arggggh
Level 1
(4 points)
Q: Drag photos out of iCloud Drive and into Photos Library
I am running OS X Yosemite 10.10.5 on a 2015 MacBook Air and an iPad Mini Retina Display running iOS 9.0.2.
I have a lot of photos, saved in several different folders, which are currently in my iCloud Drive. I want to reduce the amount of storage space I am using in iCloud Drive. But I still want to be able to view those photos on both my MacBook Air and on my iPad Mini.
So I thought that I would create a number of Albums in Photos Library to correspond with the folder names I am using in iCloud Drive and drag the photo folders into those Albums in Photo Library.
But it does not seem possible to drag photos from iCloud Library into Photos Library? It does not seem to make any difference whether I try to drag them within the same Finder window, or whether I open two Finder windows and try to drag them from one to the other (I am not sure what the difference is - if any - between dragging items in one Finder window and dragging them from one Finder window to the other?)
How do I do this?
To whomever answers this, many thanks and wishing you a Happy Christmas.
MacBook Air (13-inch, Early 2015), OS X Yosemite (10.10.5)
FoxFifth
Level 7
(27,276 points)
Note that your original question focused on how to get photos into the Photos Library used by the Photos app and didn't mention syncing them to an iPad.
There are a number of ways to sync photos from a Mac to an iPad, including iCloud Photo Library, Photo Stream, using a USB cable and iTunes, 3rd party apps such as https://photosync-app.com/, and 3rd party cloud services such as Dropbox and Flckr. See below for more details on the first 3 of those:
1. iCloud Photo Library
If you use iCloud Photo Library on all of the devices, all photos in Photos on your Mac should match what is in Photos on iCloud and in your iPad. Any change you make from anywhere should automatically sync to everywhere.
To turn that on:
On the Mac: open the Photos app and then click Preferences on the Photos menu. Click iCloud at the top of the Preferences window and then put a checkmark in front of iCloud Photo Library and select Download Originals to this Mac. MY Photo Stream and iCloud Photo Sharing can be off.
On the iPad: Settings > iCloud > Photos > iCloud Photo Library on (and Optimize iPhone Storage on if you want smaller optimized versions if space is needed). Upload to My Photo Stream and iCloud Photo Sharing can be off.
Note that you originally stated you wanted to reduce the storage space you are using in iCloud Drive. Doing the above and removing the photos from iCloud Drive will reduce the iCloud Drive space but it will increase your iCloud Photo Library space so you will be still using about the same amount of iCloud storage.
iCloud Photo Library FAQ - Apple Support
2. Photo Stream
If you use Photo Stream instead of iCloud Photo Library the photos don't count against your iCloud storage but they are only kept on iCloud servers for 30 days. I used Photo Stream with iPhoto but have not used it since Photos was released. I believe (but am not positive) that with Photos you need to add the photos to the Photo Stream album on your Mac in order for them to transfer to the other device. See the following link for more information about how to turn it on in both devices and other details: My Photo Stream FAQ - Apple Support
3. iTunes Photo sync
Sync photos from your computer to your iOS device using iTunes - Apple Support
