Problem with large Apple Photos Library

[swandy]

I have a rather large photo library (over 75,000 photos). They are on my iMac in a Lightroom library (hate Apple for discontinuing Aperture but that is another story). My wife and I also share an iCloud Photo Library using the Photo app on two iMacs, two iPhones and two iPad Mini which has about 3500 photos (some taken with the devices, some saved from Facebook and some that I added). But she is always complaining (OK - commenting) that she wants more of our older photos in her Photos library on her iMac. But if I add let's say 20,000 of the family/party/travel photos to her Photos library, all those photos will also be added to Photos on our iPhones and iPads. And even using the Optimize option in settings, I am sure that it will still take up quite a lot of space on the devices because the current Photos app with as I said about 3500 photos takes up 6.6GB of memory.

The question is - aside from turning OFF iCloud Photo Library in Photos on her iMac (really don't want to do that because then all the new photos won't be sent to her computer), what are my other options?

 

[fiveainone]

Just to be clear, your 3500 photos are taking up 6.6GB of disk space, not memory. Your iPhone either has 16gb/32gb/64gb/128gb of disk space, with 1 or 2GB of memory.

Unless you're strapped on disk space on her iMac and don't have 50gb of disk space to spare, you can just add the 20,000 photos without problem.

If she doesn't have the 50gb of disk space, you can keep the old photos off of iCloud by creating a separate "old photos" photo library. Then you can store these on an external drive. I have lots of separate libraries like oldphotos.photolibrary, vacations.photolibrary, etc. Since you can only have one iCloud library (by checking the box in preferences and have it on your system drive,) any other ones you keep on the same drive won't sync iCloud.

If she wants them on the iCloud, you'll just have to pay $0.99 cent for 50gb storage, and add away. I think iOS would cap it at certain point as not use up your whole phone's storage space, but all the high res will be in iCloud. Since according to Apple,

"With Optimize Storage, smaller, space-saving photos and videos are kept on your device while all of your original, full-resolution versions are stored in iCloud. And as long as you have enough space in iCloud, you can store as many photos and videos as you want."