Q: iCloud Photo Library Backup to External Hard Drive
Assuming that you aren't using referenced files, will copying & pasting the "Photos Library.photoslibrary" packet to an external hard drive backup all of my pics in Photos? If I open this file on another computer, will I be able to access my pics?
MacBook Pro (Retina, Mid 2012), OS X El Capitan (10.11.2)
Posted on Jan 15, 2016 9:04 AM
Assuming that you aren't using referenced files, will copying & pasting the "Photos Library.photoslibrary" packet to an external hard drive backup all of my pics in Photos?
Yes, you can simply drag and drop the Photos Library to an external drive.
But make sure, that the filesystem of the drive is MacOS Extended (Journaled). Otherwise you may encounter problems with file errors. (as described here for Aperture: Use locally mounted Mac OS X Extended volumes for your Aperture library)
And enable the "Ignore Ownership on this volume" flag for the external drive, if you want to open the library from a different Mac.
If I open this file on another computer, will I be able to access my pics?
Yes, if the other mac has the same version of MacOS X installed. The Photos versions need to be the same.
Are you using iCloud Photo Library? In that case it will depend on your preferences for "Optimize Mac Storage". With Optimize Mac Storage" active your original photos will be in iCloud and not on your Mac and not copy over to the external drive. Then you will have to disable Optimize Mac Storage" and wait for your photos to download before you copy the library.
Posted on Jan 15, 2016 10:59 AM
