Photos: strategy to reduce number of photos

[andiwm2003]

I have currently ~20 000 photos in my photos library. Most of them are snapshots so I would like to reduce the size of the library from currently 90 GB. To that end I would like to delete all the crappy pics I have.

I plan to do this from my iPad during the next couple of weeks.

Step one would be duplicating the entire library to have a save backup with everything (at home and at dropbox). How do I most efficiently duplicate the library? In finder or through photos?

Step two would be simply scrolling through 20 000 photos on my iPad whenever I have time and simply delete every pic that is not interesting.

I hope to get rid of 75% of the pics this way. I have my Photos library in iCloud so the deletion process could be done of the phone, the iPad or the Mac. Is that correct?

Has anybody done something similar? Any input on my plan to do this and any info about pitfalls would be helpful.

Thanks!

 

[satcomer]

If you have that many maybe you want to a good NAS and Move your Photos Library to an External. With a good NAS you should have a chance for a good backup for such memories.

 

[andiwm2003]

If you have that many maybe you want to a good NAS and Move your Photos Library to an External. With a good NAS you should have a chance for a good backup for such memories.

I don't want to set up a NAS. Most of my pics are not good, multiple pics of the same scene and such. So reducing it to what's worth keeping is the right thing to do and then leave the rest at dropbox.

This is also a strategy to be more flexible regarding platforms. I can imagine to move a few thousand pics to google or any other service but not all 20 000. I'm not sure what the future with Apples Photos app and service is so I don't want to be locked in too much.

 

[Fishrrman]

Get an external drive of sufficient capacity.

Copy your Photos library to the backup drive. Disconnect the drive so that it's "offline". Now you have an archive.

Then, just start reviewing and deleting on your regular (main) drive.

You're just going to have to take a quick look at each one and "decide". No other way around it.

 

[mrex]

Using a nas doesn't make you dependent on apple and their services.

 

[ChrisA]

If you have that many maybe you want to a good NAS and Move your Photos Library to an External. With a good NAS you should have a chance for a good backup for such memories.

NAS?? 90GB is not even 10% of a 1TB disk drive. He could backup all 90GB to a large thumb drive. It is NOT a lot of data.
Put it this way: if a 1TB disk costs $100 then 90GB costs $9 to store. Why buy a $500 to $1,000 NAS to store $9 of data. Yes he needs to run a doubleredundent backup with data kept off site. Bt he can buy cheap 500GB drives for backup and those little drives will be only 20% filled

NAS is never to be considered "backup". Far batter to buy a few smaller drivers and an online backup service

 

[smallcoffee]

I think you're just going to have to spend time going through and deleting photos. Also, if you have iCloud enabled, and you have a decent size iCloud file storage limit, you can delete photos, upload the rest to iCloud, and then you'll have them available for download whenever you need.

 

[Rivegauche610]

If anyone's still watching this forum, here's a scenario for your comments.

Making sure all photos have been properly synced, I moved my OS X photo libraries from their locations on my MacBook Pro's second internal drive (where that abysmal app known as "Photos" can find them) to an external drive.

I will delete all photos on my iOS devices and "start anew."

Sound like a logical path?

 

[Open Casket]

Arrange your photos by Date Created, and then purge those memories!
I did this recently, and created folders for each year as I went.
All you have to do is select your files and then click File > New Folder (with X Items Selected).
It's actually a lot of fun once you get started (1000+ photos, nothing but cats!).
After you've done that, move anything older than 2 years, (or whatever your preference is), onto your external HD, and/or to a folder in your email account (email is a good choice, because then you can access them from your phone too, also iCloud is a helpful because if you get burgled, like I did a few months back, you'll still have your memories even if you are deprived of your laptop and ext HD - I even upload to Tumblr these days, just in case).