30 year win user.. Photos help!

[Theninjagecko]

I’ve decided to give myself a stroke. Steve was right windows is the devil.

I’m in love with apple again.

My problem is I have almost 3 decades of photos organised in folder structures. Usually year/month. Pretty simple. Each folder holds photos and videos.

I keep a full copy of this on one drive in its full structure and a hard copy on my NAS.

I mostly just add to this and then use the one drive app on phone if I want to view anything as it does it over the internet without actually downloading anything.

I’ve never used OneDrive on the PC always used the browser to sort add photos/videos and view.

I know in photos on my MacBook I can import a folder structure but my issue is my photos album is 480gb.

What’s the best solution for me to move away from one drive and start using photos app more or is this head ache not worth it?

Thanks.

 

[winxmac]

As a long time Windows user myself, I am also accustomed to photo organization on Windows. I only AirDrop photos and videos from my iPhone to my MacBook Pro and they end up on the Downloads folder.

Your options are:

• Continue using OneDrive via the browser
• Download and install the OneDrive for Mac app
• Proceed with using the Photos app in place of OneDrive

I guess if you're not in a hurry, you can proceed with your plan of migrating your photo and video library to macOS.

You can check this link: https://support.apple.com/en-us/guide/mac-help/mh27921/mac

 

[Fishrrman]

OP wrote:
"I have almost 3 decades of photos organised in folder structures. Usually year/month. Pretty simple. Each folder holds photos and videos."

Why is this a problem?
I've always been a Mac user (going on 40 years now).
I've always kept my photos in exactly the same kind of structure:
Folders (name includes date and subject), with the actual "files" inside.

If you use Apple's Photos app, just set the preference to NOT "import" photos into the Photos database...

 

[Theninjagecko]

OP wrote:
"I have almost 3 decades of photos organised in folder structures. Usually year/month. Pretty simple. Each folder holds photos and videos."

Why is this a problem?
I've always been a Mac user (going on 40 years now).
I've always kept my photos in exactly the same kind of structure:
Folders (name includes date and subject), with the actual "files" inside.

If you use Apple's Photos app, just set the preference to NOT "import" photos into the Photos database...

I didn't know this was an option?

I did some Reading and learnt how to use photos to what I needed.

On the left under Albums I've created folders for each year then inside that a Month.
example

2025
....January 05.
....February 05
2024
....January 04.
....February 04.
2023
....January 03.
....February 03.

I gave the albums ending "name" so i know which year its from when viewing in other places instead of it just saying in album "January" for example.

I didn't realize how many duplicates I had. I've had some fun viewing my photos last few days, its very easy with the photos app and across devices is awesome. It works well, fair play to Apple.

 

[960design]

I keep a full copy of this on one drive in its full structure and a hard copy on my NAS.

You can access your NAS from your mac in several ways.
The way I do it is from the Finder App:
Finder > Go > Connect to Server > smb://yourNAS

 

[Non-Euclidean]

As another windows user, just moving to the Apple ecosphere, I am sticking with Google Photos.
I currently still have my Google Drive, I may or may not revaluate staying with it.

OTOH, maybe I should just start using my local Synology NAS.

 

[Theninjagecko]

I got it set up sweet now, I love photos. I’m actually looking at them again rather than storing and forgetting.

I got it across my devices and keep full resolution on my MacBook I then backup the photos library to my nas and also have 2TB iCloud.

 

[ignatius345]

I got it across my devices and keep full resolution on my MacBook I then backup the photos library to my nas and also have 2TB iCloud.

This is the way. You get access to everything on your other devices, but still have a solid backup on your own hardware.

I'm fine with iCloud, but I do wish you could plug Photos on other devices into competing cloud storage services (or one's own server/NAS). But I don't see that happening anytime soon unless they're forced by the EU or something.