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MonstaMash

macrumors regular
Original poster
I have roughly 30GB of pictures/videos in the Photos app on my old MacBook. I have purchased the iCloud storage upgrade, so all of these appear on my iPhone and iPad as well.

I recently purchased a new MacBook. I prefer to set this new device up fresh, only transferring over the individual files that I want.

So I will be transferring over my iTunes library, some documents and then a few movies. What about my photos and pictures? If I add these files to my new MacBook will iCloud Photo Library detect that these are "hard copies" so to speak, and not duplicate them in the cloud? Or do I even need to transfer them over, as iCloud will download the originals to my new MacBook? Seeking some clarification here - thanks in advance.
 
Photos should just get the pictures from your iCloud storage. I don't think you'll have to manually transfer anything photo related.
 
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