How does it actually free up space on my Mac and other IOS devices, to backup to iCloud.

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niggolaj1973 Author

Level 1

5 points

How does it actually free up space on my Mac and other IOS devices, to backup to iCloud.

I know it sounds obvious to most of you, but I dont really get what happens to original photos and videos on my Mac's harddrive, when I upload them to iCloud Photos. Because obviously it will affect my iCloud Photos, if I erased the original photos/videos on my Mac to free up space. What happens to it?

And additionally:

If I afterwards wanted to make an external hard drive or alternative cloud service backup, would that be backups redirected from iCloud Photos through my Mac to that harddrive or service?

MacBook Pro 15", macOS 10.13

Posted on Dec 18, 2019 8:49 AM

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Answer 1

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FoxFifth

Level 10

472,173 points

Dec 18, 2019 11:10 AM in response to niggolaj1973

iCloud Photos is a syncing service. Any photo you delete from a device where iCloud Photos is turned on will also be deleted from iCloud and from any other device connected to iCloud Photos. You can potentially reduce the storage space required on a device by turning on Optimize Storage. See: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204264

In other words, if you just turn on iCloud Photos on your Mac and don't turn on the Optimize option, the photos will be on both your Mac and on iCloud. If you do turn on the Optimize option, some, none, or all of the photos on your Mac may be space-saving optimized versions.

Backups of your Mac only included what is actually on your Mac; they don't redirect to iCloud.

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How does it actually free up space on my Mac and other IOS devices, to backup to iCloud.

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