Storing photos

[zoran]

I want to transfer the pics I have in my dads iPad and dads iCloud to the Photos app that’s on my MBP. The reason is to free space on the iPad and stop the iCloud subscription.
Can I place them in Photos but as a different account from the one I have in my laptop?

 

[mmkerc]

You can create a different library to store the file in. When you open Photos hold down the option key and a dialog box will pop up for you to chose which library you want to open (if you have multiple) or to create a new one. The other option is to create a user account for your Dad on your Mac then import the photos under his user account.

 

[zoran]

You can create a different library to store the file in. When you open Photos hold down the option key and a dialog box will pop up for you to chose which library you want to open (if you have multiple) or to create a new one. The other option is to create a user account for your Dad on your Mac then import the photos under his user account.

The library solution seems the way to go. But can I store iCloud and iPad pics there? How will I import them?

 

[mmkerc]

Copy the files to your MBP, create the library, and import them into Photos. In the case of the iPad you can connect (hard wire) the iPad to your MBP and import directly into the Photos library you create. You maybe able to import directly from iCloud but I have never tried that method.

 

[zoran]

How can i know if all the photos that are contained in my iPad re also in the iCloud?

 

[mmkerc]

You do not mention how many files we are talking about 100, 1000, 10000? Assuming it is less than a few thousand I typically will do the brute force method by copying all the iPad files to your MBP in one folder, and the iCloud files to another folder, sort both folders the same way (by name, and view as a list) and quickly compare. You can of course use a duplicate file finder program like Tidy Up or Duplicate File Finder.

 

[zoran]

Yes ok. I suppose that once iCloud and iPad files are downloaded in one folder, then the duplicates should have same name and time stamp... correct?

 

[mmkerc]

Well I was suggesting downloading to individual folders not knowing the volume of files. However what you suggest will work for the names, the time stamps sometime get wonky. I would look at the name and the size.

The reason for the two folders is my first check is the number of files. if both folders have the same number of files I would then only spot check the files to see if they were the same or not.

 

[RhetTbull]

See these instructions from Apple on how to transfer photos from the iPad to the Mac. It sounds like the iPad is using iCloud photos. You'll want to ensure that under Settings > Your iCloud Account > iCloud > Photos you have "Download and keep originals" set on the iPad to ensure the full size originals can be copied over. If the iPad doesn't have enough space, you could login to his iCloud on your Mac via Safari and download manually or use the iCloud Photos Downloader tool to download them. Once you transfer the files over you can import them into a new Photos library as others have mentioned in this thread.

If you want to preserve the metadata (keywords, albums, etc.) from his photos in the new library, iCloud Photos Downloader might help (I don't personally use it) but I've also built a tool that can do this. My free/open source osxphotos command line tool includes a sync command that can read the Photos database on the iPad and then sync the metadata to the new library on the Mac. If this is something you want to do let me know and I'll walk you through the steps. You'll need the app iMazing (free version is sufficient) to mount the iPad file system onto the Mac.