How To Backup Mac Photo Library To External Drive

  1. Mac Backup Photo Library To External Drive
  2. How To Backup Mac Photos Library To External Hard Drive
  3. How To Backup Mac Photo Library To External Drive
  4. Backup Mac Photo Library To External Hard Drive
  5. How To Backup Mac Photo Library To External Drive Mac

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.

  1. If you have more than one, the first photo library that you create or open in Photos will become the System Photo Library. Related: How to Move Your iTunes Library to an External Drive. By default, your System Photo Library is stored in the Pictures folder on your Mac.
  2. Mar 18, 2020  Move your Photos library to an external storage device. In the Finder, go to the external drive where you want to store your library. In another Finder window, find your library. The default location is Users username Pictures, and it's named Photos Library. Drag your library to.
  3. Dec 24, 2018  How to back up photos to an external hard drive. Open Finder Pictures (or wherever your images are) Select your Photos Library, the folder you want to back up, or individual files; Drag and drop the file onto your external hard drive in the left column.
  4. Dec 04, 2015  I just moved my photos library to an external hard drive and followed all the procedures you guys mentioned in this post. Its working fine as well. Only problem I am facing is that the photos I click with my iPhone now are not coming in my photos app.
  5. The permissions for your Photos library may conflict with those for the Time Machine backup. Manually copy your library to an external storage device: Drag the Photos library (by default in the Pictures folder on your Mac) to your storage device to create a copy.

Dec 15, 2015  Having at least one Mac with Photos setup to download original photos and videos that backup to Time Machine greatly minimizes the risk that something will get hosed in iCloud Photo Library. To transfer your photos library from an Apple Mac to an external drive, you first need to locate the photos or a folder you wish to move. You can right-click and copy, then paste in the new location. Dragging and dropping will also copy the images or folder.

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.

  1. Launch the Photos app on your Mac.

    Source: iMore

  2. Click Photos in the App menu in the upper left corner of your screen.
  3. Select Preferences from the drop-down menu.

    Source: iMore

  4. Click the iCloud tab.
  5. 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.

  1. Connect an external drive to your Mac via USB, USB-C, or Thunderbolt.
  2. Open a new Finder window on your Mac.

    Source: iMore

  3. Click on Pictures in the sidebar.

    Source: iMore

  4. Drag your Photos Library to your external drive.

    Source: iMore

  5. Wait for it to copy.

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.

  1. Connect an external drive to your Mac via USB, USB-C, or Thunderbolt.
  2. Open the Photos app.

    Source: iMore

  3. Select the photos and video you want to back up.
  4. Go to the File menu.
  5. Hover over the Export option.

    Source: iMore

  6. Select either Export # Photos or Video or Export Unmodified Original for # Photos or Videos.

    Source: iMore

  7. Select an option for File Name and Subfolder Format, and then input your text as desired.

    Source: iMore

    Music library software mac. This app organizes sheet music from PDF files for viewing during practices and performances. I count off the songs for one of the bands, so I added a metronome feature to help with that. We often play for a group of ballroom dancers that like a very specific tempo for some songs, so I added a way to set a song tempo that only applies to a specific playlist (so the tempo they want doesn't get in the way of the tempo we usually use for the song). I use tags to indicate each song's style so when someone asks for a waltz or rhumba at a dance I can quickly bring up a list of songs and pick one to play next.If you have some other features you'd like to see to make the app do what you need, shoot me an email and let me know.

  8. Press Export.

    Source: iMore

  9. Choose your external drive.
  10. 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?

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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Dec 16, 2019  How to Enable iCloud Music Library on iPhone & iPad. In order to turn on this feature on your iPhone or iPad, you need to be subscribed to Apple Music as mentioned earlier. Simply follow the steps below in order to sync your Apple Music content to iCloud, for access on other devices like your Mac, PC or even HomePod. Aug 19, 2019  Mastering Apple Music How to enable or disable iCloud Music Library on your Mac, iPhone, or iPad If you want to be able to share your Mac's tracks with all your other devices and download songs from the Apple Music catalog, you need to enable iCloud Music Library. Mac icloud download. Important: If iCloud Music Library is turned on, you can’t turn Genius off. In the iTunes app on your Mac, choose File Library Turn On Genius (or Turn Off Genius). Turning off Genius turns off Genius Playlists, Genius Shuffle, and Genius Mixes. Jan 16, 2020  On your PC with iTunes for Windows. From the menu bar at the top of your screen, choose Edit Preferences. Go to the General tab and select iCloud Music Library to turn it on. If you don't subscribe to Apple Music or iTunes Match, you won’t see an.

Storing an entire collection of photographs in Apple's Photos app on macOS can be a great way of keeping precious memories in order, but there are occasions when it needs to be stored on an external hard drive. AppleInsider explains how to shift the Photos Library to a new location while keeping all images safe and intact.

There are multiple reasons to move the Photos Library away from its default location, with the primary reason being to free up a Mac's storage. Images and videos can quickly consume storage, especially for prolific photographers shooting RAW files, so moving the library to an external drive can be the best option for those with internal drives that are close to their capacity limit.
Putting the library onto external storage also provides the option of sharing the library with others directly, by disconnecting the drive from the host Mac and plugging it into another. This is also useful for those who wish to use the same library across multiple desktops, like an iMac and a MacBook Pro, if they need to regularly access and change the held files.


Pre-move Backup


Before attempting any file transfers, it is highly recommended to make backups of all images, as there is always the possibility of file corruption or another mishap, and keeping a backup is always a good idea for just these occasions. An up-to-date Time Machine backup is ideal, but it is best to make sure the external or remote drive used for the backup is different to the one you wish to use for the Photo Library storage itself.
It may also be worth using cloud storage services to hold the images, such as Apple's own iCloud Drive, Dropbox, and Google Drive. It might also be an idea to try out iCloud Photo Library, a service that automatically uploads your photographs to iCloud, which can be shared to iOS devices and other Mac desktops using the same Apple ID.


Finding the Folder


Before you can make the move, you need to find where the Photo Library is actually located. In most instances, it should appear in the Pictures folder of your Home directory, labelled as 'Photos Library,' potentially alongside other similar libraries for Photo Booth and iPhoto, the predecessor to Photos.
In the event it isn't at the default location, you can find it by

Mac Backup Photo Library To External Drive

opening up the Photos app, clicking Photos in the Menu Bar, then selecting Preferences. At the top of the General section will be a line marked Library Location, which will show where it is located, as well as an option to Show in Finder, which will spawn a new Finder window at the right directory.

How To Backup Mac Photos Library To External Hard Drive




Importing from iPhone


First, connect your iPhone to your Mac with a Lightning to USB charging cable. A popup will ask if you want to trust your computer, tap 'Trust' and enter your passcode.
Now open Photos on your Mac, where your iPhone will appear under the Devices tab on the left side of the app. From here, you can browse through all of the photos or video in your iOS Camera Roll.

At the top of the page, click on Library, and you can choose to make a New Album for the import. If you wish to erase the photos off of your iPhone after importing, check the box below the Import button before clicking it.
If you chose that option, you will see your photos being deleted off of your iPhone in real-time after importing is completed. Your iPhone photos are now successfully backed up onto your Mac.

The Move


If it is still running, quit Photos by selecting Quit Photos under the Photos Menu Bar, or by pressing Cmd+Q.
Connect the external drive that you wish to use for storing the library, and once it appears on your desktop, drag the Photos Library away from its current location within the Finder and on top of the external drive icon. If you want to place the Photos Library in a specific place within the new drive, open the external drive in a second Finder window, navigate to the correct directory, and drag Photos Library to the right place.
The amount of time it will take for the Photos Library to transfer to the new location will vary on a number of factors, including the amount of images that need to be transferred, the speed of the external drive for transfers, and the transfer method itself. Generally, transfers to an external drive over Thunderbolt 3 will offer the fastest potential speeds when compared to Thunderbolt 2 and USB-based drives.


Accessing the Library


After the file transfer has completed, you will need to inform Photos of the new location. To do this, hold the Option key and click the Photos icon in the dock to launch the app.
This will bring up a new Choose Library window, with a list of libraries available for you to access. Click Other Library and navigate to the location on the external drive that holds the now-transferred Photos Library, select the Library, and then click Open.


At this point, Photos will open and use the library located on the external drive.
While this process can be used to reconnect with the Photos Library, it can also be used to switch between multiple Photo Library archives. This is handy in some cases, such as if a friend or colleague provides their Photo Library on a portable drive for you to browse and use for work.
Note that in order to access your photographs, the external drive needs to be connected to the Mac before entering Photos. The Photos app will warn you if the Library is not accessible in this case, with the solution being to quit Photos and reconnect the drive before relaunching Photos.

Designating the System Photo Library


If you want to use the moved Photos Library - or one of a collection of the Libraries - with a number of Apple services and features, such as synchronization with iCloud Photo Library, iCloud Photo Sharing, and My Photo Stream, you will need to designate it as the System Photo Library. This also applies if you wish to have the photographs used by other apps, or to set an image as the desktop background.
Generally, the initially created Photo Library will be the System Photo Library by default, but actions such as moving it or designating another Library temporarily with the label can stop a Photos Library from being used in this way.
To re-enable it, hold down the Option key and open Photos, then select the Library you want to use as the System Photo Library. Once opened, select Photos in the Menu bar then Preferences.
Within the General tab of the Preferences window, you should see the current Library's path under Library Location, and two buttons: the previously discussed Show in Finder and

How To Backup Mac Photo Library To External Drive

Use as System Photos Library. Click the second option to set it as the System Photo Library.

Backup Mac Photo Library To External Hard Drive



Clearing Space


One of the main aims of this project is to free up space on your Mac's internal drive, and since the Photos Library resides elsewhere, it is likely to be in your interests to delete the locally-held version. Make sure that this Library is no longer required, and that the version on the external drive is complete and functional before considering deletion of the local copy.
Use Finder to navigate to the directory where Photos Library was located, as discovered in the 'Finding the Folder' section above. Right click on the Photos Library and select Move to Trash.
To completely remove it from the Mac, open the Trash from the Dock or Finder window, and click the Empty button on the top right of the window, followed by selecting Empty Trash

How To Backup Mac Photo Library To External Drive Mac

in the confirmation dialog.