iCloud Apple Photos on MacBook sync with minimal iCloud space to other Apple devices?

[MitzEclipse]

Hi all
I have a MacBook Pro with an Apple Photos library 220gb in size. I currently do not sync Photos as I want to ensure I keep my original size photos on my local HD.

Is there away to enable iCloud sync but to ensure my local 220gb library stays local? I currently have the free tier iCloud and could upgrade to the 50gb tier - obviously not enough for the 220gb library I have to stay in sync, but is there a way to configure iCloud to only upload smaller sized photos? (similar to what Google Photo sync does today?)

Thanks in advance

 

[swandy]

You can set your MacBook preferences in Photos and choose "Download Originals to this Mac". That way your Mac's library will keep the originals and any photos you take with your iPhone, etc. will be sent to iCloud and then downloaded in full size to your Mac.
However, you can't tell iCloud only to upload "small" photos. The idea is that all the full size files are in iCloud. The system can then only send smaller versions to your devices to view. (It will download full size versions temporarily when you wish to edit or email a photo from your iPhone.) For example my Photos library on my iMac is 736 GB but on my iPhone 12 it is only 14.75GB for the same library.
So you would have to purchase a larger iCloud storage amount. I did (but I had just cancelled another service that I was using for iCloud backup).