rolbacon

Q: How to delete high-resolution images in the mac while keeping the iCloud version

I have uploaded a lot of images in iCloud and my mac disk space is full. Now that they are in iCloud I would like to get rid of the high resolution images locally. I already have the option Optimize mac storage set up, but this does not help given that the high resolution images are already on my disk. Is it possible to remove the high resolution images on the mac and just keeping them on iCloud. I would be happy to have only the low res version on the mac. Thanks for your help.

MacBook, macOS Sierra (10.12)

Posted on Sep 28, 2016 8:57 AM

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Q: How to delete high-resolution images in the mac while keeping the iCloud version

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  • by léonie,

    léonie léonie Sep 28, 2016 9:09 AM in response to rolbacon
    Level 10 (107,728 points)
    iCloud
    Sep 28, 2016 9:09 AM in response to rolbacon

    Did you invest much work into naming faces and creating projects?

     

    if not, you could simply copy your Photos Library to an external drive to have a local backup copy, then create a new, empty library on your system drive.  Enable this empty library as your System Photo Library and enable it as your new iCloud Photo Library.  Enable "Optimize Mac Storage" for iCloud Photo Library.  iCloud will only download the optimized versions and keep the originals in iCloud. The only problem are the named faces and the projects, that will not download from iCloud. That is why you should keep the current version of your library as a backup.

     

    See this page on how to create a new library and to switch between libraries:   https://help.apple.com/photos/mac/1.2/?lang=en#/pht6d60b524

  • by LarryHN,

    LarryHN LarryHN Sep 28, 2016 9:21 AM in response to rolbacon
    Level 10 (84,937 points)
    Photos for Mac
    Sep 28, 2016 9:21 AM in response to rolbacon

    If you have a copy outside of pHotos you can delete it - the copy inside the Photos library will be optimized dynamically as needed if you have optimized photos set on your Mac - this process in not instantaneous but takes time

     

    LN

  • by léonie,

    léonie léonie Sep 28, 2016 9:33 AM in response to LarryHN
    Level 10 (107,728 points)
    iCloud
    Sep 28, 2016 9:33 AM in response to LarryHN
    this process in not instantaneous but takes time

    And that is why downloading to an empty library is faster to get rid of the originals. Optimize will only remove originals if storage is needed and never free as much as possible. Downloading to an empty library will make the library as small as possible at once.

  • by rolbacon,

    rolbacon rolbacon Sep 28, 2016 10:33 AM in response to léonie
    Level 1 (16 points)
    Mac OS X
    Sep 28, 2016 10:33 AM in response to léonie

    Thanks for these useful suggestions. I will try the empty library solution. The process of upload is not yet finished. I will give a try once this is done.