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Recover Photos from Backup

I would like to recover the photos in the Photos folder of a Mac backup and make them available to one, and ideally two, MacBook Airs. What options do I have?


My Mac died. I bought a MacBook Air to replace it but needed to do so quickly, so opted for one with the regular amount of storage. This wasn't enough to copy over the Photos folder of the Mac backup I had, so this folder remains on the external drive I used for backups. Can I access the photos if I plug this external drive into one of my two MacBook Airs? Should I try to copy it to a new external drive and, if so, how can I do this given that neither MacBook Air can accommodate the size of the folder? Should I consider some sort of network drive but, again, how can I populate it? Or a cloud solution might be best but, again, how can I get the photos off the external drive and onto the device or service I choose?


Thank you in advance for any guidance you can offer me.

MacBook Air 13″, macOS 12.5

Posted on Aug 2, 2022 11:52 AM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Aug 3, 2022 12:55 AM

> Should I try to copy it to a new external drive


DON'T open the old library with Photos.app until you have made a backup of it because then you can revert to it, if needed (new Photos.app updates the library so older versions can not open it anymore).


Get an external SSD and format it as APFS (GUID) and make sure Finder > Get Info is "Ignore ownership on this volume". Then Finder-copy the old library to it and unmount and disconnect the old backup drive.


THEN Option-start Photos.app and navigate to the copied library, it might take some time when it is updated.


> Should I consider some sort of network drive


No, Photos does not support network drives, non-Mac filesystems like FAT, TimeMachine drives for it libraries.

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2 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Aug 3, 2022 12:55 AM in response to zendot

> Should I try to copy it to a new external drive


DON'T open the old library with Photos.app until you have made a backup of it because then you can revert to it, if needed (new Photos.app updates the library so older versions can not open it anymore).


Get an external SSD and format it as APFS (GUID) and make sure Finder > Get Info is "Ignore ownership on this volume". Then Finder-copy the old library to it and unmount and disconnect the old backup drive.


THEN Option-start Photos.app and navigate to the copied library, it might take some time when it is updated.


> Should I consider some sort of network drive


No, Photos does not support network drives, non-Mac filesystems like FAT, TimeMachine drives for it libraries.

Recover Photos from Backup

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