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fatherofnard Author

Level 1

8 points

how do I store photos only on the cloud and keep them off my Mac?

Hi everyone!

I am trying to figure out how to get my Photos library off my MacBook Pro. I almost never use my photos on my Mac. I work with them on my iPad or phone only. I will look at them from time to time but they do not need to be stored locally for that. They are taking up about 8gb of space on my Mac and I need that space for other stuff. How do I get rid of them on the Mac without deleting them everywhere else? iCloud should be just that, let me store stuff there unless I request it be on one of my devices. Same thing with iTunes library that is sucking up over 9gb of space and I never use it on my Mac mainly just my phone and sometimes my tablet.

I like everything else being synced just not these two items.

Thanks in advance for any help here!

MacBook Pro (15-inch Late 2011), macOS High Sierra (10.13.2)

Posted on Dec 15, 2017 7:48 AM

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Level 10

106,110 points

Posted on Dec 15, 2017 9:14 AM

Actually you specifically said that you wanted to

how do I store photos only on the cloud and keep them off my Mac?

If you do not what to use the photos on the Mac then just disable iCloud Photo Library on your Mac and nothing will sync to your Mac from iCLoud

When ICPL is enabled then every photo is downloaded to all connected devices - that is its entire purpose - and every change (addition, deletion or edit) you make on any connected device is made on every connected device

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Level 10

106,110 points

Dec 15, 2017 9:14 AM in response to fatherofnard

Actually you specifically said that you wanted to

how do I store photos only on the cloud and keep them off my Mac?

If you do not what to use the photos on the Mac then just disable iCloud Photo Library on your Mac and nothing will sync to your Mac from iCLoud

When ICPL is enabled then every photo is downloaded to all connected devices - that is its entire purpose - and every change (addition, deletion or edit) you make on any connected device is made on every connected device

LN

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Level 10

469,089 points

Dec 15, 2017 8:56 AM in response to fatherofnard

iCloud Photo Library is a syncing service. Any photo you delete from a device where iCloud Photo Library is turned on will also be deleted from iCloud and from any other device connected to that iCloud Photo Library. You can potentially reduce the storage space required on a device by turning on Optimize Storage. See: iCloud Photo Library - Apple Support

Apple does not currently offer cloud-only storage for photos. If that is what you want or need, you may want to explore 3rd party options such as Google Photos or Dropbox.

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fatherofnard Author

Level 1

8 points

Dec 15, 2017 8:56 AM in response to FoxFifth

Thank you for the quick response! 🙂 I have that turned on but still stores the photos on my local drive. I guess I will just try to turn it off on my Mac so nothing is synced to my Mac. I don't use google photos anymore after my google account was hacked and a bunch my pics were found to be distributed among many public sites and google was of very little help to try and resolve. Also don't want to pay apple all the money I pay for cloud service and Dropbox who also wants a huge fee. Trying to reduce all the subscriptions and stuff I already have out there.

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fatherofnard Author

Level 1

8 points

Dec 15, 2017 9:02 AM in response to Csound1

I am not sure how you got that I wanted to do what I want, nor is your answer very helpful. I am new to apple and I pay them monthly for "iCloud Storage" fees (per the charges on my card) so I was unaware it was not for storage but only for syncing. Maybe they should change the name of it so it is not confusing, since I can "store" my documents there and edit them on any device (I don't see any of those showing up on my other devices unless I ask for them to be downloaded).

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Level 9

59,973 points

Dec 15, 2017 8:42 AM in response to fatherofnard

iCloud is not a storage service, it is a synchronization service. You can not do what you want, use a storage service for storage needs.

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Level 9

59,973 points

Dec 15, 2017 9:04 AM in response to fatherofnard

From your posts I gleaned that you want to store photos in the cloud but not on your Mac. was I wrong?

But you should do what you want, I am done here.

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how do I store photos only on the cloud and keep them off my Mac?

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