Download iCloud photo library to external drive for backup

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Level 1

5 points

Download iCloud photo library to external drive for backup

I've been a long time Mac user, and over that time, I've accumulated significantly large music and photo libraries. I have always stored these libraries on external drives because my MacBooks' hard drives were never large enough to hold both libraries.

This spring, I got a little excited and uploaded my entire photo library to iCloud Photo. I still do NOT have enough room on my MacBook Pro's hard drive to store all of these photos (27,000), but I would really like to make a physical backup that I can store offline.

I still want all my photos in the cloud...but I also want a backup (same with my iTunes library...I use iTunes match).

I did a quick search on forums, and couldn't find a solution (although I'm sure this question has been asked and I just missed it).

If anyone could point me to a conversation on Apple Help where this is addressed or how to go about making a backup, that would be much appreciated.

Thank you.

Wes

MacBook Pro 15", Mac OS X (10.6.4)

Posted on Jul 23, 2015 6:32 AM

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Answer 1

léonie

Level 10

200,705 points

Jul 23, 2015 7:08 AM in response to indymachead

Have you seen this Help document, Wes?

Archive or make copies of your iCloud data - Apple Support https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204055

To backup your iCloud Photo Library you need to backup two things - your Photos Library with the albums and projects, and the original image files, that are stored in iCloud.

To backup the library itself copy the Photos library to an external drive or ensure, that is included in your regular Time Machine backup. If you have the mac set to "Optimize Mac Storage", this copy will not include the original image file. ( https://help.apple.com/photos/mac/1.0/?lang=en#/pht6d60d10f )
To backup the original image files select all photos in your Photos library and use "File > Export > Export ... original photos". Select a folder on an external drive. This may take a long time, because all originals will have to be downloaded from iCloud.

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Answer 2

indymachead Author

Level 1

5 points

Jul 25, 2015 6:35 AM in response to léonie

Léonie,

Thanks for the quick response! I had seen the first document you referenced, but it wasn't very helpful for my use case. Your second bulleted item is spot on, and I will try it today.

Thank you again. I will post results as soon as everything is downloaded and backed up!

Wes

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