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I need all photos to be in iCloud because my startup disk is full.

After importing 1000+ photos to my MacBook Air, those pics now exist in both iPhoto & my Photos app. I want them to exist only in the iCloud so I can free up space on the Mac. But the pics in the iCloud are different than in Photos & iPhoto. How can I merge all this stuff?

MacBook Air (13-inch Mid 2011)

Posted on Aug 5, 2015 8:49 AM

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Posted on Aug 5, 2015 9:29 AM

But the pics in the iCloud are different than in Photos & iPhoto. How can I merge all this stuff?

How did you upload the photo to iCloud, if they are different from the photos in iPhoto or Photos? Are your iCloud Photos in My Photo Stream, in iCloud Photo Library, in Shared albums?


To have all photos in iCloud use iCloud Photo Library. Enable your Photos Library as iCloud Photo Library in the Photos Preferences > iCloud.

If you want to save storage on your Mac enable "Optimise Mac Storage". Then only smaller versions of the photos will be stored on your Mac. Photos will upload the photos that are not already in iCloud.


Photos does not support to merge iPhoto Libraries into your Photos library. Export the photos from your iPhoto Library and import the exported photos to your Photos library.

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Aug 5, 2015 9:29 AM in response to edpugsleyjr

But the pics in the iCloud are different than in Photos & iPhoto. How can I merge all this stuff?

How did you upload the photo to iCloud, if they are different from the photos in iPhoto or Photos? Are your iCloud Photos in My Photo Stream, in iCloud Photo Library, in Shared albums?


To have all photos in iCloud use iCloud Photo Library. Enable your Photos Library as iCloud Photo Library in the Photos Preferences > iCloud.

If you want to save storage on your Mac enable "Optimise Mac Storage". Then only smaller versions of the photos will be stored on your Mac. Photos will upload the photos that are not already in iCloud.


Photos does not support to merge iPhoto Libraries into your Photos library. Export the photos from your iPhoto Library and import the exported photos to your Photos library.

Aug 5, 2015 11:35 AM in response to edpugsleyjr

Photos you have exported from iPhoto and saved elsewhere can be deleted from your iCloud Photo Library, yes. But I would make a backup copy of your iphoto Library on a backup drive, before you start deleting. Just in case you delete the wrong photos the export went wrong.


When I try to export form iPhoto to the iCloud, I receive an error message telling me there is not enough storage space.

How are you exporting to Cloud? Are you sporting to iCloud Drive? For photos you should be using iCloud Photo Library.


Exporting to iCloud Drive will not free space on your Mac, because all files are mirrored on your Mac.

Aug 28, 2015 1:02 PM in response to acu.mama

How much free storage do you have at all? It is not not save to operate a mac, it the free storage is critically low.


Quit all applications, empty the system Trash, then delete files, that you can sacrifice because you have backup copies.


Restart the Mac to free memory, then try again to ope files to an external drive.


Do you have access to a second computer, perhaps you can can borrow a mac from a family member? Then you can try to boot your mac in target disk mode; this way another mac can see it as an external disk and copy data from your mac to a backup disk, see this document: https://support.apple.com/kb/PH3838?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US


Once you get your Mac back to normal, avoid in future to let the free storage drop below 20GB or so. And make regular backups, for example with Time Machine, so you can recover from similar situations more easily.

I need all photos to be in iCloud because my startup disk is full.

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