Photos to external drive

Hello! Here are the steps:

1. Attach your external hard drive to your Mac.
2. If you have not yet done so, format the drive. We suggest using the same filesystem format that you are using on your internal hard drive.
3. Open a Finder window and verify that your new storage device is correctly attached. You should see it listed under Locations in the Finder Window.
4. From the left panel in the Finder window, select Pictures. (If Pictures is not an option, go into Finder’s Preferences > Sidebar and check the box Pictures)
5. Right click on the Photos library icon and select Get Info. Verify that you have enough free space for the library on the external drive.
6. Drag and drop the Photos library icon onto the hard drive icon either in Finder or on your Desktop.
7. Wait for the copy to complete. The elapsed time will vary based on the size of your library.
8. When finished copying, hold down the option key ⌥ while launching the Photos app.
9. Click Other Library and navigate to the new location on the external device.
10. In the Photos app, click on Preferences > General and select ‘Use as System Photo Library’. This is mandatory if you use iCLoud with your Photo library.
11. Go to System Preferences > iCloud > Photos > Options. Select iCloud Photo Library to turn iCloud back on for your Photos.
12. Disconnect your external hard drive and verify that all of your photos are indeed in the Photo library on the device. Once you are certain that the process is completed, you can drag the Photo library on your Mac to the Trash.
13. If you want to immediately free up hard disk space, empty your Trash to permanently delete the photos.

Hope this helps!

Viona

As the question asked is

I want to copy photos from Photos from my Mac to an external hard drive.

Then the answer is to export them from Photos using the File -> Export command. From that dialogue you can make various choices about hat to export, in what format and the size, quality and naming permutations. The produces a new file in the trace location outside the Photos library.

Viona-101 has listed the steps for moving the library, not images from it.

Could this thread survive one more post? Everyone's right of course. And Viona-101's steps have absolutely amazing detail!

About using "File>Export" to produce copies of your pictures-- there are two kinds of "Export."

1. "File>Export>Export Unmodified Originals" makes files that are exactly the same as the files that were originally imported to Photos--no new edits, no added comments, no keywords-- no modification at all that may have been added either on the Mac or on the iPhone, if that's where they came from.
2. "File>Export>Export nn Photos" makes files of your edited pictures as you usually see them in Photos including the edits and comments you may have added. Since these are new files that haven't ever existed before, you can choose things like quality and names, etc, like Yer_Man suggested.

You have to decide which you want, Originals or Edits, or maybe both. If you want both copies, you'll have to do twice as many exports, and they will take up twice as much room, more or less.

The thing is, Photos is a non-destructive editor. That means that the original is never touched. When you edit a picture, Photos doesn't make new, edited picture files (except for small previews and thumbnails to speed up loading time.) Instead, Photos remembers the edits you did, and it creates the edited, commented picture on the fly when you want to look at it. So edited pictures don't take up any extra space.

This means that saving the Photos Library like Viona-101 suggested, saves everything in a smaller space. Exporting pictures either saves less information, or it uses lots more space. You have to decide which you want to do...

Hej, Viona-101 answer is correct, but there is also export function in Photos app, in File menu