My photos are being stored on my internal hard drive.

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My photos are being stored on my internal hard drive.

Good morning,

I am a professional photographer and filmmaker. I use multiple external hard drives with lots of storage space, but for some reason it looks like I have thousands of pictures stored on my internal hard drive under Macintosh>Users>Myself>Pictures.

1. Is this really necessary if I have all of my pictures stored and backed up on two external hard drives? If not, how can I turn this setting off?

2. Also, I have been using Dropbox to share my pictures with clients and recently noticed that all of my Dropbox pictures are also being stored on the internal hard drive of my Mac Pro. When I delete pictures from my hard drive, they are also deleted from my Dropbox and vice versa. Is there a way to use Dropbox without having to take up space on my Mac as well?

Thank you very much for any help,

Trey

Mac Pro

Posted on Apr 27, 2015 8:28 AM

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Answer 1

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lllaass

Level 10

210,411 points

Apr 27, 2015 2:18 PM in response to entrevon

- When you import photos to you computer you can identify what they are downloaded to. How depends upon the app you are using from importing.

- DropBox work by synchronizing your dropbox folder to the cloud and to other devices using that DropBox account. If you deleted a file from one device's DropBox folder it gets deleted from all folders. That is how DB works.

Are you backing up your files to somewhere else?

I continuously use Time Machine to backup my HD. I also periodically clone my HD ro an external drive. I also periodically copy my photos to another media.

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Answer 2

The hatter

Level 9

60,980 points

Apr 27, 2015 10:31 AM in response to entrevon

Which Mac Pro? only the last one sold, the Late 2013 "6,1" has a single internal drive. All the others can have 4 or more internal hard drives, and it is common to have drives devoted to projects, media or graphic libray, on non-system drive and even outside the default User account.

With most recent Macs external Thunderbolt provides fast storage for multiple drives, arrays and such. USB3 can also but has some limits.

Many applications allow for a Photo or graphic library (or iTunes) to reside anywhere the user chooses.

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Answer 3

entrevon Author

Level 1

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Apr 27, 2015 2:22 PM in response to lllaass

Hello lllaass,

I am backing up to another drive.

I use Lightroom 5 to import my photos, but I only want them to end up on my external drive and not my late 2103 Mac Pro. Do you know how I can stop the files from being stored on my late 2013 Mac Pro?

Thank you,

Trey

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Answer 4

entrevon Author

Level 1

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Apr 27, 2015 2:24 PM in response to The hatter

Hi The hatter,

I am on a late 2013 Mac Pro. I'm using Lightroom 5 to import my files to my external hard drive, but how can I stop my photos from being stored on my Mac Pro?

Thank you,

Trey

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Answer 5

lllaass

Level 10

210,411 points

Apr 27, 2015 2:35 PM in response to entrevon

See step 5

5. Tell Lightroom where to put your photos.

of

https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom/help/importing-photos-lightroom-basic-workflow .html

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Answer 6

entrevon Author

Level 1

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Apr 28, 2015 7:29 AM in response to lllaass

Hello IIIaass,

I took a look at the link you shared, but I don't see where the option to tell Lightroom where to put my photos is. The article mentions it's at the top right hand of the import window, but I don't see that anywhere. Here's what I see. I'm sure it's there somewhere and I'm just missing it.

Thank you,

Trey

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