robortins
Level 1
(0 points)
Q: iCloud photo storage
MY primary iPhoto and video library is stored on external drive as MacBook storage is too small. For additional storage and access, I recently copied all the photos (45 GB) to iCloud Drive. the storage use for photos on the macbook is now 44GB, leaving little room on the MacBook harddrive. Does iCloud Drive keep a local copy on my harddrive? How can I save photos in an addition place, cloud, any cloud, and leave off my MacBook Air?
MacBook Air, Mac OS X (10.4.4)
léonie
Level 10
(108,977 points)
Does iCloud Drive keep a local copy on my harddrive? How can I save photos in an addition place, cloud, any cloud, and leave off my MacBook Air?
Yes, iCloud drive is keeping local shadow copies of all documents you store there. So you will not save space on your device.
If you want to save space by moving photos to iCloud, store them iCloud Photo Library and not on iCloud Drive. The new Photos.app supports iCloud Photo Library.
See: Apple - OS X - Photos Preview
Fill your library, not your device.
iCloud Photo Library can help you make the most of the space on your Mac. When you choose “Optimize Mac Storage,” all your full-resolution photos and videos are stored in iCloud in their original formats, with storage-saving versions kept on your Mac as space is needed. You can also optimize storage on your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch, so you can access more photos and videos than ever before. You get 5GB of free storage in iCloud — and as your library grows, you have the option to choose a plan for up to 1TB.
