iCloud Family Storage - How to backup family's individual Photos libraries?

[RedTomato]

I have iCloud 2TB Family Storage. Partner and I have Macbook Airs (with small SSDs), kids have iPhones. We all have our individual Photos libraries. All backed up to iCloud Family Shared Storage. All good so far.

I don't 100% trust iCloud, so I want to have a local backup of the iCloud Photos Libraries (they are too big to fit on our MBA's / iPhones, so Time Machine won't work here). Apple's advice is to download and backup to an external disk.

I can get a 4TB 2.5" disk, I can attach it to an old Mac Mini, no problem. However, my understanding it will only download Photos library updates for ONE user - the currently logged in active user.

There's 4 of us. How can I set the Mac Mini to backup and update all our Photo Libraries? I don't want to have to faff around with logging in and out of each account. If I set up 4 user accounts, connect them to their respective iCloud accounts, and leave them all logged in via Fast User Switching, will it keep all of them updated?

 

[davidmartindale]

Short Answer: Yes


Long Answer: Create the 4 separate user accounts, sign into their respective iCloud accounts, enable iCloud Photo Library for each account. Once enabled and synced, you can go into Photos and choose File>Export and export to a folder on the external HDD as JPGs or you can also move the Photos Library file to the drive through Finder.


Though if you go with the latter option just be sure the option for “Download and keep originals” is checked in the iCloud Photo Library preferences in Photos.

 

[RedTomato]

Short Answer: Yes
Long Answer: Create the 4 separate user accounts, sign into their respective iCloud accounts, enable iCloud Photo Library for each account. Once enabled and synced, you can go into Photos and choose File>Export and export to a folder on the external HDD as JPGs or you can also move the Photos Library file to the drive through Finder.

Though if you go with the latter option just be sure the option for “Download and keep originals” is checked in the iCloud Photo Library preferences in Photos.

Hi thanks for your reply. Yes I will be moving the various Photos Libraries to an external disk, and will check 'Download and keep originals'.

I don't quite understand, are you saying if I leave all 4 accounts logged in on the computer, it will automatically keep the libraries updated? I want to be able to put the Mac Mini in a corner and forget about it and leave it to do its job.

I don't want to have to manually log into every account and wait for iCloud to finish updating gigabytes.