How to Manage Large Photos Library with iCloud

Question

brettdog64 Author

Level 1

6 points

How to Manage Large Photos Library with iCloud

I have an iMac with a 1TB drive. El Capitan.

I have a Photos Library that is 450GB.

I currently do NOT use iCloud Photo Library.

I backup Library to external drive.

I would like to move to 500GB SSD drive so I need to trim Photos Library to fit.

I have tried to read through as much info, but I still not clear on some points.

Hard to test on large library.

Going through and cleaning up a large Photo Library is time consuming so I am looking for less hands on options.

My thought:

1. Upgrade to 1TB iCloud Storage Plan

2. Turn on iCloud Photo Library (leave originals) and wait a couple of days/weeks/months for large library to sync to iCloud.

3. Turn on iCloud Photo Library (Optimized) on iPhone and iPad to sync all libraries and get all Originals to iCloud and then to iMac

Q1. How much space will a large library like this takes on an iOS device. I am concerned even an optimized library will fill up 64GB device.

(I know this is media dependent, but only looking for a guideline for iOS, I think OS X is about 9to1)

4. Once everything is synced, copy Photos Library to EHD (properly formatted) as a backup.

5. Launch Photos Library on EHD to ensure working properly.

6. Leave Photos Library on iMac as the synced library. Don't want to keep EHD always connected.

7. Change Photos library to optimized on the computer and let sync complete.

That should give me an optimized library on the iMac and a full library on the EHD.

However, since the EHD is not the Main library for iCloud sync, it will not stay updated.

Q2. Can I create another user account on the iMac with my iCloud settings and use the EHD as the main library with full originals?

That would allow me to periodically plug in the EHD, launch the other user account and let Photos sync updates and get new originals.

This would mainly be used as a backup plan so I don't rely only on iCloud itself.

Is this a reasonable plan or am I way off base.

Regards,

Brettdog

iMac (21.5-inch Mid 2011), OS X El Capitan (10.11.5)

Posted on Jun 20, 2016 3:15 PM

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Answer 1

P0mme

Level 1

17 points

Nov 16, 2017 10:25 PM in response to brettdog64

Hi Brettdog64,

Just read your post, as I am looking at iCloud for my Photo Library.

Have you managed to find a good way to managing your Photo Library ?

Like you I have quite a large Photo Library (60,000 photo - 900GB).

It is currently on a Lacie 2TB thunderbold EHD. It allows me to swap my Library between my iMac (1TB 5k Retina 27" late 2014 model) and my MacBook Pro Touch Bar 2016 Model.

I would however like to have my Library in iCloud, as a back up.

But given it is large and I would experience the issues referred in this discussion with my iPhone and iPad, I am still considering my options.

Also if my photographs are in iCloud, then I am assuming it is a little slow to edit them and share them on social media, but also what happen when there is no internet connection ?

Is it possible to use iCloud just as a back up, but having the Photo Library on the EHD to continue editing/sharing Photo?

Beside I am now having issue with the Photo App on my iMac following update to High Sierra, it crashes frequently, and it seems that a lot of people have the same issue. Thus now contemplating using Lightroom/Photoshop.....

Rgds

P0mme

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Answer 2

léonie

Level 10

194,679 points

Jun 21, 2016 9:39 AM in response to brettdog64

Q1. How much space will a large library like this takes on an iOS device. I am concerned even an optimized library will fill up 64GB device.

(I know this is media dependent, but only looking for a guideline for iOS, I think OS X is about 9to1)

My Library has only roughly 200GB on the Mac, with 40000 photos, but it is horrible on the iPad in an optimized version. The size is fine, it has been reduced to about 10% of its original size, but working with Photos is a pain, if each and every photo is just a blurry thumbnail and needs downloading from icloud to be able to see it properly. Sometimes it needs a minute or longer to retrieve the photo, so it is impossible to browse the photos or play a slideshow. On the iPad I reverted to syncing selected albums with iTunes. On the iPhone it is not so bad, because the screen is smaller and the blurriness is tolerable.

Q2. Can I create another user account on the iMac with my iCloud settings and use the EHD as the main library with full originals?

You can do that from your regular user account. Switch between libraries and switch the iCloud Photo Library to the external drive.

That will be easier than to risk permission issues when accessing a library from two different user accounts.

If you want to reduce the size of the library on the internal drive quickly, delete the library on the internal, after you are sure the copy on the external drive is working correctly. Create a new library on the internal drive and make hit your iCloud Photo Library., optimized. The library will download as optimized and be much smaller to begin with.

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Answer 3

brettdog64 Author

Level 1

6 points

Jun 21, 2016 9:38 AM in response to léonie

Thanks for the heads up on the iPad issues with optimized library.

I will definitely take your advice and not go with optimized on the iOS devices.

For the second part, my intention was not to access the EHD library from both user accounts.

I wanted to only access the EHD library from the second user account set as Full Originals library to keep a copy of my full library locally.

This was my thought on how to backup the iCloud Photo Library to external drive.

Plug in EHD

Launch user

Open Photos

Wait for sync to complete

Quite Photos

Run Time Machine

Wait for TM to complete

Logout of User

Disconnect EHD

Since I won't be using iCloud Photo Library on iOS devices, I probably won't be switching to iCloud Photo Library for iMac.

Not worth $9.99/month (>200GB library) and it's still not a complete solution.

Unless I choose to split photo library using PowerPhotos to maintain a leaner library for iCloud. But that will take time and effort.

Apple needs to address large photo libraries on limited space devices.

It's not an easy fix, but Apple should be smart enough to figure it out.

The biggest problem I see with most people I know is that they don't spend time culling and organizing their photo libraries, (me included).

We need a Photos solution that helps us procrastinators.

I have been testing out Lightroom as an option and I may end up switching to Lightroom.

Regards,

Brettdog

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Answer 4

Aug 17, 2016 12:14 PM in response to brettdog64

I want to migrate from Aperture to Photos and get the benefits of iCloud Photo Library. My situation is actually a little different, local storage isn't an issue but I don't want to have to pay $10/month for 1TB of iCloud storage to sync my 300+GB photo library.

You do hit the nail on the head though in terms of poor library management being the main issue. It's too easy to take 10 photos to 'get a good one' and then not delete the 9 'bad' ones. I'm working through slowly and cleaning house, I've deleted several hundred images in the last couple of days and several thousand over the last few months, but assuming 10% of my pictures are 'keepers' I've still got about 22,000 to delete!

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Answer 5

Nov 26, 2016 3:54 PM in response to brettdog64

I am exploring two possible solutions to manage my 40,000+ photo library. I am completely synched with 1T of iCloud, but my smallest ipad is screaming about not having any storage (yes, even with photos optimized). So I think I have to remove some of my photos from iCloud. I am looking at: 1. Setting up a separate photo library on my Mac and putting most of my older photos there; and/or 2. storing a lot of photos on Amazon Prime photos. I am now doing a lot of reading to figure out which option will allow me to access all of my photos easily.

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