Not enough local storage - despite using iCloud Photos?

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Level 1

5 points

Not enough local storage - despite using iCloud Photos?

I've ran out of storage on my MacBook - this means iCloud has paused syncing and won't resume until I clear some storage. I've checked my storage, it's completely full, and 114GB is taken up by photos. However, in my head (which must be wrong!) this shouldn't be the case. I have iCloud Photos turned on, I have 'Optimise Mac Storage' turned on, and I have 2TB of iCloud Storage (with loads of room left on here).

All my photos should be stored in iCloud - I don't want or need any to be readily available / stored physically on my Mac.

How can I easily resume syncing?

MacBook Air 13″, macOS 14.4

Posted on May 1, 2024 3:01 AM

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Answer 1

mattytwxlls Author

Level 1

5 points

May 1, 2024 7:15 AM in response to Richard.Taylor

OK - a lot to reply to here! I understand iCloud Photos is a synchronisation service, it's my favourite thing about it - that I can pick up any of my Apple Devices and it shows any of my photos all up to date.

Since your last message, I've managed to clear a whole bunch of storage (40gb worth of podcasts - I had no idea they downloaded every single episode of certain channels... Stuff You Should Know has 500+ episodes, GAH!) - this has fixed my issue and iCloud is now syncing again.

I'm now faced with a different issue, that's related to the second half of your message re: External Drives. So, my original issue actually cropped up BECAUSE of my External Drive that I currently use - which is a 5TB one. I've got every photo I've ever taken since 2010 on here.. it's a lot of photos. My weekend task (that's still a task of now) was to get everything from this External Drive, into iCloud - this may make you squeamish but there's 2 reasons for this:

I pay for 2TB of iCloud Storage, I currently am using around 600GB of this so I want to get my money's worth!
I wanted to back my Photos up to iCloud incase my External Drive ever corrupted/lost/damaged
I wanted to be able to view any photo, from any vacation, life event, on any of my Apple Devices at any given time (included in this task was me making countless folders/albums and timestamping/naming each one etc).

My new issue is this:

I seemingly have put so many photos into iCloud - that the Photos App on my Mac is no longer syncing correctly with iCloud - it will say 'Synced with iCloud Just Now' - which suggests all photos/albums have been synced. This is incorrect - as what's showing on my Photos App on my Mac is different to what's on iCloud.com and my other Apple Devices (e.g. my iPhone).

The albums I've filled up on my Photos App on my Mac, are empty on iCloud.com

The new albums I've created on my Photos App on my Mac, do not exist on iCloud.com

This is despite the Photos App on my Mac claiming all syncing is done. Do you have any suggestions here? I almost need to force-sync my Photos App on my Mac with iCloud but I can't see how you can do this anywhere - it doesn't seem like many people have come across this issue either.

Yesterday, everything was synced up perfectly, but this morning I imported a bunch of photos/videos from my External Drive into Photos App for my Mac and created new albums etc - the imports are complete, and according to Photos, iCloud syncing is complete' - but again, this doesn't show on iCloud.com or any other Apple Device when I view my photos.

Thanks!

Matt

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Answer 2

May 1, 2024 6:33 AM in response to mattytwxlls

mattytwxlls wrote:

All my photos should be stored in iCloud - I don't want or need any to be readily available / stored physically on my Mac.

iCloud Photos is not a storage bin-- iCloud Photos is a synchronization service. This means that Photos will make sure that the pictures on your Macs, on your iPhone, and on your iPad will all be the same. Each of those devices has its own local Photos Library that has all your pictures in it.

"Optimize Storage" saves storage by keeping only smaller sized versions of the picture locally, and then calling on iCloud Photos for the full sized version when needed. This lets you reduce your local Library size to maybe 10-20% of the full size. So your 115 GB of local pictures may represent 600 to 1000 GB of full sized images. That's why you still have a big chunk of your 200 GB available on iCloud. Since Photos must download full images for editing and printing, then there must be room for that on your computer, as well.

Apple recommends that you keep at least 10% of your internal drive free to make way for system operations. Otherwise things slow down drastically, and some operations just get stuck, So you need to do a lot more than look at your Photos storage.

It looks like it's time to invest in an external drive. You can keep a lot of stuff on the external drive so that the Mac works faster and more efficiently. Unlike a phone or iPad, a Mac can have more than one Photos Library. Many of us keep a small Library with only our newest or most favorite pictures, and this is the one we keep on the internal drive and which we sync with iCloud. The rest of the pictures we keep in a Library (or libraries) that may be on an external drive. Since I often work on a MacAir, away from a desk, I carry a very small, very fast SSD with my computer. SSDs, while faster and requiring less power, are rather more expensive than mechanical drives. Of course, a mechanical drive will also be fine, though a large Photos Library may be more sluggish.

Do you use Time Machine to backup your computer, or do you use some other system? You can't keep a Photos Library (or anything else) on the same Volume with Time Machine, but you can have a disk partitioned for different volumes.

I hope this clears up some confusion. Let us know how it goes...

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