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Level 1

8 points

iCloud photos and clean install

Hello!!

Hopefully a nice and easy question.

I'm looking to a clean install for MacOS Mojave as I've not done one for quite a while.

My query is regarding restoring my Photos library. I usually and will in this case also backup the library file to re-import. I also have my time machine backup up to date but as photos are a sync service, if I log in and set up my photos and iCloud accounts after a clean install will my Mac photos start to download my already uploaded iCloud photos to my Mac should I have download originals set/ or basic images for optimised?

What I don't want here is for my photos to start being removed as my Mac based photos app will contain no photos.

Nor do I want to start re-uploading photos for iCloud to check/ compare as this may take a considerable amount of time.

Hoping that makes some sense.

Kind Regards

Posted on Oct 1, 2018 3:37 AM

Best reply

léonie

Level 10

195,113 points

Posted on Oct 1, 2018 4:45 AM

If you start with an empty Photos Library and enable it as your System Photo Library in "Photos > Preferences > General: Use as System Photo Library" and then as the iCloud Photo Library in "Photos > Preferences > iCloud", then your photos will download from iCloud to your new, empty library and recreate the Photos Library on your Mac

But if you restore your Photos Library from your Time Machine backup, and enable this again as your iCloud Library, all photos will need to be compared to the existing iCloud Photo Library. It will take much longer.

The problem will be, that iCloud is not storing the print projects and slideshows. You will need a copy of your previous library to save the projects.

BTW, It is not really necessary to make regular clean installs. I do it only, when I encounter system trouble, that cannot be resolved in any other way or if I suspect a hardware problem and need to convince APple SUpport, that the problem is the hardware and not the software.

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iCloud photos and clean install

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