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Back Up My Mac Photos Library

Dec 11, 2018  You can always switch back to the regular library when you need to. Double click the backup library to open it, then open the preferences for Photos from Photos Preferences in the menubar. Select “Use as System Photos Library,” which will change the default to the new library. Back Up Your Drive Automatically With Time Machine. Backing up files manually is not the best solution, as. You can select the “Upload Photos” button to use your operating system’s file explorer to select photos or, more conveniently, simply drag and drop photos right onto the browser pane. Either way, you’ll see an upload meter in the lower left corner. Once it wraps up, you’re free to browse your photos. Nov 09, 2018  Find the Photos Library on your Mac, it will be in your Pictures folder. Click the Go menu on the top and then select Home option from the menu. Open the Pictures folder and there you will find the Photos library. TIP: In order to see how much storage your photos have taken. How to use ChronoSync to back up your Photos Library Start by simply copying your Photos Library over to the external hard drive or whatever storage device you want to use. (Your Photos Library is.

If you want your Mac's photos to wirelessly sync to all your other iOS devices and computers, you want to set up iCloud Photo Library: Apple's photo sync service lets you back up your images on all your devices, as well as access them — online or offline — on said devices. If you're willing to pay for the extra iCloud storage space, you can store an incredible amount of photos and videos, all accessible at the touch of a button or multi-touch screen.

Jan 25, 2017  I was having a bunch of weird issues with iBooks for Mac, so I deleted the folder 'com.apple.BKAgentService' hoping to be able to force ibooks to rebuild it's library. Now, when I launch iBooks, I get a message saying 'iBooks can't access your library' 'Make sure the disk containing your library is connected, then click Try Again. Reset wifi mac library. Jan 20, 2020  Mac WiFi Problems are one of the common issues for Mac users. Many of them complained their Mac won’t to WiFi while their friend’s Mac doesn’t have that problem. WiFi issues can be caused by many factors, such as a WiFi network scheme, the router settings, and so on. If you are facing this issue, we have some solutions that may help you.

  • Oct 15, 2018  How to Back Up up your Photos Library (Mac) October 15, 2018 by Roger Hyttinen. If you use Apple’s iCloud Photo library, your images are automatically synced to iCloud. However, my experience has shown that one should not depend solely on one backup source, especially when working with irreplaceable files such as your photos and videos.
  • Nov 20, 2016  In this video, I'll show you how to safely move your Photos library to an external hard disk and free up an amazing amount of space in the process.
  • Aug 19, 2018  Backblaze will automatically back up all your files including documents, photos, music, and movies. Unlimited files. So as I add new pictures to my library from my Mac (or take Photos on my.

Here's how to set it up on your Mac and get everything configured to your liking!

How to set up iCloud Photo Library on your Mac

Back Up My Mac

  1. Launch the Photos app on your Mac.
  2. Select the Photos menu in the upper left corner of your screen.
  3. Go to Preferences.
  4. Click on the iCloud tab.

    Source: iMore

  5. Check 'iCloud Photos.' This will begin uploading any and all images you have stored in the Photos app to iCloud.

    Source: iMore

How to optimize your photo and video storage

If you routinely shoot 4K video or high-quality images on your iPhone, iPad, or DSLR, you may run out of storage space fast. (I have a 1TB iMac, but also have almost a terabyte of 4K video stored in iCloud — it gets unwieldy, fast!) This is especially true if you have a Mac laptop with limited hard drive space: It's nice to look at your iPhone's gorgeous Portrait mode photos, but not necessarily always practical to store all of them locally.

How To Back Up Apple Photos Library

Thankfully, Apple offers an Optimize Storage option, which lets you store full-resolution photos and videos of only your most recently shot and accessed imagery; all older photos and videos are available to download via iCloud and are stored as low-resolution previews on your device to save space. You can switch between optimizing your Mac's photos storage or storing your full library locally: Here's how!

Note: If you plan on using Optimize Storage, we suggest having at least one device that stores your entire library locally (usually a Mac with a large local or external hard drive), so you have multiple backups of your photographs and video.

  1. Launch the Photos app on your Mac.
  2. Click Photos in the App menu in the upper left corner of your screen.
  3. Select Preferences from the drop-down menu.

    Source: iMore

  4. Click the iCloud tab.
  5. Click Optimize Mac Storage.

    Source: iMore

Full-resolution versions of your photos and videos will be uploaded to iCloud.

How to share photos with iCloud Photo Library

Apple's photo service doesn't just provide online backups and sync for your images and video: The company also offers a free sharing service that allows you to send shared albums to friends and family (or create a publicly-shared website). Here's how to turn it on for your Mac.

Questions?

Let us know in the comments below.

Updated January 2020: Updated for macOS Catalina. Serenity Caldwell worked on a previous version of this post

iCloud Photo Library: The Ultimate Guide

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Have you ever had trouble finding a photo and feared the worst — that you accidentally deleted it? Or maybe you’ve heard a friend bemoan of how their hard drive failed and they lost everything from pictures of their firstborn to that once-in-a-lifetime selfie with Michael Jordan?

After taking a moment to realize how fortunate you’ve been to have not lost any pics yourself, you probably think, “I should start backing up my photos.” Well, you’ve found the right article. We’re going to go through a few solutions for backing up your Mac and, more specifically, your photo collection. Because while losing an important piece of work is tragic, it’s usually replaceable. The moments that your pictures represent are fleeting, and there’s no way to recreate them.

Before you back up your photos

There’s truth to the adage garbage in, garbage out. So before you even ask yourself, “How do I back up my photos?” you’ll want to make sure your photo library is cleaned up. Space is precious, so backing up duplicate and almost-duplicate pictures will be a waste. Thankfully, a Mac app like Gemini 2 can help you unclutter your photos before you back them up. And the best part is, you can download it for free to give it a try.

Best ways to back up your photos on Mac

As mentioned earlier, there are a couple ways to go about backing up your photos. The ones we’re going to go over are:

  1. iCloud
  2. Time Machine
  3. Google Photos
  4. External hard drive

After reading this article, you’ll be able to weigh out the cost versus convenience for each of these options and see which one works best for you. At the end of the day, the best way to backup photos is the one that’s easy for you to use on a regular basis.

Back Up My Mac Photos Library

iCloud for cloud-based photo backup

The first method is the one that comes standard with your Mac and doesn’t require you to install any additional software. iCloud is cloud-based storage made by Apple and available to anyone with an AppleID. Using iCloud to back up photos is easy thanks to automatic backups and syncing, built into both iPhone and Mac. All you have to do is make sure iCloud is turned on on each device, and you’re all set.

The catch, as there always is, is that you only get 5 GB for free. And that includes not only photos, but also anything else you decide to store on your iCloud drive. Additional storage can be purchased and is fairly affordable compared to other cloud storages.

How to back up photos to iCloud

Backing up to iCloud depends on the device you’re using. Since we’re talking about Mac here, this is how you set up iCloud backup in macOS: setting we’re going to go through how to do it on both iPhone and Mac.

  1. Go to System Preferences > iCloud
  2. Click Options next to Photos
  3. Select iCloud Photos

Back Up Apple Photos Library Metadata

After you turn on iCloud Photos, you’ll get access to other options for syncing and sharing your photos.

This might be helpful: The beginner’s guide to iCloud Photo Sharing

Time Machine to back up your photos and everything else

The next type of backup veers away from the cloud-based model. Time Machine is the built-in Mac application that will automatically backup your Mac to an external hard drive. Which means you will have to buy an external drive or use a network drive, but the bright side is as long as you have the hard drive plugged in your Mac will be backed up.

One of the major benefits to Time Machine is that it’s a differential backup. That means that after the initial backup it will only back up the files that are new and/or changed. So every backup after the first one will be faster because, in theory, it’s backing up fewer files.

Does Time Machine back up my photo library?

There can be some confusion as to what Time Machine backs up once it’s configured. Simply put, it backs up everything, including any photos stored on your Mac.

That being said the easiest way to search for photos and/or restore things from your backup is to ensure you’re using the Photos app on your computer. If you just have random photos scattered throughout your Mac it can be harder to track those down, whereas Photos helps you keep your library organized.

How to set up a Time Machine backup

Once you plug an external hard drive into your Mac, you should be automatically prompted to use the drive with Time Machine. iIf you’re not, you can do it manually:

  1. Go to Apple > System Preferences > Time Machine
  2. Click Select Disk
  3. In the Time Machine preferences window, select your external drive from the list of available disks
  4. Then click Use Disk

If the hard drive is not formatted properly to be used with Time Machine, you’ll be prompted to format it. You’ll also notice an option to encrypt the hard drive and your backup, which adds an extra level of security in case you misplace the external drive.

Google Photos for a free photo backup

The next option is another cloud-based backup solution, Google Photos. While not as well-integrated into iPhone and Mac as iCloud, Google Photos offers equally easy setup and ongoing backups.

The biggest difference between Google Photos and iCloud though is that with Google Photos you can store an unlimited amount of pictures — as long as you agree to have those photos compressed. While most people won’t notice the difference between compressed and uncompressed photos, it’s still something worth noting. If you choose to upload your images at full quality, you’ll be using your Google Drive space, of which you get 15GB for free. Additional storage can be purchased.

Or you can empty them out of the library in the Finder.This Mac 911 article is in response to a question submitted by Macworld reader Alison. Ask Mac 911We’ve compiled a list of the questions we get asked most frequently along with answers and links to columns: to see if your question is covered. Mac export photos library. Email yours to including screen captures as appropriate, and whether you want your full name used. If not, we’re always looking for new problems to solve!

How to back up photos to Google Photos

Like iCloud, Google handles backups on a per-device basis, but in this case we’ll be covering how to set up a Google Photos backup on Mac:

  1. Download and install the Google Backup and Sync app on your Mac
  2. Sign in with your Google Account
  3. Select whether to back up only photos or videos or all files
  4. Select all folders you want to back up
  5. Under “Photo & video upload size,” select your upload quality
  6. Click Start
This might be helpful: Best photo sharing sites you can use for free

External hard drive: The old school way to back up pictures

This last option will definitely take the most manual labor. On the other hand, using an external hard drive will give you the most control over what you’re backing up, and many prefer to have it the old-fashioned way. Whether you’re using Photos, another photo manager, or just have pictures scattered around your Mac, you’ll be able to back them up. It’ll just take you a little bit of time to do it yourself.

How to back up photos to an external hard drive

Back Up Apple Photos Library

  1. Open Finder > Pictures (or wherever your images are)
  2. Select your Photos Library, the folder you want to back up, or individual files
  3. Drag and drop the file onto your external hard drive in the left column.

While this method gives you the most freedom and assurance that you’re backing up exactly what you want, if you make any changes to your Photo Library on Mac, you’ll have to back it up all over again.

TIP:
As you back up and re-back up photos to an external drive, eventually you might find it riddled with duplicates. Gemini 2, the Mac app we mentioned earlier, can also scan your external HDD for duplicate photos, making it easy to delete them.

Now that you’ve got some idea on how to back up your photos, it’s time to get started. The most important thing to keep in mind is that a backup is only as good as the last time it was done. So back up your pictures early, and back them up often. And if you’re truly worried about it — why only have just one photo backup? Combine a cloud-based option with an external HDD and sleep well knowing your memories are safe.