Considering iCloud Photos, but...

[Anders P. A.]

I have a 250GB Photos library. It doesn't fit on my Mac, so I keep it on an external drive at home. I'd really like to have access when I am elsewhere. The question...

1. Can I keep my library on the external drive, set as my system library – and then have another library on my Mac that shows just thumbnails and full res of cause if I choose to view a photo.

2. If I add photos to my local/synced library, I suppose it will be added to my system library next time I connect the external disc and open the "real" library, right?

3. But then, what happens to the large files I add through my local/synced library – can I delete them (or just the full res version) without also deleting the photo from iCloud and my real Library?

Just not really sure about how this all works! 🙁

Hope someone can help me out.

Thanks
🙂 Anders

 

[NazgulRR]

This won't work unfortunately. I wish it did - I was asking the same thing in a thread of mine for very much the same reason.

The only way to get this to work is if the two libraries - the iCloud optimised one and the iCloud full res one - are on two separate user accounts on the same Mac.

 

[manu chao]

This won't work unfortunately. I wish it did - I was asking the same thing in a thread of mine for very much the same reason.

The only way to get this to work is if the two libraries - the iCloud optimised one and the iCloud full res one - are on two separate user accounts on the same Mac.

Otherwise you could access the whole library on your Mac while without your external drive via the iCloud.com website.