Backup Photos offline - how?

[AppleMango]

Dear All,

I have about 30.000 Photos and 1500 Videos in the Photos app. And under SETTINGS-ICLOUD in the Photos app I have activated: Download Originals to this Mac.
So from what I understand, these photos are stored in iCloud for the other devices but available offline on my MBP wich I got a year ago.

-> Basically, if it weren't for this setting, there is no local, offline backup from these photos, right?

How do I get them offloaded onto an external HDD as well? Is that even possible? And is there like an automated way to do it or a workflow you use or any tips you have...

I'm very interested to hear about this, as I feel stupid to not figure it out. But to my defence, I've only entered the Mac-cosmos a year ago 🫣

What confuses me the most is, that I can't see the individual photos saved, it's just a "Photos Library.photoslibrary" file under Pictures.
And to add to the confusion: under Photos-Settings-General there is this path to the library under Pictures, but I don't seem to be able to change that path. Why would they show me the path then in the first place?


I really hope to get behind this.

Many thanks and all the best!

 

[turbineseaplane]

I use this App

It's excellent, very simple and crucially a one time purchase (not a subscription).

Photos Backup Anywhere

1-Click Photo Library Backup

photosbackup.app

 

[BigBlur]

You pretty much only have a few options:

• Backup the photo library file
• Export your photos manually
• Find an app or script that backs them up for you

What confuses me the most is, that I can't see the individual photos saved, it's just a "Photos Library.photoslibrary" file under Pictures.
And to add to the confusion: under Photos-Settings-General there is this path to the library under Pictures, but I don't seem to be able to change that path. Why would they show me the path then in the first place?

You can change/move it (or have multiple photo libraries) by holding down the Option key when opening Photos. Only one of the library can be synced to iCloud though.

Designate a System Photo Library in Photos - Apple Support

If you have multiple photo libraries on your Mac, you can choose which library to use with iCloud Photos and Shared Albums.

support.apple.com

 

[Brian33]

-> Basically, if it weren't for this setting, there is no local, offline backup from these photos, right?

Yes, that's right. Of course, you should be backing up your (fully-downloaded) 'Photos Library.photoslibrary' to other storage drives. So at least if something dreadful goes wrong with iCloud Photos and they all get deleted from all your devices, you can at least restore your '.photoslibrary' package (see below) and access your pictures sensibly with Photos.app again.

What confuses me the most is, that I can't see the individual photos saved, it's just a "Photos Library.photoslibrary" file under Pictures.

In Finder, 'Photos Library.photoslibrary' looks like a single file, but actually, it's a "package". A package is a folder (file system directory) that's handled specially by Finder. (Fun fact, Apps are also packages.)

Your individual photo files (e.g., jpgs, raw, whatever) can still be accessed, either in Terminal.app or from Finder. Just to satisfy your curiosity, in Finder, you can right-click the '.photoslibrary' package, and pick "Show Package Contents". Then you can browse to 'originals' and subfolders, where the actual image files are kept. (Rather inconveniently, they are renamed, but the original filename is still kept as an EXIF tag within the image file.)

I would NOT delete, change, or rename anything within the .photoslibrary package, though -- that's the domain of Photos.app itself!

And to add to the confusion: under Photos-Settings-General there is this path to the library under Pictures, but I don't seem to be able to change that path. Why would they show me the path then in the first place?

You are right you can't change the path there. I guess they show the path because you can have multiple Photos libraries at once. Only one can be opened at a time with Photos.app, and this is the way to see exactly which one you currently have open. Most people don't use multiple libraries, though.


I haven't used the app mentioned by @turbineseaplane, but I've read a bit about it and comments seemed good. If you want to back up your photos in a way that doesn't require Photos.app to display them logically, then Photos Backup Anywhere might be a good idea. There's also a free, powerful, command-line tool that can do the same thing: osxphotos Takes more effort but it's very well-documented and the author sometimes shows up in these forums: @RhetTbull

 

[ChrisA]

On a Mac, your #1 backup program is Time Machine. This should be the first thing you setup on a new Mac. But in addition....


Subscribe to a cloud backup service. For about $8 per month, Backblaze will backup EVERYTHING on your computer continuously. All the change history is kept for a time.

But the data has to be on your computer if it is to be backed up. The neat thing about versioned backup like this is it protects for accidental deletes and bad edits. You can roll back any changes.

If you want a local backup, you do NOT need a special app, simply use the Finder to drag the library to some external disk drive.

It's best to do both, local and cloud-based.