macos osx photos catalina

[whitecrook]

hi all

Very simple question:

1. I have a mbp with 200GB+ photos
2. I have download originals enabled
3. GOAL ONE I want to be able to maintain a complete 100% original file copy of my photos
4. I copy the photoslibrary file onto external disk for back up (it's also on my timemachine)
5. GOAL TWO I want to minimise storage on my mbp used by photos so I want to tick 'Optimise originals'
6. However this will prevent me from maintaining my backup as the mac will no longer house original photos.
7. QUESTION How do I then proceed to maintain a 100% original copy of my photos backed up and reduce the space used on my mbp ?

The only way I can think of is to literally buy another mac with enough storage and set that to download originals, and have my mac book pro act the same way my iphone does and store only optimised copies.

Do I really have to buy another mac to do this or is there another recognised way?

thanks all

 

[whitecrook]

Why do you need a backup if it’s all in iCloud?

because icloud is not a backup ?

Because if I tick optimise, and all my photos go to icloud I no longer have a local copy . Icloud is NOT a backup.


If I accidentally delete a photo, it's gone from icloud. If I have a backup, well then I have a backup.

If icloud has some kind of outage or data loss (its happened to other providers and WILL happen again), I want a backup copy.

 

[whitecrook]

If you delete a photo, it's in deleted items for 30 days. Cheapest option is to buy an external drive and store your photos there.

youve missed the whole point of the question

i dont want to carry an external drive around with me just to access my photos.

 

[whitecrook]

I've been thinking about this since I saw your thread yesterday and I think you're right. I did consider about setting up a second user account on your Mac and having that keep the originals but then of course, that kind of defeats the point of trying to save space.

My iPhone and my MB both keep optimised versions and my iMac has the full ones which is effectively the situation you've described.

im thinking mac mini with some tasty storage. Of course this can be external as the mac mini wont be ‘going’ anywhere. Have this machine download originals. Have a time machine of that machine and /or a cloned backup of the photos library to offsite. Then have ipad iphone and macbookpro all do optimised storage. This works particularly well for a family as they can all use this as the main ‘authoritive’ machine using user accounts. As long as they log in every so often so it can sync. Im not sure if photos sync (download orig from icloud) when you arent logged in.

Edit - i see what you mean re second account so have one as optimised and the other account with the library on an external as originals. Its maybe work but it still a bit pfaffy and doesn’t solve the multiple user issue very nicely as theres 2x mbp 4 ipads and 4 iphones in this family. My idea solves the iphone/ipad only users (kids) which wouldnt otherwise work

 

[whitecrook]

That's a very expensive way just to keep photos mind, that's a crazy way to do it.

It would be cheaper to buy another hard drive and create a batch script to automatically copy any new files to a secondary hard drive (Internal or external).


OR Buy more icloud storage and upload originals only.

Thanks for your reply. But You are still missing it. Tell me How does the 'original' photo get onto my hard drive when I take a picture on my iphone?

your 'OR' idea seems to indicate you don't know how icloud works. I have plenty icloud storage, and icloud always uploads the originals. The question is how do I get the originals back onto my own local storage, given I don't want them to clog my macbook up (so external storage) and given I want to have access to all my photos all the time. (so i can't just have a photo library on an external device because this is a laptop)

yes it's expensive, but seems to be no other way as Apple haven't made a icloud-> Timemachine mechanism yet.

 

[whitecrook]

Don't have them syncing to your mac then if you need the storage and when you need them just access your icloud and download them somewhere else.

If they don't sync to my mac, then I no longer have a local copy of the original photo, the exact thing I want to back up.

Icloud can be used as a backup if you have the storage capacity.

no, it can't.

I know exactly how icloud works I use it.

Then you should know it's not a backup and what I am asking for is not solved by any of your suggestions.

Can I ask you some questions about how you are using it in case you are inadvertently doing something that no one else seems to know how to do please?

Where is your second copy of your original photos?

How do you ensure photos from your iphone get included in this , above, copy of your original photos?

Do you have originals downloading to your mac book pro/laptop ? Or optimise only ?

If optimise, how do you manage getting a copy of the originals stored in a second location (location 1 being icloud photo)

Would what you are doing work for more than one user, who doesn't have an apple computer device, only an iphone and ipad?

thanks

 

[whitecrook]

The Original copy is stored in iCloud and you can either have "Download and keep Originals" turned on (for your device) or Optimise iPhone Storage. (Originals are still in the cloud).

Yes it can. If I lose my iPhone I know I have a copy of my photos is in iCloud.



They are in another cloud storage. I have an app called Mega so it uploads what I want to another cloud storage solution.



The app does what I want it to do. In another cloud storage solution. You can use any other cloud storage app that has auto sync on.



I don't but I know my Originals are stored in iCloud.



As above.

Would what you are doing work for more than one user, who doesn't have an apple computer device, only an iphone and ipad?

Yeh if they have another cloud storage app installed there wouldn't be any problem here as they could access this in the 'other cloud solution'. Or what they could do is just access the icloud login to get all of the Originals.

Sorry this is all wrong and irrelevant. I suggest you go back to the first post and read carefully. You clearly don't use an apple laptop, and probably not even an apple computer. Probably only an iphone. That's fine, but you don't know what you are talking about.

As for icloud being a backup here's one link of many: https://www.macworld.com/article/32...-photo-library-as-your-only-media-backup.html



Does anybody have anything more useful to add ?

 

[whitecrook]

Dude.... omg. Seriously?

https://help.mega.nz/android/camera-uploads.html#what-is-the-camera-uploads-functionality

Suit yaself. Good luck.

I'm talking about a LOCAL COPY of my ORIGINAL images. You are talking about cloud services.

.... and as far as I an see MEGA doesn't even support Mac. Lol.

 

[whitecrook]

For what it's worth I have a Mac Mini (well, a few of them but hey ho), and one of them does all of my backups - to my NAS, to an online backup service etc., as well as running plex and some other automation tools.

It would be a decent solution tbh, I didn't think of that. Is mac OS easily VM-able these days? there used to be problems back in the day.

Good idea about the VM. Would probably work OK for a single user like myself. But the more I think about it the more it seems obviously the right answer to go mac mini because this enables seamless backup of 4 icloud accounts (2 kids / 2 adults) Gives them a decent PC to use for their imovie and school stuff, makes it easy for the missus to use (trying to explain how to get a vm and backing up her photos there etc would be a nightmare) Just makes sense to treat the mbp as a 'mobile device' like a phone and ipad and have the mac mini as the 'daddy machine' that has all the stuff, as you say it can be hooked up to back up services and permanent storage etc.

Re a older gen, maybe now theres a new one prices will drop but to be honest the mac mini holds it value VERY will indeed, so much so that buying a new one isn't that much more expensive in the scheme of things. it's another couple of hundred. For a few years service. I'm going to be plugging in £500 + of hard disk any way so saving a small amount on the PC isn't worth it when a new machine could be procured, and not just a new machine, the latest.

 

[whitecrook]

I create a copy of my Photos library onto my NAS (or ext. drive). Surely this is a easiest solution?

It doesn’t solve the problem, no.

 

[whitecrook]

Basically you need 1 machine which you can plug an external drive into to be the machine that downloads all of the originals.

As you’ve mentioned this cannot be your current Mac.

To me that seems to suggest you need another Mac designated for this purpose.

I do pretty much the exact thing as you are trying to achieve except my existing Mac is the machine that houses the originals, so I already have somewhere to plug in an external disc and make a copy.

But I really like the idea of having a Mac mini sitting doing this so I can turn on optimise storage on my MBP!

Thanks. Exactly!

my question was is this the only way, and short of going down a vm route (maybe even a vm on my existing windows pc) it appears to be.


Why cant apple just make a time machine option for icloud. I.e->a literal CHECK BOX to download originals to time machine when plugged in. That way i could use my existing backup/ external drive and setup with dock as i do now but still have orig available and optimise on the laptop. Maybe but apple are removing features from their software these days rather than adding so we’ll see.

 

[whitecrook]

I’d say for reliability and how important photos usually are, I wouldn’t be relying on a VM for this task, but that’s just me and the level of risk I’d be prepared to take!

I like the idea of time machine backups downloading new photos on the fly to backup the originals whilst still leaving your Mac with optimise storage turned on. Maybe submit feedback to Apple on that?

Yes, I don't like the VM idea for this task very much, but it's an interesting avenue.

I left enhancement request on apple.com

Photos app should have a 3rd tick box beside the options to 1) Optimise Photo Storage and 2) Download Originals that should read:
3) Optimise Photo storage on this mac and Download Originals to Timemachine

This is because 1) on my Mac Book Pro I have non-expandable internal storage, 2) some people have photo libraries larger than their computer can hold, and 3) Timemachine is the natural place to backup my data, this makes sense.

 

[whitecrook]

In the VM you store the Photos on an external drive then, not 'within' the VM. Sorted.

Yes that's what I would do.

The MacGeekGab guys are very against saving the photos library on an external drive, saying that it's known to cause big corruption issues. I've never tried it so I can't comment but they're always very vocal against it whenever it's mentioned.

Need some data on that. Sounds like it may be 'OK'. I can see corruption issues potentially if it's an external drive that's getting removed and sporadically updated, perhaps even on multiple systems(!) or someone is swappign between different libraries trying to do clever things, but a permanently connected drive to a fixed system with one library should be OK I would have expected and thought.

 

[whitecrook]

Appreciate the suggestions but they dont solve the problem . Thanks

 

[whitecrook]

This thread makes no sense at all

Probably because you missed the bit where i ask if theres a solution *other* than getting a mac mini (i only have 2x mbp)

I personally have 2 Mac minis and a MBP

oh so the answer is no then.

The 2 minis are both set to both download original photos and store locally - is this what the OP was aiming for?

This is what i proposed. Good to know it works as suspected. Does it also work for multiple users?

My MBP has it set to optimise.

Both mini's use external drives to store the photos library

yes exactly this is my plan . External storage is cheap and easy to manage.

 

[whitecrook]

As I have said before install the mega.nz client. There is a feature to 'copy/replicate' to their servers in encrypted form. Hence a backup is created.

I can't believe this is STILL going on with no solution when there is plenty options available.

I bet OP hasn't even tried it. It only takes the client to be installed on a windows machine or mac to replicate photos to another machine and it doesn't need to be a mac.

it wont replicate the photos from the machine if they are not there!!!

 

[whitecrook]

I think people are quite reluctant to help you or offer any suggestions as your attitude in replies is pretty dire if you ask me.

Actually the people who understand my question have been very helpful. Currently it's about 2 maybe 3 (edit, definitely 3, thanks feek, rochester, RS) people out of all posters to this thread, not including you. I thank you for responding quickly, and firstly, to this thread, but you suggested storing them on icloud, when my question specifically asked for a local backup copy. It's not really my fault if people can't read. All I can do it point out the misunderstanding in the clearest way and hope people can accept that sometimes they may be wrong.


edit2 and an honary mention to combat squirrel who's clearly all ahead of us here and is implementing the exact solution i proposed and is scratching his/her head in bemusement as to why I haven't done it already..... (hint: I don't have a second/ desktop mac ... yet)

 

[whitecrook]

I agree with ChrisD, there is a way of responding and your attitude throughout this thread is quite unbelievable, all the people posting are trying to help you.

A bit of courtesy to your fellow forum users wouldn't cost anything, I'd expect better from someone who has been a member for 15 years.

I don't want to derail this but. what? I have been courteous. People who have tried to help me I have explained why their suggestion does not work in those cases. People like bell1984 don't even read the posts never mind the responses. He's still suggesting I upload my file to mega? Lolwut is he paid by them or something?. People who's suggestion does help I have thanked them and even asked even asked for some more info . even the people who's suggestions were not suitable I thanked them for the time. Really. Come on .

 

[whitecrook]

Thanks Feek will Check it out!