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Q: move external hard disk photo library to iCloud

hello

I just bought the 1tb option, for my 300gb library. With my MBP, I use an external hard disk drive, but I don't want to use it anymore... So I sent the 300gb, but if I start Photo, it still needs the Library on external HDD... isn't it possible to use iCloud as the main Library?

Thanks a lot.

Fred from France

MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X El Capitan (10.11.6)

Posted on Sep 8, 2016 1:06 PM

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Q: move external hard disk photo library to iCloud

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  • by léonie,

    léonie léonie Sep 8, 2016 1:17 PM in response to cowpilot
    Level 10 (105,702 points)
    iLife
    Sep 8, 2016 1:17 PM in response to cowpilot

    iCloud Photo Library is essentially a syncing services to keep your library in iCloud as the central storage and as a reference  to sync all devices with.  If you change a photo on one of your libraries on one of your devices, the changes will be updated in iCloud and sync to all your devices that are syncing with iCloud Photo Library. All photo libraries on all your synced devices will always show the smae photos, albums, edits, metadata.

     

    So you will need a library t sync with on your Mac.  To save storage you can use the "Optimize Mac Storage" option in the iCloud preferences. Then the original high resolution image fies will be stored only in icloud and your Mac will replace them by smaller, optimized versions, if the storage is not sufficient for the high resolution version.

  • by cowpilot,

    cowpilot cowpilot Sep 8, 2016 1:22 PM in response to léonie
    Level 1 (8 points)
    iCloud
    Sep 8, 2016 1:22 PM in response to léonie

    thank you for your reply. But I just wanted to use Photos without the external HDD... I dont have size pb on it (300 Go used on 1 to), I just want to not use it anymore. If I understand well, there is no solution, I need a original database, I'm right?

    If then, I will do the same as before: photos sent on jpg on my synology, then photo Synology app

  • by léonie,Solvedanswer

    léonie léonie Sep 8, 2016 1:39 PM in response to cowpilot
    Level 10 (105,702 points)
    iLife
    Sep 8, 2016 1:39 PM in response to cowpilot

    You need the original database on the external drive  once to upload the library to iCloud.  And when ever you want to edit your photos. To browse your photos you could use the web interface to iCloud and simply launch Safari and open the Photos.app at www.icloud.com. That will work without your external drive attached.  But you cannot edit the photos using the web interface, only browse them and download them.

  • by cowpilot,

    cowpilot cowpilot Sep 8, 2016 1:41 PM in response to léonie
    Level 1 (8 points)
    iCloud
    Sep 8, 2016 1:41 PM in response to léonie

    ok, so icloud photos is not for me... thanks a lot