Mac Book Pro Photos Import Library

If you are a bit short of space on your Mac, here’s how to transfer your photo library to an external drive and store it there. How to copy the Photos library to a hard drive. Even the photos and videos imported from your DSLR, GoPro, or drone to your Mac appear on all your iCloud Photos–enabled devices. And since your collection is organized the same way across your Apple devices, navigating your library always feels familiar. .NOTE: Your Mac Photos library will almost certainly be called something else; we changed the name of the file for the purposes of this tutorial. Nowhere is the secret: to export your Mac Photos library to another location, all you have to do is copy that file. Nov 20, 2016 In this video, I'll show you how to safely move your Photos library to an external hard disk and free up an amazing amount of space in the process. Jan 12, 2020 You can access the hidden Library folder without using Terminal, which has the side effect of revealing every hidden file on your Mac. This method will only make the Library folder visible, and only for as long as you keep the Finder window for the Library folder open.

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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.

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.

Go to the Pictures folder and delete it to free up space from your mac. You can delete the Photo Library from your Mac computer. Go to System Preferences then iCloud then Photos then Options, and choose iCloud Photo Library to turn that back on. Delete Photo Library from MacOnce you have confirmed that all the photos in the library moved to the external drive. 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). How to copy all photos from photo library on mac.

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.

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)

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How to transfer photos from iCloud to Mac? Here in this post, we introduce you four simple ways to transfer photos from iCloud to your Mac.

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This all-in-one iCloud content transfer could help you transfer photos from iCloud to Mac. Download it now and easily transfer photos from iCloud to iMac or MacBook.

We love taking photos with our iPhones and store them on Mac and iCloud for preservation. However, if our cherished photos on Mac are lost due to the wrong operation or system crash, how to get them back by exporting from iCloud?

When it comes to transferring photos from iCloud to Mac, normally, we have two choices – one is transferring photos from iCloud Photo Library to Mac, and the other is transferring photos from My Photo Stream to Mac. However, for most of us, we don’t clearly know what iCloud Photo Library or My Photo Stream is, and photos waiting to be transferred are iCloud Photo Library photos or My Photo Stream photos.

To decide which way to go, all you need to do is checking on your device with the following steps:

Go to Settings > iCloud > Photos > Check whether iCloud Photo Library is on.

If iCloud Photo Library is enabled, you can transfer photos from iCloud Photo Library to Mac, if it is off, you can transfer photos from My Photo Stream. No matter what kind of iCloud photos you want to transfer to Mac, here in this guide you can find what you want.

Also Read: Differences Between My Photo Stream and iCloud Photo Library >

Part 1. Transfer Photos from iCloud Photo Library to Mac

Photo Library uploads all photos to iCloud and keeps them up to date across devices and you also can get access to them through iCloud.com. To transfer photos from the iCloud Photo Library to Mac, please refer to the two methods below.

Method 1. Transfer Photos from iCloud Photo Library to Mac Through iCloud Preference Panel

Step 1. Go to iCloud Preference Panel > Click Options next to Photos.

Transfer Photos from iCloud Photo Library to Mac Through iCloud Preference Panel – Step 1

Step 2. Choose Photo Library > Click Done.

Transfer Photos from iCloud Photo Library to Mac Through iCloud Preference Panel – Step 2

Method 2. Transfer Photos from iCloud to Mac with AnyTrans

Though convenient transferring photos from iCloud to Mac by enabling Photo Library is, this method does have its limitations. What if we just want to save some instead of all iCloud photos to your iMac/MacBook? There, AnyTrans is needed.

AnyTrans is specialized in managing iCloud data. AnyTrans supports transferring iCloud contents to Mac or PC and it is easy to transfer photos from iCloud to Mac with AnyTrans. Second, to that, AnyTrans could also help you delete and edit iCloud contents, like contacts, notes. Last but not least, AnyTrans even allows you to sync iCloud contents to another iCloud account. Here are steps to transfer photos from Photo Library to Mac with AnyTrans.

Step 1. Free Download AnyTrans and launch it on Mac > Click iCloud icon and login an iCloud account.

Transfer Photos from iCloud Photo Library to Mac with AnyTrans – Step 1

Step 2. iCloud Category Management > Photos.

Transfer Photos from iCloud Photo Library to Mac with AnyTrans – Step 2

Step 3. Hold Command key and choose pictures you want to backup > Click Download.

Transfer Photos from iCloud Photo Library to Mac with AnyTrans – Step 3

Part 2. Transfer Photos from My Photo Stream to Mac

My Photo Stream uploads and imports photos automatically to all devices, but only photos were taken recent 3 months, 1000 maximum. Here are two methods for transferring photos from My Photo Stream to your iMac or MacBook.

Method 1. Transfer Photos from My Photo Stream to Mac by Setting Up iPhoto

Step 1. Click iPhoto > log in iCloud Account.

Step 2. Click iPhoto on the upper left corner > Choose Preferences.

Transfer Photos from My Photo Stream to Mac via iPhoto – Step 2

Step 3. Choose iCloud > Check the box of My Photo Stream.

Transfer Photos from My Photo Stream to Mac via iPhoto – Step 3

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Method 2. Transfer Photos from My Photo Stream to Mac with AnyTrans

Step 1. Download AnyTrans and connect your iPhone to computer.

Step 2. Click Device icon, choose Photos and click Photo Stream.

Transfer Photos from My Photo Stream to Mac with AnyTrans – Step 2

Step 3. Hold Command key and choose photos you want to transfer, then click the To PC tab.