I have a MacBook Air 256GB
I have a WD My Passport external HDD - 6tb
I have 3tb of images in the iCloud.
I want to download the 3tb from the iCloud to the WD My Passport, but avoiding the MacBook Air, (due to the size).
I have formatted the HDD to APFS so that I can access edits of photos and live photos but also access the originals when needed.
How can I do this?
Many thanks.
It looks like by "iCloud" you are meaning iCloud Photos.
Then this is your best route:
Create a new Photos Library on the external drive. To do that, close Photos, Option click on the Photos icon, and choose Create.
Then make the new external Library your System Library using Photos' Settings>General. (Make sure "Copy" is checked,)
Then connect to iCloud and "Keep Originals" at Photos' Settings>iCloud.
It may take weeks for 3 TB to transfer, but all the picture files will transfer automatically. Photos will avoid files that are incompatible.
Transfer works best when the MacAir is plugged in, kept on, and left alone-- typically at night is good. If you have to disconnect the external drive, I'd turn off iCloud first.
Then, once you have all the pictures on this Library, you can make a second copy (just ⌘D to duplicate-- quite fast) and then delete all the pictures you want on the System Library -- they will also delete at iCloud.com. Then you will have a small Library mirrored at iCloud, and a large Library as an archive.
Create a new Photos Library on the external drive. To do that, close Photos, Option click on the Photos icon, and choose Create.
Then make the new external Library your System Library using Photos' Settings>General. (Make sure "Copy" is checked,) Then connect to iCloud and "Keep Originals" at Photos' Settings>iCloud.
It may take weeks for 3 TB to transfer, but all the picture files will transfer automatically. Photos will avoid files that are incompatible.
I'm not sure what you're after, but if you want, you can make a second copy (just ⌘D to duplicate-- quite fast) and then delete all the pictures on the System Library -- they will all delete at iCloud.com. (Maybe you should have a 2nd backup!) Then you can transfer your favorite pictures from the duplicate to the System Library, and only those would transfer to iCloud. You can easily switch between Libraries on your Mac.
Let us know what you need…
Thank you for the detailed response. I do a lot of video/photo work, so have accumulated a lot of images in the cloud, some will have been edited. From time to time, I will need access to these, and would like to access the edited version with the option to revert (as they are in the cloud).
I am just looking to reduce the cloud storage and in essence have the cloud storage on the external hdd in a Mac compatible way as iPhotos is.
I'm not sure about the videos. Photos is great for short clips, but I don't use Photos for longish movie files.
Are your "3tb of images in the iCloud," in iCloud Photos, or do you have them in iCloud Drive? "In iCloud" can have multiple meanings. "In the cloud" has even more ambiguity.
3TB is large. For more easy handling, it might be better to divide your work up into some smaller Libraries. For instance, I have a Library for work pictures, one for old family pictures, one for my Nikon, and one from my favorites that I want to see and share more often.
Sorry Richard, to remove abiguity and to try and make clear my purpose.
At the moment I pay iCloud one fee, for up to 6TB storage, my phone contact includes up to 2TB iCloud storage, So if I can keep iCloud under 2tb, and change my mobile phone contract I will make a considerable saving each month.
Therefore, I would like to remove the oldest images from iCloud , which I no longer need on a regular basis and store them on the external HDD, reducing my overall iCloud storage. I bought the WD My passport because I understand when formatted to Apple, the external HDD, behaves in the same way as iPhotos/ iCloud (where you may have saved an imaged cropped, but can retrieve the original when you go into edit it again.
The problem I have is that my MacBook is only 256GB, to download the images in the correct format, I need to download them to iPhotos and then move them across. As we know MacBook storage is never really 256, and available space is around 80GB, so this would be a painfully slow process.
I am looking for an alternative work around, if you can think of one. They are grouped in folders, which is my last alternative, where I export the drone images / videos and everything that is't a 'Live Photo' in its original format but would love to keep everything in the same order as I have it stored on the cloud.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Removal of images from iCloud to External HD.
