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best way to back up photos

What is best way to back up my photos

iMac Line (2012 and Later)

Posted on Jun 5, 2021 11:16 AM

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Posted on Jun 5, 2021 11:22 AM

You can use iCloud Photos if you have enough space in there for it; you can create a library file on an external drive and manage it with the Photos app; you can have the library on the Mac and backup with Time Machine, also to an external drive, of course; or you can download all the pictures and place them in an external drive and manage them with folders, file names and metadata.

It's up to you to decide which one is best in your case.

My choice is to use Photos app and I pay for a bigger iCloud storage in order to store about 70GB of photos and videos.

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Jun 5, 2021 11:22 AM in response to hondius67

You can use iCloud Photos if you have enough space in there for it; you can create a library file on an external drive and manage it with the Photos app; you can have the library on the Mac and backup with Time Machine, also to an external drive, of course; or you can download all the pictures and place them in an external drive and manage them with folders, file names and metadata.

It's up to you to decide which one is best in your case.

My choice is to use Photos app and I pay for a bigger iCloud storage in order to store about 70GB of photos and videos.

Jun 5, 2021 11:28 AM in response to Rafael Scheid

Thanks Rafael.

I am currently storing my photos in iCloud, and on Time Machine.

Given the recent ransomer attacks, I am looking to back up even more!!! Belt and suspenders.

I tried to copy my Photos library to a USB drive by dragging to the Thumb drive After 4 hours everything stopped, and a message came: "cannot complete operation as the file already exists". I erased and formatted the USB drive and tried again; same message after 4 hours Like you, large photo library 65Gb on the iCloud.

Looking for any additional tricks.

Thanks again.


Jun 5, 2021 11:38 AM in response to hondius67

Try creating a new library with Photos app.

Close the app and then hold Option and click to open it again. You'll be prompted with a few options, this is for you to create a new library or change existing ones.

Now you can create a new one and set the usb drive to be hit with new file.

Allow Photos to download everything there and you'll have that new library.

It might take a long time as well.


Later, to guarantee backups, you'll have to swap libraries using the "open holding Option" procedure.

Also check Download originals to this Mac in Photos Preferences > iCloud tab.

Jun 5, 2021 11:43 AM in response to hondius67

The iCloud Library is not a back up. It would not take much to erase it by trying to sync with a new empty library as part of disaster recovery.


Most Simple Back Up:


Drag the Photos Library from your Pictures Folder to another Disk. This will make a copy on that disk. It needs to be an SSD or hard disk. A flash drive is not reliable enough. It should be formatted Mac OS Extended (Journaled) or apfs.


Slightly more complex: 


Use an app that will do incremental back ups. This is a very good way to work. The first time you run the back up the app will make a complete copy of the Library. Thereafter it will update the back up with the changes you have made. That makes subsequent back ups much faster. Many of these apps also have scheduling capabilities: So set it up and it will do the back up automatically.


Example of such apps: Chronosync, SuperDuper, Carbon Copy Cloner - but there are many others. Search on MacUpdate or the App Store


Lastly, as a failsafe, uploading your photos to sharing services like Flickr or similar offer not only a last resort option but also a way to make your images available to any computer you sit down at. You can set the privacy settings on these services now to protect your data too.

best way to back up photos

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