Backup Photos Library Mac External Hard Drive

Dec 11, 2018 You can always switch back to the regular library when you need to. Double click the backup library to open it, then open the preferences for Photos from Photos Preferences in the menubar. Select “Use as System Photos Library,” which will change the default to the new library. Back Up Your Drive Automatically With Time Machine. Backing up files manually is not the best solution, as. Need to back up your photos and videos? Desktop-bound and portable platter-based storage has never been cheaper. Our deep-dive reviews will get you on track to the right external hard drive. Moving photos library to an external hard drive with old time machine backups 0 0 Can I move my photo library on to an external hard drive that has Time Machine back ups, if the harddrive is not currently set to backup my computer through time machine (as in, it's not the selected disk). It's safe and cheap to transfer and backup iCloud photo libary to external hard drive and USB drive. If you already move iCloud photo library to Mac or Windows PC, just connect external HDD or USB drive to computer, and transfer iCloud photos to connected drive.

Apple Photos External Drive
Backup Photos Library Mac External Hard Drive Mac
Backup Entire Computer To External Hard Drive
Backup Photos Library Mac External Hard Drive Windows 10

Apple's iCloud Photo Library service works seamlessly to sync and back up your images and video across all of your Apple devices to iCloud — but if you're serious about keeping your irreplaceable photos and video safe, you'll want a redundant (second) backup. Because as they always say, you can never have too many backups! And it's better to be safe than sorry, honestly.

Backing up your photos can take the form of a local backup on your own drive or an external source, a secondary online backup, or both. Here's how to do it all.

How to back up iCloud Photo Library to your Mac's hard drive

The best way to back up the images and video in iCloud Photo Library is to make sure you're downloading all your content onto your Mac.

Note: If you plan to back up your entire digital library to your Mac's hard drive, you'll likely want to do it on a desktop Mac with a 1TB drive or higher. Otherwise, consider backing up to an external drive.

Launch the Photos app on your Mac.
Source: iMore
Click Photos in the App menu in the upper left corner of your screen.
Select Preferences from the drop-down menu.
Source: iMore
Click the iCloud tab.
Click Download Originals to this Mac.
Source: iMore

Your Mac will now download full-resolution copies of all your images to your Mac's hard drive, stored inside your Photos app library.

How to back up your iCloud Photo Library content to an external drive

There are two ways to back up your iCloud Photo Library to an external drive: by backing up your Photos library automatically, or manually. (You can also export sections of your library if you don't want to back up the whole thing.)

Back up your Photos library automatically

If you've turned on the Download Originals option for your Photos library, you can back up your Photos library as part of your regular backup routine. Whether you use Time Machine or clone your hard drive using SuperDuper! or Carbon Copy, your Photos library (and all images and video automatically downloaded from iCloud) will be backed up as well. (And if you don't currently use a backup service, well... now's a good time to start!)

Back up your Photos library manually

If you've turned on the Download Originals option for your Photos library but don't want to back it up automatically, you can always copy your Photos library to an external drive at regular intervals.

Connect an external drive to your Mac via USB, USB-C, or Thunderbolt.
Open a new Finder window on your Mac.
Source: iMore
Click on Pictures in the sidebar.
Source: iMore
Drag your Photos Library to your external drive.
Source: iMore
Wait for it to copy.

Apple Photos External Drive

Create an external library for backing up iCloud Photo Library

I recommend setting a bi-weekly reminder for these steps, so you keep your Photos library regularly backed up.

How to back up portions of your iCloud Photo Library

Don't want to back up your entire library? You can export individual images and videos to your external drive.

Connect an external drive to your Mac via USB, USB-C, or Thunderbolt.
Open the Photos app.
Source: iMore
Select the photos and video you want to back up.
Go to the File menu.
Hover over the Export option.
Source: iMore
Select either Export # Photos or Video or Export Unmodified Original for # Photos or Videos.
Source: iMore
Select an option for File Name and Subfolder Format, and then input your text as desired.
Source: iMore
Press Export.
Source: iMore
Choose your external drive.
Press Export Originals.

How to make an online backup of your iCloud Photo Library

Even though your entire iCloud Photo Library is (as the name implies) stored online in iCloud, it's worth considering a second online backup as one of your redundancies.

If you store your entire iCloud Photo Library on your Mac

Good news: If you already use a service to back up your hard drive and you've synced your full iCloud Photo Library to your Mac, it's easy to back it all up. (If not, consider it a good time to start!)

If you don't store your iCloud Photo Library on your Mac

If you don't store your iCloud images locally, this is a bit trickier: you can use the external drive method to export portions of your library to an external drive, then sync that drive to your preferred online backup service, but it's a bit more labor-intensive. In general, this is why I tend to recommend backing up your full library to your Mac or storing a library on an external drive.

Any iCloud Photo Library backup questions?

Backup Photos Library Mac External Hard Drive Mac

Have any questions about how to back up your iCloud Photo Library, or about backups or iCloud Photo Library in general? Drop them in the comments below!

March 2020: These are still the proper steps to back up your iCloud Photo Library

Serenity Caldwell contributed to an earlier version of this guide.

iCloud Photo Library: The Ultimate Guide

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Free up your space by transferring your Photos library to another external hard drive. By freeing up space you will have valuable space for your work on your Mac. In addition to this, we will help you to back up your whole photo library to iCloud.

Why store photos on external drive

In today’s world, everyone loves to capture photos of every single moment and wants to save all those moments in his/her personal devices like Mac. But saving all your photos can fill-up your Mac storage quickly and you may face the shortage of space.

There are many options to store your photos data. One of them to store your photos on iCloud photo library but the drawback of saving your photos on iCloud is, if you delete the photo from your device it will be deleted from iCloud as well.

One question raised up here is that what we can do to store all our photos to some safe place if we are running out of space on Mac?

Fortunately, you have visited the right place to find the solution to your problem. There is a safer and easy way to transfer your entire photo library from your Mac to your external drive. The best of this trick is whenever you need to see your photos on your Mac you just need to open photo library app on your Mac it will automatically take you to your saved photos in external hard drive until unless it is plugged in.

Snapshot of the guide

There is a quick snapshot of the guide so you can understand quickly how to move the library to external drive.

Prepare your external hard drive to move Photo Library. Make sure drive is formatted as MacOS Extended Journaled.
Go to the location of the Photo library and move it to external drive.
Set the external library as a System Photo Library (So whenever you open the Photos app it will open the photos library from the external hard drive.)
After completing trasfer to drive, make sure this external drive is connected to your Mac whenever you want to access photos.

Our article will help you to move your photos from Mac to external hard drive. Continue reading the steps are about to start.

Do not worry if you have already stored your photos on iCloud photo library. Our article will help you to get back your already saved photos in iCloud photos library and will help you to move them to external hard drive. Here is how to do it.

System Photo Library vs Other Library

When you run Photos app on your Mac first time this will ask you to create a new or use an old library. That default Photo library became the system library automatically. Only System Photo Library are allowed to access iCloud services.

You can create multiple other libraries and work with photos only in one library at a time. To work in another library you have to switch the library. You can also change and set one of the other libraries as a System library.

How to transfer the Photos library to a hard drive

First, make it sure the hard drive you are going to use for Photos library is faster and have enough space. It will save your time and stored your memories quickly. A good hard drive always keeps your stuff secure and there are fewer chances of losing your data.

Before going step by step to move your photo library to external hard, first make it sure that your external hard drive is already formatted for Mac OS Extended (journaled). If it is not formatted for Mac first erase all the data from it and format and choose the option of Mac OS Extended (journaled). Use the Disk Utility on your Mac to erase any hard drive (When you erase any drive in mac everything will be deleted, so please save any important data ).

Find the Photos Library on your Mac, it will be in your Pictures folder. Click the Go menu on the top and then select Home option from the menu.
Open the Pictures folder and there you will find the Photos library.
TIP: In order to see how much storage your photos have taken, just Ctrl+Click on the photos library icon and click on Get Info. Now you can make sure that you have enough storage in your external hard drive.
It’s time to copy your Photos Library to your external hard drive using drag and drop trick. Now sit back and wait until copies over. The time of transferring photos depends on the size of your Photo Library.
When transferred completed, press and hold the Option/Alt key from keyboard and click the Photos app icon from Dock to open it. Keep holding the keyboard key until you see a window otherwise this will open the Photos app.
You will see a new window to choose the library. On that window hit the button Other library. Navigate to the new location on your external hard drive and choose the Photo Library.
If there is a message that shows “there are some items that need to be downloaded from iCloud Photo library” then you need to click on delete incomplete items and download all those incomplete items.
Set a photo library as System Photo Library
We have already moved the library to an external drive now its time to set it as System Photo Library. Doing that will allow it to use iCloud service.
Open the Photo Library from the external drive.
Click Photos men and then select the Preferences option.
On the next window click General and then click Use as System Photo Library button (this will help you to get it to work with iCloud Photo Library)
TIP: Remember this is the step you need to perform in future If you accidentally unlinked the external drive’s photo library from the Photos app.
Go to System Preferences then iCloud then Photos then Options, and choose iCloud Photo Library to turn that back on. See if you have stored all the photos here.

Note: you will need to plug in your external hard drive in order to see your photos).

Delete Photo Library from Mac

Once you have confirmed that all the photos in the library moved to the external drive. You can delete the Photo Library from your Mac computer. Go to the Pictures folder and delete it to free up space from your mac.

How to back up your iCloud Photo Library

If you want to move all your photos which you have already backed up to your iCloud photo library to a storage device connected to your Mac. Follow our step by step guide above, but you need to download all the images from iCloud first.

If you have already transferred your Photos library onto the external storage device, now you need to follow these steps.

Open Photos on your Mac.
Click Photos then click on Preferences.
Click on the iCloud tab.
Choose Download originals to this Mac.

Backup Entire Computer To External Hard Drive

Now all your iCloud photos will be saved on the storage device. (If you are running short of space you would probably not want to do that)

Backup Photos Library Mac External Hard Drive Windows 10

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