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Photos app & iCloud
- Thread starter Dr pepper
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On your Mac
Open /Pictures/ and locate the Photos Library file
Right-Click and select Show Package Contents
Navigate to Masters to find your original Photos pictures
They are organized folders by Year > Month > Day
Open /Pictures/ and locate the Photos Library file
Right-Click and select Show Package Contents
Navigate to Masters to find your original Photos pictures
They are organized folders by Year > Month > Day
Thank you. Wow what a hot mess. So many sub folders. Maybe I should approach this a different way. What I want to do is to either make a copy of the files or download the files from iCloud so I can have an additional backup. What's the best way to do this?
Thanks
Why not just copy the Photos Library file to to your backup drive, or open the package contents and just copt the Masters folder to your external drive?
But IMHO the easiest way is to just have an external drive and set it as a Time Machine backup. Then your Mac is constantly backing up for all your files.
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201250
Ok thank you. Speaking of library files, do I still need my old iPhoto library file or can I delete it?
That's what databases look like.
If you're using iCloud Photo Library, you could consider the library on your Mac to be a backup. iCloud Photo Library is your off-site backup, Photos Library on your Mac is a duplicate of that. If you backup your entire Mac (say, with Time Machine), then you're covered with both on-site and off-site backup.
If you're not backing up your entire Mac (and don't want to), the easiest is to simply backup/copy the entire Photos Library. Most of the space in the library is due to the original image files (despite all the folders and other files you find in there). If something happens to your Mac, then restoring the library gets Photos back up in running order, with all the organization and edits you performed. If you only have the original images backed up, you've potentially lost a whole lot of hard work.
If you are not using iCloud Photo Library, that backup of the entire library is essential. If you are using iCloud Photo Library, than backing up the entire database is not as essential, as you'll get it all back from the cloud, but it's still a very good idea.
If the time comes that you want/need to extract the original images from the library, do it then. I often run into people who say things like, "I really don't have to backup everything, just the things I need." I usually reply with a quote from a Joni Mitchell song, "Don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone?" A 1 TB external HDD costs less than 10 rolls of color film (with processing).
As to downloading from iCloud - presuming you're using iCloud Photo Library, that's automatic. Go into Photos > Preferences > iCloud and select Download Originals to this Mac to be sure you have full-resolution images on your Mac.
If you're not using iCloud Photo Library, then be sure that System Preferences > iCloud has My Photo Stream selected, and confirm that in Photos > Preferences > iCloud. That will automatically import photos that are added to My Photo Stream on your other devices.
If Photos has finished importing your photos and you don't plan on using iPhoto/Aperture anymore you can delete the iPhoto Library file. I removed mine after all my photos were migrated.
I'll just ask a question here instead of starting a new thread.
When I set up Photos, I chose not to turn on iCloud Photo Library. Nevertheless, all of my iPhone photos are now mixed up with all of my 'good' photos (taken with my DSLR). I'm not sure how/why this happened and I wish it had warned me first. I'm guessing it's because Photos will automatically download ANY photos associated with your iCloud account, even though it's not enabled on your mac? I looked and found that iCloud Photo Library is enabled on my iPhone.
At first I hated this and wanted to immediately undo it; however, now I figure I might as well leave it, as Photos has already screwed up my prior organization by relegating all of my events to an iPhoto subgroup.
My question is: How do I get rid of a photo from my iPhone that I don't want? Do I now have to delete it in two places? Or will deleting it from my phone sync with iCloud and also remove it from Photos on my mac? If not, might be the deal breaker for me. I've got a ton of crap on my phone that I need to delete and no way I want to do that twice.
When I set up Photos, I chose not to turn on iCloud Photo Library. Nevertheless, all of my iPhone photos are now mixed up with all of my 'good' photos (taken with my DSLR). I'm not sure how/why this happened and I wish it had warned me first. I'm guessing it's because Photos will automatically download ANY photos associated with your iCloud account, even though it's not enabled on your mac? I looked and found that iCloud Photo Library is enabled on my iPhone.
At first I hated this and wanted to immediately undo it; however, now I figure I might as well leave it, as Photos has already screwed up my prior organization by relegating all of my events to an iPhoto subgroup.
My question is: How do I get rid of a photo from my iPhone that I don't want? Do I now have to delete it in two places? Or will deleting it from my phone sync with iCloud and also remove it from Photos on my mac? If not, might be the deal breaker for me. I've got a ton of crap on my phone that I need to delete and no way I want to do that twice.
If you are syncing all your devices using the iCloud Photo Library, when you delete the photo from one device it will remove the photo from all devices that sync to the iCloud photo Library. so you only have to delete a photo/video once to remove it from all devices.
When photos/videos are deleted they are moved to a recently deleted area where they sit for up to 40 days so you can recover accidentally deleted items. But you can go in and immediately delete them if you want instead of waiting for them to automatically be purged.
Here's the thing, though: I did not enable iCloud Photo Library on my mac. Yet when I started it the first time, it downloaded all of the photos off my iPhone (which does have iCPL enabled).
Am I correct in assuming that enabling iCPL in Photos has only the effect of uploading photos from my mac to iCloud, but regardless of whether it's enabled Photos will still download all photos from other devices on iCPL from same account?