using iCloud to sync my photos between my iPhone, iPad Pro, and Macbook

Question

using iCloud to sync my photos between my iPhone, iPad Pro, and Macbook

Hi. I am using iCloud to sync my photos between my iPhone, iPad Pro, and Macbook. Everything was working fine. Over time I had to choose Optimize storage on all devices to continue since I take a lot of images.

I never use the Photos App on my Macbook. And, my local drive was getting eaten up by my Photos library file. So, I followed the instructions to close Photos, copy the library to an external drive, boot Photos with Option key and selected the library on the external drive. Along the way I got the error about files needing to be deleted and figured that was OK since they are sync'd with iCloud (and I do have another copy on a backup disk).

In the new library in my external drive there are thousands fewer photos. I want to set the new library to be the one that syncs with iCloud so I can delete my original library from my Macbook but I get a warning that worries me:

"Switching the System Photo Library will turn off iCloud Photo Library. Any photos and videos that have not been fully downloaded will be removed from this Mac. Turn on iCloud Photo Library for this new System Photo Library in Preferences."

I have no idea why originally it said some files had to be deleted. The file count was all the same between my iPhone and MacBook but my iPad had one more item. It's been like that for a while so I didn't think that much of it. I assume that was the issue.

Any thoughts about how I can get this Photos library off my mac? I'm totally fine with not having a copy on my mac at all if I can safely delete the app and the library. I can just use my iPhone and iPad and my internet browser to get to iCloud.

Posted on Feb 10, 2016 7:28 PM

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Answer 1

léonie

Level 10

194,761 points

Feb 11, 2016 4:04 AM in response to deenafromweston

I have no idea why originally it said some files had to be deleted. The file count was all the same between my iPhone and MacBook but my iPad had one more item. It's been like that for a while so I didn't think that much of it. I assume that was the issue.

The problem is, that you are using the option "Optimize Mac storage". Your Mac is keeping only smaller versions of the photos for browsing. These smaller versions will be deleted, when you switch the system Photo Library, because the Mac will no longer be able to access the full versions in iCloud, when the library is not an iCloud Photo Library.

There is no other way to move an optimized library to your external drive. You have to allow Photos to remove the optimized versions when you disable iCloud Photo library for the library on your internal drive.

Once you have enabled the library on your external drive as your iCloud Photo Library, I would disable the "Optimize Mac Storage option". Your external drive should have enough storage to hold all your photos, and it is much to easier make a backup of your photos, if you have local copies of them. Also, it makes it much easier to copy the library to a different drive, if the originals are included.

Test the library on the external drive, once you have made it your iCloud Photo Library, and when all is well, you can delete the library on your internal drive.

I'm totally fine with not having a copy on my mac at all if I can safely delete the app and the library. I can just use my iPhone and iPad and my internet browser to get to iCloud.

You can delete the Photos Library, but not the Photos application. The Photos application is installed as a part of MacOS X, and it is protected by the System Integrity Protection. You would not reclaim much storage anyway by deleting the Photos.app. The size is just approx. 54MB, just the size of two large RAW photos. The current iPhoto 9.6.1 has thirty times the size of Photos.

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Answer 2

Feb 11, 2016 4:38 PM in response to léonie

Thank you. This helped. I just connected the copy of the library to the iCloud account and told it to download all images instead of optimize storage. I had to change the setting twice but it ultimately seems to have worked. Thank you.

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Answer 3

léonie

Level 10

194,761 points

Feb 11, 2016 5:45 PM in response to deenafromweston

You're welcome 🙂

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