were not stored in ICloud. I have removed the hard drive and connected to my newer Mac. I want to import these photos onto my MacBook Pro but not have them imported to my iPhone or iPad. Is there a way in settings to ask to import photo or not import photo?

MacBook Pro 15″, macOS 12.7

Posted on Nov 20, 2023 9:02 AM

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4 replies

Nov 20, 2023 9:40 AM in response to Norman Duke

If you are syncing your Photos Library with iCloud, then everything in your System Library will be just the same on your iPhone or iPad.


But-- you can have more than one Library. If your vacation pictures were in a Photos Library on the old hard drive, you can just rename and copy that Library to your new hard drive. Libraries just have to have the right suffix, like Vacations.photoslibrary, for instance.


As long as "Use as System Photo Library" is not grayed out in Photos Settings, then this Library can't be connected to iCloud.


If you close Photos and then Option-Click on the Photos icon, it will show a list of all of your Libraries. If it doesn't see one because it's in an unexpected place, you can show it where that one is.


import photos to macbookpro but not to devices

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