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How to sync or use an archive Mac Photos library on Onedrive?

We have scanned photos and videos going back to 1965, giving a library that is too large to be the system Photos library.  We therefore have a smaller system library on iCloud for current photos, and store our older photos in a separate archive Photos library.


We discovered quickly that iCloud will not accept another Photos library, so that we could not share the archive photos between machines.


Recently we found that our Office 365 subscription entitled us to 1tb of Onedrive storage. 


However, we now find that Photos will not open a photos library located in the  Onedrive folder and says you must move it to another folder.


But if you need to move a large library out of Onedrive, to look at or modify, and put it back, it will presumably take an age to resync.  We could fragment the archive library on Onedrive into individual years.  However, there won’t be space on the hard drive for both complete and fragmented copies of the archive library.


Question 1.  Is there a way of getting Photos to open and modify a Photos library on Onedrive?


Question 2.  Is there an alternative cloud storage package which Photos will treat as a normal folder?


Or is the only solution to put the archive library on a hard disk and take the hard disk to each other computer?

iMac 24″, macOS 12.6

Posted on Jan 7, 2023 4:01 AM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Jan 7, 2023 4:44 AM

  1. It's likely not going to work to open a photo library file on any cloud service as the entire library must be available to open.
  2. No.


The best option is to use an external hard drive to keep your photos libraries. It may even be possible to have one library with the entire history depending on the size of your files. Just be sure to keep a good backup too. My library is on an external drive and I also have a Time Machine backup on a second external drive.

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Jan 7, 2023 4:44 AM in response to Mhlg66

  1. It's likely not going to work to open a photo library file on any cloud service as the entire library must be available to open.
  2. No.


The best option is to use an external hard drive to keep your photos libraries. It may even be possible to have one library with the entire history depending on the size of your files. Just be sure to keep a good backup too. My library is on an external drive and I also have a Time Machine backup on a second external drive.

Jan 7, 2023 7:12 AM in response to Mhlg66

No, no and also, no


There are alternatives, depending on your budget and how much you want to share. Websites like Flickr are designed for exactly this kind of use. You can upload all your images and share them (and do so privately) with anyone who has web browser and the password. It's inexpensive.


More expensive is one the the competitors for Photos, called Lightroom made by Adobe. The key difference is that the library is entirely stored in the Cloud, and you can share all or parts of it with others. This requires a monthly subscription.


There are other websites, and, indeed other apps.

How to sync or use an archive Mac Photos library on Onedrive?

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