How to back up my 'Photos' library?

Question

How to back up my 'Photos' library?

I'm very much an apple fan, have a Mac & iPhone etc. My photos and videos in digital format go back around 8 years and I have 30+ years worth of photo scans that are now digital. I used to keep all of these files organised myself within the finder in my own folder structure I created as it felt the safest way to ensure I hang on to my precious files 'forever'.

A few months ago I made a slightly scary decision to import my entire library (photos, videos, photo scans) into the new 'Photos' app on my mac. This went well and they are now all nicely organised by date chronologically just how I wanted them. I love how easy it is the view and edit them within photos. I have selected to download all originals on my mac but also use iCloud photo library, which I love as I can access EVERYTHING (very impressed) on my iPhone (again all nicely organised).

After a family member lost years worth of photos (computer died and no backup) this has since made me quite paranoid with backups. I've spent hours researching on the internet whats best...

1. I currently have a time machine backup on an external hard drive (I do this every week).

2. I've also dragged 'n' dropped the 'Photos' library file onto a different external hard drive (which I re-do whenever I add more files to my library).

3. I have iCloud Photo library enabled (although I'm told this isn't a reliable backup, more just a sync service).

4. I have another drag 'n' drop copy of the 'Photos' library file stored on another external hard drive which is stored away from my home (off site).

I'm fairly confident this is an adequate backup, but my concern is the 'Photos' library file itself. Is it possible that this could become corrupted, making my mac unable to open the library? I'm conscious that photos are not stored in any humanly readable structure within that file unlike when I had them structured in my own folders within finder.

Do you trust the 'Photos' app with storing your photos and videos?

Do you keep a copy of all of your files separately organised within finder outside of the 'Photos' library?

Thanks

MacBook Pro (13-inch Mid 2012), iOS 6.1.4, 2.9ghz i7 8GB 750GB

Posted on Oct 15, 2016 4:27 AM

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Answer 1

Oct 15, 2016 4:43 AM in response to Jamie.long951

Your back up strategy appears to be reasonably sound to me, although personally I avoid the manual back ups should I forget and go the automatic route only. I use Time machine and another back up utility to create 2 back ups, although they back up much more often than yours.

Yes of course the library could become corrupt, but you should simply be able to replace a corrupt library with a back up and move on.

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Answer 2

LarryHN

Level 10

106,142 points

Oct 15, 2016 6:20 AM in response to Jamie.long951

Yes I trust the Photos application as I trusted iPhoto for years - so do tens of millions of others

no I do not keep another copy of the photos

You do not state but you need a local backup with ICPL set to download originals to this computer - backing up a library with optimized photos does not totally protect you

But I do multiple backups - time Machine on two machines for hourly (one machine has the originals and my AMB with limited storage uses optimized photos and a daily clone using carbon copy cloner on the machine with the originals so I have a daily bootable backup ready to use in case of issues

I also do an occasional off site backup

overall you seem fine as long as you are downloading otiginals to your Mac

LN

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