My first Mac - photos help

[JamesMay82]

Hello,

I’ve had a iPhone for years and I’ve just got my first Macbook which is a 15 inch Air with 256GB And 8 gig of ram. I’ve been syncing all my photos and videos to the iCloud on the phone which it says its using 217GB. With the photos and now my other computer files etc it won’t let me download the original photos and videos on my new MacBook Air because I don’t have enough space.

My question… Is is safe enough to just let my photos and videos get stored in iCloud or should I be returning the MacBook Air and get one with a larger hard drive So I can keep them stored locally in full resolution?

Thanks

 

[Fishrrman]

If it was me, I'd return the MBair and get one with 16gb of RAM and at least a 512gb SSD.

8gb really "isn't quite enough" for Apple Silicon, and the small SSD size (as you have already discovered) will "restrain you" in the future.

Put up the extra $$$ now, and "do it right".

(actually if it was me, I'd get a MacBook Pro... either 14" or 16"... but more $$$, of course)

 

[Slartibart]

How is your general computer knowledge? While this is your first Mac, you had e.g. a Windows-PC before? I ask, because there is a way to download all your iCloud photos (and videos) but it involves using the terminal.

Otherwise a bigger internal SSD brings freedom of mind - not only for the scenario you are currently facing. You probably should exchange. 🤓

 

[JamesMay82]

How is your general computer knowledge? While this is your first Mac, you had e.g. a Windows-PC before? I ask, because there is a way to download all your iCloud photos (and videos) but it involves using the terminal.

Otherwise a bigger internal SSD brings freedom of mind - not only for the scenario you are currently facing. You probably should exchange. 🤓

That’s interesting about terminal, how does that work?

I mean I don’t mind it living in the cloud as my only back up but how safe is it to rely just on that?

Could I keep my mac and phone with the optimised photos and then would that terminal app allow me to download the photos from the cloud to an external drive In full resolution?

 

[Slartibart]

At least the internal 256Gb SSD is small. This might require future acts of fiddling with your setup you simply do not have to address with a 512GB one.

In any case I commented in another thread about how to download all iCloud photos directly to an external SSD. If you plan to mange your photos with Apple’s Photos you still have to create a new library on the external drive and import your images into it. While, when your internal SSD has sufficient space, you just can just copy the Photos library to the external drive in the Finder and open and work with it in Apple’s Photos as described in the Apple Support document I linked.

 

[JamesMay82]

Thanks for this but I think I’ve found a flaw! I went to download a raw photo from iCloud.com and it lists the file as raw with a 24.9MB size in a ARW format but when I download from icloud it downloads as a 5.5MB Jpeg file.

Any ideas?

 

[Slartibart]

ARW is a RAW format my Sony Alphas produce. Any RAW file will occupy much more space then a PNG, compressed TIFF or - of course - a lossy JPEG.

 

[Jay Tee]

Keep in mind that Time Machine only backs-up data that's on your local SSD.

Assuming Optimise Mac Storage is ON, once you're low on SSD storage, MacOS will keep less frequently used files in iCloud only, without a local copy, and thus will not be backed-up by Time Machine.

With Optimise Mac Storage turned OFF, the whole iCloud Drive is both local, and synced to the iCloud servers. Time Machine will now backup your iCloud Drive files.

Get the 16GB RAM and 512GB storage, and an external drive for your Time Machine backups. It'll be thoroughly worth it.

 

[Fravin]

My question… Is is safe enough to just let my photos and videos get stored in iCloud or should I be returning the MacBook Air and get one with a larger hard drive So I can keep them stored locally in full resolution?

You don't need to download all the originals to your computer. You can trust in iCloud to keep the originals. Let the Photos app manage the downloads. By default, it will download a small image for visualization purposes. And once you need to export the pictures it will download the originals.

 

[Allen_Wentz]

Hello,

I’ve had a iPhone for years and I’ve just got my first Macbook which is a 15 inch Air with 256GB And 8 gig of ram. I’ve been syncing all my photos and videos to the iCloud on the phone which it says its using 217GB. With the photos and now my other computer files etc it won’t let me download the original photos and videos on my new MacBook Air because I don’t have enough space.

My question… Is is safe enough to just let my photos and videos get stored in iCloud or should I be returning the MacBook Air and get one with a larger hard drive So I can keep them stored locally in full resolution?

Thanks

Others have provided sound advice. But alas, do not consider Apple's Photos as a bombproof app; it is not. Anomalies continue to exist. Why I do not know, because Apple's Aperture was bombproof before Apple deprecated it and moved us all to Photos.

Use of the Cloud like Fravin suggested is a very good thing. Remote Cloud storage provides security against theft, fire, floods, etc. At the same time, IMO a copy of full-size originals should live on local mass storage (SSD and HDD are both cheap) as well for lots of reasons.

 

[Fravin]

At the same time, IMO a copy of full-size originals should live on local mass storage (SSD and HDD are both cheap) as well for lots of reasons.

I do this too. You never know when something bad will happen.

I keep the originals in an external hdd and a copy of all files in Onedrive too. Every new download from the camera's card, everything is synced to Onedrive and manually copied to my HDD.

 

[JamesMay82]

ARW is a RAW format my Sony Alphas produce. Any RAW file will occupy much more space then a PNG, compressed TIFF or - of course - a lossy JPEG.

I understand that but I mean if I view the photos in iCloud.com safari browser it will list that photo as a raw photo but when I download it from iCloud it’s converting it to a JPEG.. basically I can’t download the full resolution photo from iCloud.com.

It does download the resolution if I export from the actual photos app though. All seems quite odd why it would do that

 

[JamesMay82]

I do this too. You never know when something bad will happen.

I keep the originals in an external hdd and a copy of all files in Onedrive too. Every new download from the camera's card, everything is synced to Onedrive and manually copied to my HDD.

So if I keep all my photos and videos in the cloud on my new Mac as optimised I should then buy an external drive to export the full resolution versions for a back up? And then once I’ve done the big initial export I should manually do this on a monthly basis or say after a big trip/photo session?

Would you say that’s the best solution?

Apologies for all the questions, I’m just trying to get my head around the cloud storage as I don’t want to risk losing my images

 

[Fravin]

So if I keep all my photos and videos in the cloud on my new Mac as optimised I should then buy an external drive to export the full resolution versions for a back up? And then once I’ve done the big initial export I should manually do this on a monthly basis or say after a big trip/photo session?

Yes! That's exactly what I do.

As an extra precaution, I copied the content stored in the HDD to Onedrive.

 

[Allen_Wentz]

So if I keep all my photos and videos in the cloud on my new Mac as optimised I should then buy an external drive to export the full resolution versions for a back up? And then once I’ve done the big initial export I should manually do this on a monthly basis or say after a big trip/photo session?

Would you say that’s the best solution?

Apologies for all the questions, I’m just trying to get my head around the cloud storage as I don’t want to risk losing my images

Yes. Do both. Never, ever exclusively trust Apple. Apple has repeatedly proven that they will **** us hard by arbitrarily taking enterprise-critical things away (e.g. apps like MacProject and Aperture) after encouraging us for years to build enterprise-critical workflows around their stuff.

But Apple's stuff is hella convenient and the Cloud is hella good security against many disasters like fire and theft. Before the Cloud achieving security against disasters like fire and theft was incredibly difficult (hard drives being swapped daily into the trunk of the car, etc.).

In today's world terrorism or an Apple whim or whatever might compromise the Cloud storage, in which case cheap local drives holding originals would be invaluable.

So do both.

 

[Fravin]

Thanks for this but I think I’ve found a flaw! I went to download a raw photo from iCloud.com and it lists the file as raw with a 24.9MB size in a ARW format but when I download from icloud it downloads as a 5.5MB Jpeg file.

Any ideas?

Ow, I missed that. That's right. Don't know why. Perhaps the browser can't understand the RAW file?

 

[Slartibart]

when you download you can choose »unmodified original« - that will download the original RAW.

I am slightly surprised, that nobody seems to look at the guides Apple provides. 🤷‍♀️

 

[Fravin]

when you download you can choose »unmodified original« - that will download the original RAW.

I am slightly surprised, that nobody seems to look at the guides Apple provides. 🤷‍♀️

iCloud.com won't download RAW files into RAW format, no matter what you do.

It shows RAW files as JPEG. Don't know why.

Try it.

 

[JamesMay82]

iCloud.com won't download RAW files into RAW format, no matter what you do.

It shows RAW files as JPEG. Don't know why.

Try it.

View attachment 2235518

Yeah very odd and a disaster waiting to happen if someone didn’t realise as they would end up losing their raw images.

Thanks for tips above and I shall do that. It makes sense. My sister once got logged out of her Apple ID and got fully locked out of her account and lost loads of photos. I shall have a go setting it up.

 

[JamesMay82]

Yes. Do both. Never, ever exclusively trust Apple. Apple has repeatedly proven that they will f*ck us hard by arbitrarily taking enterprise-critical things away (e.g. apps like MacProject and Aperture) after encouraging us for years to build enterprise-critical workflows around their stuff.

But Apple's stuff is hella convenient and the Cloud is hella good security against many disasters like fire and theft. Before the Cloud achieving security against disasters like fire and theft was incredibly difficult (hard drives being swapped daily into the trunk of the car, etc.).

In today's world terrorism or an Apple whim or whatever might compromise the Cloud storage, in which case cheap local drives holding originals would be invaluable.

So do both.

Thanks for the tips as well.

I also noticed that the photos library is in what they call a packedaged container. I’m not sure how easy that could corrupt but that’s another reason to keep local back up in a traditional folder structure.

Preventative maintenance as they say

 

[Slartibart]

iCloud.com won't download RAW files into RAW format, no matter what you do.

It shows RAW files as JPEG. Don't know why.

Try it.

View attachment 2235518

if you select multiple RAWs and choose download, the generated .zip-archive contains JPGs on your devices? 😬

EDIT: you shoot RAW+JPEG and upload these to iCloud?

 

[Fravin]

if you select multiple RAWs and choose download, the generated .zip-archive contains JPGs on your devices? 😬

EDIT: you shoot RAW+JPEG and upload these to iCloud?

I shoot only in RAW and I upload everything on it.

icloud.com doesn't seam to work with raw files, don't know why. The RAW files appear like JPEGs and while downloaded it is JPEG. Crazy thing. If @JamesMay82 hadn't said that, I would never know.

 

[JamesMay82]

I shoot only in RAW and I upload everything on it.

icloud.com doesn't seam to work with raw files, don't know why. The RAW files appear like JPEGs and while downloaded it is JPEG. Crazy thing. If @JamesMay82 hadn't said that, I would never know.

What’s also weird and slightly off topic.. I just added a lossless audio track to Apple Music on my Mac and it loaded onto my iPhone but as 256 instead of lossless.. so it downgrades that as well

 

[splifingate]

Is is safe enough to just let my photos and videos get stored in iCloud

It is definitely safe-enough to store your photos/videos in iCloud.

If you--like I--are concerned about longevity, it's always easy (and quite wise) to create backups.

A co-worker of mine once shared that he lost innumerable photos of his children, entirely from having his iMac stolen in a residential heist (obv., he did not mirror to iCloud, at the time).

Personally, I have (and run) multi-TB of local storage, so making copies, of copies, of copies is not a problem.

I also institute multiple third-party cloud storage spaces, to which I save (even-more) copies.

To address your original concern: do feel-free to avail yourself of the benefits of iCloud

 

[AlixSPQR]

Hello,

I’ve had a iPhone for years and I’ve just got my first Macbook which is a 15 inch Air with 256GB And 8 gig of ram. I’ve been syncing all my photos and videos to the iCloud on the phone which it says its using 217GB. With the photos and now my other computer files etc it won’t let me download the original photos and videos on my new MacBook Air because I don’t have enough space.

My question… Is is safe enough to just let my photos and videos get stored in iCloud or should I be returning the MacBook Air and get one with a larger hard drive So I can keep them stored locally in full resolution?

Thanks

You risk at any time to lose all your cloud photos and videos since Apple may remove them for any reason.

”Apple reserves the right at all times to determine whether Content is appropriate and in compliance with this Agreement, and may prescreen, move, refuse, modify and/or remove Content at any time, without prior notice and in its sole discretion, if such Content is found to be in violation of this Agreement or is otherwise objectionable.”

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