Moving Photos Library to iCloud (Exclusively)

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Moving Photos Library to iCloud (Exclusively)

I am working from a 13" Macbook Pro (Mid 2012) 2.9 GHz Intel Core i7 Processor with 8GB 1600 MHz DDR3 Memory.

I am looking into upgrading to the newer 2015 model of the 13" MBPro with retina display. That being said, the device I have now has a 750GB storage cap and I am moving most of my data into cloud storage (about 500GB worth) but need to move my Photos library off-device too. (roughly 120GB there)

Now, once having purchased a new Macbook Pro--because I would only be purchasing one with between 256GB and 512GB--would it be possible to have my entire Photos library on iCloud without it leaving a copy (no matter how small) on my new device? In other words: Is it possible to move the location of my Photos library onto a cloud service like Dropbox or iCloud without it saving thumbnails or original copies of the photos to my computer? Also, would it be possible to move the library itself onto a portable hard drive and only have access to the library when the device is plugged in as if it were an ordinary file?

Please let me know if you would need any clarification and I would be happy to go into this in more depth.

Many thanks in advance for your time and assistance.

Kodi

MacBook Pro, OS X Yosemite (10.10.4), 13" (Mid 2012) 2.9 GHz Core i7 8GB

Posted on Jul 7, 2015 1:28 PM

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léonie

Level 10

194,743 points

Jul 7, 2015 1:38 PM in response to Kodi.H

You can move your iPhoto Library to an external drive, that you only plug into your Mac, when you want to run Photos, see this Help page:

https://help.apple.com/photos/mac/1.0/?lang=en#/pht211de786

By default, your System Photo Library is stored in the Pictures folder on your Mac, but you can move it to another location on your Mac or store it on an external storage device. However, to use iCloud services, the external storage device must be formatted using Mac OS Extended (Journaled) format, also known as HFS+.

So, if you want to use cloud services with your Photos library, the external drive needs to be formatted MacOS Extended (Journaled), but it can be a portable, external drive.

It not clear, if the drive needs to be directly connected or could be a network volume. You cannot migrate an iPhoto library or Aperture library to Photos, if it is on a network volume, But it might be possible to move the converted library there. Apple does not document, if a drive for a Photos Library needs to be directly connected. For iPhoto or Aperture the support documents advised against network volumes.

My own experiments with a Photos Library on a network drive resulted in library corruption.

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