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I decided to make some room on my Mac's hard disk and use iCloud Photos. My Photos library is 95 GB. So I bought some more disk space on iCloud, turned iCloud photos on and checked the appropriate box in the Photos prefs ("Optimize Mac storage"). Now I'm sitting in front of the Finder window looking at the Photos Library's size, expecting it to shrink – but the size stays the same, even after six hours. Am I missing something?
iMac Line (2012 and Later)
Note that the photos are optimized only if your device is low on space. See the following from Set up and use iCloud Photos - Apple Support
If you turn on Optimize Storage, iCloud Photos automatically manages the size of your library on your device. Your original photos and videos are stored in iCloud and space-saving versions are kept on your device. Your library is optimized only when you need space, starting with the photos and videos you access least. You can download the original photos and videos over Wi-Fi or cellular when you need them. You can use Optimize Storage on your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, and Mac.
Note that the photos are optimized only if your device is low on space. See the following from Set up and use iCloud Photos - Apple Support
If you turn on Optimize Storage, iCloud Photos automatically manages the size of your library on your device. Your original photos and videos are stored in iCloud and space-saving versions are kept on your device. Your library is optimized only when you need space, starting with the photos and videos you access least. You can download the original photos and videos over Wi-Fi or cellular when you need them. You can use Optimize Storage on your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, and Mac.
Christoph, if you want the Photos Library to shrink immediately, you can start over with an empty library. Once your complete library has finished uploading to iCloud Photos, make a backup copy of the Photos Library on an external drive, then quit Photos and delete the Photos Library from your system drive.
The library will initially download from iCloud fully optimized, roughly 10% of the original size, but grow again, if space permits, when you download photos for viewing them.
You did not mention your version of MacOS X. When you download the library from iCloud, the named faces will be missing, if you are running macOS 10.12 or older. It is only on High Sierra or newer, that the named faces are syncing with iCloud. The print projects (photo books, calendars, cards) do not sync with iCloud at all, but they are not supported any longer by Apple anyway.
Oh, I see. Thanks! Now it even grew by 6GB. Guess I'll never see it shrink on this machine with a 3TB drive.
Personally, I wouldn't even turn on the Optimize option if I had a drive that large (this is coming from someone who has 207 GB available on a 256 GB SSD).
Freeing up disk space with iCloud Photos?
