icloud shared photo library backup question…

[shamus99]

Hello… My family is trying out the new icloud photo feature. We were able to back up the photos on our mac mini before, but dont see that option now. We do not have Ventura, is that why? Is there another way to back up our photos?
Thanks…

 

[shamus99]

anyone?

 

[shamus99]

anyone??? We would like to back up our shared library but have an older mac mini. Any other way??

 

[bhagemann]

I do exactly this. The mini needs to be setup with Apple Photos signed in to iCloud and using the shared library. Then in Photos settings under the iCloud section pick "Download Originals to this Mac" and they'll all be copied from the iCloud library and also stored locally. Then you can backup the photos library from the mini to any other HD/SSD or shared drive if you need to as well.

 

[shamus99]

This works with the new shared library feature? I thought I needed Ventura on the mac to get this to work?

Are you sure its shared library and not shared album?

 

[bhagemann]

hmmm.. good question. I answered too quick ;-) I actually use it for "icloud photos" and it works great but not sure about "shared library" backup. I've been very reluctant to startup the new-ish shared library feature with my partner because I don't trust that turning it on won't mess up something, but probably need to try it because it solves our problem of each taking photos of the kid, trips and so on and neither has the whole set. Seems like it SHOULD allow you to save all if you "download originals" though? Let us know if you try it and see?

 

[shamus99]

I have tried it… thats why Im here.

 

[bhagemann]

So to be clear, with the new "Shared Library" feature, it won't download them all if you have the computer set to 'download originals' ? Thats crazy, if my wife and I share libraries, I'd want them to all download that way automatically like it does now for a normal library. Maybe there's a way to do it manually in one place. Right now, we have mutiple users setup on our main iMac, and when each person logs in, their 'local' folder version of Photos DOES download all THEIR photos, so we got both covered, but was hoping to consolidate.

 

[BigMcGuire]

From someone who turned on Shared Photo Library with my wife when it first came out. Be warned, it takes a long time for Apple Photos to process things and download everything. Just let it do its thing even if it isn't looking like it is doing anything.

We chose to combine libraries. It put everything into one big album called Shared Photo Album. After everything was said and done (it took awhile) - it was not easy to try to figure out who took what photo - if I took them or my wife took them because it was in one big album with all of our photos together.

Well, we didn't like that. So we undid it. And it worked - it put everything back - sure took awhile and freaked us out a little bit, but we eventually got our photos back into our own libraries.

The lack of being able to differentiate whose photos were whose was a big nope from us.

We MIGHT turn it back on for photos going forward where we are in the same location, but ... we haven't done that yet.


When we did have our libraries combined, it treated everything like it was a single library and yes, it downloaded all the photos to my Mac. So ... <shrug> that was my experience. I use my Mac as "download originals" and my iPhone/iPad as optimized.