Back up an external hard drive to iCloud (photos stored on external drive not on Mac)

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jonesria Author

Level 1

14 points

Back up an external hard drive to iCloud (photos stored on external drive not on Mac)

Hi All,

My photos are taking up too much room on my Mac.

I have therefore bought an external hard drive and moved the photos from the Mac to the external hard drive.

I would now like to use iCloud to back up the external hard drive just in case anything goes wrong with the drive.

Can you please tell me how I should go about doing this?

Ria

MacBook Air (11-inch Mid 2013), OS X Yosemite (10.10.5)

Posted on Jan 24, 2018 6:51 AM

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Answer 1

zinacef

Level 10

88,810 points

Jan 24, 2018 12:21 PM in response to jonesria

iCloud wouldn't work as an external backup as it's a synchronization system.

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Answer 2

Eric Root

Level 10

685,305 points

Jan 24, 2018 12:36 PM in response to jonesria

If the photos are in the Photos application and you moved the Library to the external drive, open Photos with the option/alt key held down and select the Library on the external as the system Library. Then go to Photos/Preferences/iCloud and set up syncing. Then go to System Preferences/iCloud, sign in, and check Photos syncing.

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