Hi,
running Yosemite 10.10.2 and have just upgraded to 200Gb of iCloud Drive so that I can back up all the photos that I have stored using iPhoto. Obvously, all new photos I generate go to iCloud automatically but is there a way to get the thousands of photos that I have gathered over the years to be sent to iCloud.
Thanks in advance.
John
Wait a few month, John.
Apple is currently developing the Mac part of iCloud Photo Library (Beta). Right now, you can only upload to the iCloud Photo Library from mobile devices with iOS 8, but the new Photos.app, to be released early this year, will make this possible from Macs as well. See: iCloud Photo Library beta FAQ
It will be possible to migrate iPhoto Libraries and Aperture libraries to Photos for cloud storage.
Obviously, all new photos I generate go to iCloud automatically but is there a way to get the thousands of photos that I have gathered over the years to be sent to iCloud.
Be careful - if you are referring to "My Photo Stream", your photos are not stored in iCloud. My Photo Stream is a temporary buffer in iCloud, and the new photos are only kept for 30 days in iCloud, then they will be purged to make room for more recent photos. The photo streams are meant for sharing photos and not as a permanent storage, see: iCloud: Get help using My Photo Stream
If you have saved photos to My Photo Stream, make a local backup of all photos in the stream, while they are still there.
Wait a few month, John.
Apple is currently developing the Mac part of iCloud Photo Library (Beta). Right now, you can only upload to the iCloud Photo Library from mobile devices with iOS 8, but the new Photos.app, to be released early this year, will make this possible from Macs as well. See: iCloud Photo Library beta FAQ
It will be possible to migrate iPhoto Libraries and Aperture libraries to Photos for cloud storage.
Obviously, all new photos I generate go to iCloud automatically but is there a way to get the thousands of photos that I have gathered over the years to be sent to iCloud.
Be careful - if you are referring to "My Photo Stream", your photos are not stored in iCloud. My Photo Stream is a temporary buffer in iCloud, and the new photos are only kept for 30 days in iCloud, then they will be purged to make room for more recent photos. The photo streams are meant for sharing photos and not as a permanent storage, see: iCloud: Get help using My Photo Stream
If you have saved photos to My Photo Stream, make a local backup of all photos in the stream, while they are still there.
Thanks for the quick and helpful reply !
You're welcome! 🙂
I forgot to mention, as it is now, it is not safe to move an iPhoto Library onto the iCloud Drive, because the updating will break the links in the internal databases. You would be risking data loss.
Hi,
even if I use a symlink ?
The iPhoto Library is a package of database files and images, disguised as a single file. And the database files inside this package are referencing the originals and other database files. Since these references are created by iPhoto, you cannot manually change them to symlinks. You would continually have to update and edit them, whenever iCloud is syncing the files on iCloud drive. The new iCloud Photo Library (Beta) will have a database architecture that has been designed for remote storage and does not need to be on a locally connected volume.
You can already upload to iCloud Photo Library (Beta) from your Mac using the app at https://www.icloud.com/, if you own an iOS8 device with iCloud Photo Library (Beta) enabled.
Uploading all iPhoto photo to iCloud (Drive).
