Using existing external hard drive with new MacBook Air

Robert Chatfield wrote:

Here are the next round of questions:

I am going to use an external hard drive to use with Time Machine. What format should I use for the hard drive?

If you are using a modern version of macOS, APFS would be the preferred format – especially on a SSD but also probably on a mechanical hard drive. Time Machine makes extensive use of hard links on HFS+ backup volumes and snapshots on APFS backup volumes. Code to support HFS+ backup volumes still exists, but APFS is clearly Apple's choice going forwards.

(This is with respect to the Time Machine disk itself. Whether you format the Time Machine disk as APFS, or as HFS+, you should be able to back up both APFS and HFS+ volumes.)

Back up your Mac with Time Machine - Apple Support

Types of disks you can use with Time Machine on Mac - Apple Support

"APFS or APFS Encrypted disks are the preferred format for a Time Machine backup disk. If you select a new backup disk that’s not already formatted as an APFS disk, you get the option to erase and reformat it. If the disk is a Mac OS Extended format disk that contains an existing Time Machine backup, you aren’t asked to erase and reformat the disk."

Will Time Machine save the photos in the original size?

Yes – if the copies on your Mac have the original size.

I use iCloud Photos both on my iPhone and on my Mac. My iPhone is set to "Optimize iPhone Storage" and thus has permission to store low-resolution local copies. My Mac is set to always keep full-size copies so that when I back up the drive containing those local copies, I can be sure the backup contains full-size copies.

2. I would like to transfer the photos on my phone to the MacBook and then remove them from my phone. I know that in the past it always asked if you want to delete the photos from my phone after transferring. If I do so am I going to also delete the photos from the MacBook & iCloud? I am probably overthinking this.

When you synchronize photos through iCloud Photos, you synchronize deletions as well.

A request to delete a photo on any device connected to iCloud Photos is taken as a request to delete the photo from all of the devices synchronized through iCloud Photos, and from iCloud itself.

If your iPhone uses iCloud Photos and your Mac does not, and you delete a photo from your iPhone, then

• That photo will be deleted from your iPhone and from iCloud
• If a copy of it happens to exist on your Mac, it will not be deleted from your Mac (since in this scenario, your Mac isn't using iCloud Photos and therefore is not participating in the synchronization)

First, And how is your external drive formatted? To avoid damaging the Photos Library an external drive must be formatted in either APFS format or Mac OS Extended (Journaled) format.  There have been so many problems with using incompatible drives that the newest macOSs won't even allow a Library on a non-Mac formatted drive to open, since there is a chance of damaging the Photos database. See this:

Move your Photos library to save space on your Mac - Apple Support

If this drive is in a an incompatible format, stop running Photos with it immediately!  A Photos Library can sit on an incompatible drive, but running it may corrupt the database.

If the external drive is formatted properly, then Photos offers Albums for pictures and Folders for Albums. Pictures can be put in multiple albums to simultaneously match multiple organization schemes. Smart Albums allow pictures to be collected by their characteristics which might include titles, captions, keywords, faces, etc.

Question 2--OK?

Question 3--iCloud Photos is a synchronization service. When you engage iCloud Photos on a device, then the Library on that device is kept just the same as the iCloud Photos Library. So, for instance, if you take a picture with your iPhone, it is added to the iPhone's Photos Library, copied to iCloud Photos Library, and then copied to the Photos Library on each of the other devices that you have connected. If you delete a picture on your Mac, then that picture is deleted at iCloud and on all the other devices. 

iCloud Photos is not a backup service. Mistakes are copied immediately to iCloud. If you don't need synchronization, then you should probably use something different. I use iCloud for synchronization. For backups I use Time Machine and I periodically copy the Photos Library to a separate external drive.

For Time Machine, see this:

Back up your Mac with Time Machine - Apple Support

In setting up TM, it will ask if you want a drive formatted. You cannot have anything on a Time Machine volume except TM itself, so if you indicate a drive, it will erase everything there. You can partition a drive into different volumes if you like. This is most versatile in APFS.

What are you expecting from iCloud? You originally said "I do not want the photos to sync with my phone, iPad, etc. " If the iPhone is not connected to iCloud, then it is also not connected to the Mac.

I would never use "Delete after Import." I would make sure everything I expected to happen actually did. I would make sure I had a good backup. And only then would I delete the original files.

On a Mac, you can have multiple Photos libraries. The main one is called the "system" Photos library. It can be synchronized with iCloud Photos – but does not have to be. Any additional libraries are strictly local to the Mac.

Create additional photo libraries in Photos on Mac - Apple Support

Apple doesn't provide good tools to work with two libraries at once, to make it easy to transfer photos from one library to another. Still, you can do it. So if you wanted to keep a synchronized library that was pared down to a reasonable size (by periodically moving photos to a secondary library, on one of the Mac's external drives, that was strictly local to the Mac), you could do it.

You can also browse and organize photos with the aid of other tools like Adobe Bridge, Lightroom Classic, etc.

Note that Photos likes to copy photos into its OWN database and organize the files as it sees fit. If you are not using iCloud Photos on your Mac at all, you can set Photos to import photos by reference.. But doing that and moving photos behind Photos' back afterwards is not a good idea. My understanding is that its tools for fixing broken links probably are not as good as those in Aperture (R.I.P.) or Lightroom Classic.

Robert Chatfield wrote:

I would like to use Photos to edit/organize my photos. My question is beyond connecting the external hard drive how do I begin organizing/editing the photos while maintaining them on the external hard drive? Question 2 - I do not want the photos to sync with my phone, iPad, etc. Question 3 - how do I backup my photos to iCloud using the original resolution. Thank you for your help

An iPhone or iPad has only one Photos library. If you turn on iCloud Photos on an iPhone or an iPad, everything synchronizes with iCloud – and the iPhone or iPad stops including photos in iCloud backups. (Basically, iCloud Photos serves a backup service for iPhones and iPads – albeit one that does not keep a versioned history.)

On a Mac, iCloud is not a backup service.

If your iPhone and your Mac use the same Apple ID, and you do not want to synchronize their photo databases, you'd need to be sure that iCloud Photos is turned off on at least one of them.

If I was trying to set that up, I would probably

• Set up the iPhone to use iCloud Photos (as iCloud Photos is a better form of backup than iCloud backups that include photos)
• Set up the Mac to not use iCloud Photos
• Back up the Mac to external drives (with the aid of Time Machine, Carbon Copy Cloner, or SuperDuper!) – or a cloud backup service such as BackBlaze – or both.

Robert Chatfield wrote:

I have an external hard drive that contains all of my photos. They were saved to the hard drive after my old Mac decided to cross the rainbow bridge.

Saved how? Were you using the Photos App or iPhoto on the previous Mac? Where your photos simply copied as stand alone image files? How were they copied to the external drive exactly?

I would like to use my external hard drive to store my photos rather than on the internal drive.

o.k. You can store individual image files or as mentioned a Photos Library database on an external drive and access it from the Photos app on your new Mac.

I would like to use Photos to edit/organize my photos.

o.k. You can do that.

My question is beyond connecting the external hard drive how do I begin organizing/editing the photos while maintaining them on the external hard drive?

That will depend on how the photos have been copied over to the external hard drive. Again were they copied as individual photo files in folders or did you copy an entire Photos Library database file? What you need to do next depends on how the photos are stored on the external drive.

Question 2 - I do not want the photos to sync with my phone, iPad, etc.

Unless you engage iCloud Photos on your iPhone and iPad this should not be an issue.

Question 3 - how do I backup my photos to iCloud using the original resolution. Thank you for your help

You cannot. As mentioned by Richard, iCloud is not a backup it's a synchronization service. By definition iCloud stores the photos in their original resolution directly, you don't need to do anything special for that. But as Richard also points out, any changes you make in the Photos app to a photo are instantly synchronized to iCloud. If you delete a photo it will be deleted on iCloud too.

Robert Chatfield wrote:

Here are the next round of questions:

I am going to use an external hard drive to use with Time Machine.

It should be formatted HFS+ or APFS. Time Machine will format it.

What format should I use for the hard drive? Will Time Machine save the photos in the original size?

Time Machine will store the photo in whatever size they are on the Mac. It will not compress or reduce their size.

2. I would like to transfer the photos on my phone to the MacBook and then remove them from my phone. I know that in the past it always asked if you want to delete the photos from my phone after transferring. If I do so am I going to also delete the photos from the MacBook & iCloud?

No. The deletion is only in reference to the connected iPhone when you choose that option. Though making sure everything got copied over before deleting is always a good idea.

I am probably overthinking this.

You are, yes.