Move photos from OneDrive to iCloud

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nikand Author

Level 1

1 points

Move photos from OneDrive to iCloud

Hi,

I want to migrate all my photos from OneDrive to iCloud.
After looking up various ways to do this, i understood that the best way is to download all photos on to an external drive and then upload those to iCloud. Please do let me know if there's any other alternative to this.
I have begin downloading the photos to the external drive and also want to simultaneously upload those to iCloud.

My question is -

Do I need to upload them from the external drive to the photos app on the MacBook ?( my fear is i will not have that much space on the MacBook). And then they get psyched to iCloud from the photos app.
Can I upload them directly to iCloud on the web from the external drive ?

MacBook Air 15″

Posted on Dec 20, 2025 3:55 AM

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Answer 1

Limnos

Level 10

427,229 points

Dec 20, 2025 4:30 AM in response to nikand

nikand wrote:

• Can I upload them directly to iCloud on the web from the external drive ?

I know that you can download and upload photos from an external drive to iCloud Photos open in a web browser when signed into iCloud.com. It's in the tools at the top. I have no familiarity with doing this in the context you are describing.

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Answer 2

Dec 20, 2025 9:28 AM in response to nikand

nikand wrote: …After looking up various ways to do this, i understood that the best way is to download all photos on to an external drive and then upload those to iCloud.

Really? That sounds like the wrong way to go about it. Uploading through the website is OK for a few pictures, but why go the that pain with hundreds of pictures if you don't have to?

I don't use One Drive, but it seems to me that you would just import the pictures to Photos directly on your Mac, and then let Photos take care of the upload while you do something more fun. If it's a big bunch of pictures, then you can create a Photos Library on a properly formatted external drive (or move the one you already have to there,) and just use File>Import.

If some of that is new to you, then we can help-- but it's not bad. Here's something that may have more detail than you need for creating an new empty Photos Library on an external drive and connecting it to iCloud:

Make a New System Library connected to iC… - Apple Community

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