How to use iCloud Photos for syncing... without swamping iCloud storage?

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How to use iCloud Photos for syncing... without swamping iCloud storage?

Hi,

I'm struggling to figure out the right way to use iPhoto/iCloud Photos to solve my problem and would appreciate any advice from anyone who has done/attempted something similar.

I have a moderately-large photo library in Lightroom Classic (~5TB) which works satisfactorily for editing and organization... except that I would like to be able to copy and view the best ~1% of my photos on my Apple devices (iOS & Vision Pro)... and Apple makes it very hard to sync photos to these devices unless they are stored in iCloud Photos. Has anyone found a way to do this that isn't a complete nightmare?

As a bonus challenge I've pretty extensively organized my LRC photos into folders, edited them, added geotags, tagged faces, added keywords, and added ratings. I'd like to copy over as much of this metadata as possible.

In a dream world I would love to have Photos import all LRC photos by reference (i.e., without making copies that would double my local storage needs), but (a) I don't think that's possible and (b) I think iCloud would insist on copying everything-or-nothing and I can't maintain 5TB of iCloud storage...

So I'm tentatively planning to do the following:

Create a custom "Smart Collection" in LRC that contains the 1% of photographs I want to have available on my devices.
Select that collection and "Export as Catalog".
Open that catalog and use a 3P tool to import into Apple Photos. (I had been eyeing "Avalanche." Does anyone have any advice/thoughts on that?)
Then every couple months I can either wipe Apple Photos and repeat, or selectively import new "top" photos in a similar way.
And if I occasionally take a snapshot on my iPhone that I want to store in LRC, I can plug my phone into my computer, import it, delete it from my iPhone (and therefore iCloud Photos) and then see #4 above.

Is this all crazy? Is there a better way? Any advice?

Thanks!

Mac Studio (2022)

Posted on Feb 12, 2024 4:10 PM

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Answer 1

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léonie

Level 10

200,753 points

Feb 12, 2024 8:12 PM in response to Mike G.

Photos supports a referenced library, but that is mutually exclusive with iCloud. iCloud Photos cannot handle referenced images, and the support for referenced images is very limited in Photos. I would not use it anyway

Why not create an additional local Photos Library on your Mac and import only the most important photos to this library? Then make this new Photos Library your system photos library and enable iCloud Photos for this library, also "Optimise Mac Storage", so not all photos will be stored in full resolution on your Mac.

See:

Create additional libraries

And:

Use iCloud Photos

When I started to use iCloud Photos, I left my Aperture, iPhoto, and Photos Libraries archived on my external drives and created a small library only for iCloud. There I am keeping only the photos that I want to be able to access on all devices - my absolute favorites plus the photos I am currently working with. all other photos and videos are archived in separate libraries and are only local. Keeping the iCloud Photos Library small has three advantages.

It is easier to find a photo on the iPhone, if only the important photos are there.
The library can be small enough to fit onto the device with the least storage, so I do not need to use "Optimize Storage" and can access my photos even without an internet connection.
It is easier to make a backup of the library when all items are stored locally and not only in iCloud. Without optimize storage we can use Time Machine to make regular backups.

Wenn you import photos to Photos, the metadata can be transferred by additional XPM sidecar files. Photos will also show metadata , that have been embedded in the IPTC and exif tags of a photo. Can you export your favorites from Lightroom with the metadata embedded in the exported versions? I cannot test this, as I do not have a Lightroom licence.

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How to use iCloud Photos for syncing... without swamping iCloud storage?

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