Backup Mac Photo Library To External Drive

How to transfer your iPhone or Mac Photo library to an external drive. By AppleInsider Staff Wednesday, January 31, 2018, 04:40 pm PT (07:40 pm ET) Storing an entire collection of photographs in. Sep 30, 2019  Best ways to backup photos in 2020. Unused, and duplicate images to a separate library stored on an external drive, preferably one that doesn’t see daily use.

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

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

How To Backup Mac Photo Library To External 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.

Backup Apple Photos 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.

Apple Photos External Drive

Export photos to external hard 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.

    All your photos on all your devices. ICloud Photos gives you access to your entire Mac photo and video library from all your devices. If you shoot a snapshot, slo-mo, or selfie on your iPhone, it’s automatically added to iCloud Photos — so it appears on your Mac, iOS. Mac access photos library 2019. Oct 09, 2019  There will probably be no update for iPhoto. The last update for iPhoto has been released early 2015, when Apple stopped the developement of iPhoto and replaced it by Photos for Mac. Use the Photos for Mac application to open your iPhoto Libraries. Launch Photos while holding down the options key ⌥. Release the key, when the library chooser dialog appears and select your iPhoto Library to open. Mar 18, 2020  If you have more than one Photos library—and the one you're using isn't set as the System Photo Library—the Media Browser won't show its contents. Follow these steps to designate the current library as the System Photo Library: Choose Photos Preferences. Click the General button at the top of the Preferences window. Click Use as System Photo Library. Jan 13, 2020  Turn on iCloud Photos. It's easy to get started. Just turn on iCloud Photos in your Settings and make sure that you're signed in with the same Apple ID on all of your devices. On your Mac, go to System Preferences iCloud and click the Options button next to Photos. Then select iCloud Photos.

    Source: iMore

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

    Source: iMore

  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.

Export Photos To External Hard Drive

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!)

Mac Backup Photo Library To External Drive

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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