Back Up My Mac Photos Library

Aug 31, 2018  That’s Apple’s built-in backup software. If so, your Photo Library is being backed up already. And as we said, if you have Backblaze installed, we do that for you, too. If you’d like to back up your Photos library manually, here’s how to find it: Open Photos. Click the Photos menu. Select Preferences. With the General tab selected, look for Library Location and click the Show in Finder. Dec 24, 2018  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. While this method gives you the most freedom and assurance that you’re backing up exactly what you want, if you make any changes to your Photo Library on Mac, you’ll have to back it up all over again.

If you want your Mac's photos to wirelessly sync to all your other iOS devices and computers, you want to set up iCloud Photo Library: Apple's photo sync service lets you back up your images on all your devices, as well as access them — online or offline — on said devices. If you're willing to pay for the extra iCloud storage space, you can store an incredible amount of photos and videos, all accessible at the touch of a button or multi-touch screen.

Here's how to set it up on your Mac and get everything configured to your liking!

How to set up iCloud Photo Library on your Mac

  1. Launch the Photos app on your Mac.
  2. Select the Photos menu in the upper left corner of your screen.
  3. Go to Preferences.

  4. Click on the iCloud tab.

    Source: iMore

  5. Check 'iCloud Photos.' This will begin uploading any and all images you have stored in the Photos app to iCloud.

    Source: iMore

How to optimize your photo and video storage

If you routinely shoot 4K video or high-quality images on your iPhone, iPad, or DSLR, you may run out of storage space fast. (I have a 1TB iMac, but also have almost a terabyte of 4K video stored in iCloud — it gets unwieldy, fast!) This is especially true if you have a Mac laptop with limited hard drive space: It's nice to look at your iPhone's gorgeous Portrait mode photos, but not necessarily always practical to store all of them locally.

Mac Photos Library Location

Thankfully, Apple offers an Optimize Storage option, which lets you store full-resolution photos and videos of only your most recently shot and accessed imagery; all older photos and videos are available to download via iCloud and are stored as low-resolution previews on your device to save space. You can switch between optimizing your Mac's photos storage or storing your full library locally: Here's how!

Note: If you plan on using Optimize Storage, we suggest having at least one device that stores your entire library locally (usually a Mac with a large local or external hard drive), so you have multiple backups of your photographs and video.

FindBack up apple photos library
  1. Launch the Photos app on your Mac.
  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 Optimize Mac Storage.

    Source: iMore

    Windows library path. Dec 20, 2018  Options to Show User Library Click on your Users folder, open it in Column view, and select View Show View Options then check the box for Show Library Folder  If Library isn’t an option, check that you’re in Column View Select your User folder, and press Command+ J. Jan 12, 2020  Launch Terminal, located in /Applications/Utilities. Enter the following command at the Terminal prompt: Press Return. Once the command executes, you can quit Terminal. The Library folder will now be visible in the Finder. Should you ever wish to set the Library folder. On the Mac OS, from what I understand you're suppose to store information in '/Library/Application Support/Your App Name' if the files are to be read by everyone. However when it comes to writing, this is an admin only folder.

Full-resolution versions of your photos and videos will be uploaded to iCloud.

How to share photos with iCloud Photo Library

Repair Mac Photos Library

Apple's photo service doesn't just provide online backups and sync for your images and video: The company also offers a free sharing service that allows you to send shared albums to friends and family (or create a publicly-shared website). Here's how to turn it on for your Mac.

Questions?

Let us know in the comments below.

Updated January 2020: Updated for macOS Catalina. Serenity Caldwell worked on a previous version of this post

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