Backup Mac Photos Library To External Hard Drive

May 27, 2019  To move photos library to external hard drive, you just require a little drag-and-drop magic. How to backup photos on Mac manually: Plug in your external hard drive and follow the setup instructions if you have not done so already. Open a Finder. Jan 24, 2017  This is a tutorial on how to copy all photos from Apple's new Photos App (2017) to a hard drive. Including iCloud. HOW TO MOVE APPLE PHOTOS LIBRARY TO EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE. The BEST Backup.

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Your Photos library holds all your photos, albums, slideshows, and print projects. If your library is large, and you want to free up storage space on your Mac, turn on iCloud Photo Library and use Optimize Mac Storage, or move your library to an external drive.

Before you start, be sure to back up your library.

Prepare your drive

You can store your library on an external storage device, such as a USB or Thunderbolt drive formatted as APFS or Mac OS Extended (Journaled).¹ Find out how to check the format of your external storage device.

To prevent data loss, Apple doesn't recommend storing photo libraries on external storage devices like SD cards and USB flash drives, or drives that are shared on a network.

Move your Photos library to an external storage device

1. Quit Photos.
2. In the Finder, go to the external drive where you want to store your library.
3. In another Finder window, find your library. The default location is Users > [username] > Pictures, and it's named Photos Library.
4. Drag your library to its new location on the external drive. If you see an error, select your external drive's icon in the Finder, then choose File > Get Info. If the information under Sharing & Permissions isn't visible, click , then make sure the 'Ignore ownership on this volume' checkbox is selected. If it's not selected, click to unlock it, enter an administrator name and password, then select the checkbox.²
   
   
5. After the move is finished, double-click Photos Library in its new location to open it.
6. If you use iCloud Photo Library, designate this library as the System Photo Library.

Delete original library to save space

After you open your library from its new location and make sure that it works as expected, you can delete the library from its original location.

In a Finder window, go back to your Pictures folder (or whichever folder you copied your library from) and move Photos Library to the trash. Then choose Finder > Empty Trash to delete the library and reclaim disk space.

Open another Photos library

If you have multiple libraries, here's how to open a different one:

1. Quit Photos.
2. Press and hold the Option key while you open Photos.
3. Select the library that you want to open, then click Choose Library.

Photos uses this library until you open a different one.

Learn more

Backup Photo Library Mac

If you have a permissions issue with your library, you might be able to resolve the issue by using the Photos library repair tool.

1. You can't move your library to a disk that's used for Time Machine backups.

2. If the volume isn't formatted APFS or Mac OS Extended (Journaled), or has been used for Time Machine backups but hasn't been erased, this checkbox will either not be present, or won't be selectable after unlocking. Erase and reformat the drive for this option to be available.

When people lose their wallet, phone, or computer, it’s often not the money they miss, but the photos. This shouldn’t be the case! With recent developments in accessible and affordable tech, there are lots of easy and convenient solutions to ensure that even if your devices get lost, stolen, or damaged, you still have your photos to enjoy.

Backup Mac Photo Library To External Hard Drive

It’s likely that you have multiple photo libraries scattered across different devices, which makes managing your files and backups extra difficult. Don’t fear! Below are quick catch-all solutions to reconfigure your mobile device, cloud storage, and computer back into backup harmony.

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Where Are Photos Stored On Mac?

Most Mac and iPhone users used to the iPhoto library may be asking, “Where are my photos on my Mac now?” Truth is, with the OS X 10.10.3 (Yosemite) release, the new Photos app has effectively replaced iPhoto for Mac. So the first step now would be to open Photos from your Dock or Launchpad and take a look at Albums to see what you got in there.

Just so you know, the iPhoto app will still work if you already have it installed on your computer. So in the battle of iPhoto vs Photos, it doesn’t make a huge difference which one you use. What’s important is that, if you use both, you may have different content in separate locations.

Within the Apple ecosystem, iCloud is the default cloud storage system that keeps a version of your all photos online. What’s great is that by using Photos or iPhotos, it automatically uploads the photos you take and stores them on its servers.

iCloud allows your iPhone, Mac, or another Apple Storage device such as an Apple Time Capsule to be an extension of others. But don’t rely on it too heavily as this type of setup is sync-based, which means that if you delete a photo on one device, it’ll be deleted elsewhere.

Backup Entire Computer To External Hard Drive

For that reason, if you’re serious about not losing your precious pictures, here are some quick and convenient ways that might just save the day.

How to backup Mac to iCloud

Let’s start with the bare minimum photo backup job. With pictures in the Photos app being automatically backed up to iCloud, what about photos in other libraries? Or what happens if you don’t use an iOS device to capture your life?

There are quite a few locations where photos might live on your Mac. Take a look at the Pictures folder, hard drive locations, Desktop, and Downloads folder. The key is to have anything you wish to upload to iCloud moved to the iPhoto app.

How to backup photos on Mac to iCloud:

1. Go through the list of locations above for photos that aren't already in your iPhoto library

2. Drag and drop the content into the iPhoto app

Now do the reverse. Duplicating iCloud and creating an offline backup will allow you to put your photos on an external hard drive or into other backup systems, thus making it easier to create multiple backups and save you from any disaster.

Unfortunately, photos do take up a large amount of storage on your Mac, which can lead to your computer slowing down. This is just another solid reason for why you should transfer your photos onto an external hard drive.

How to download iCloud photos to Mac:

1. Open the iPhoto app

2. Click Photos under the Library heading in the menu bar and select Preferences from the dropdown or use the keyboard shortcut Command + comma

3. Navigate to the iCloud tab

4. Check the box next to Download Originals to this Mac

There you have it — every photo that gets sent to the iCloud will download itself onto your Mac as well. And now that your photos are saved on your Mac, you can use Time Machine to transfer them to an external hard drive.

How to backup MacBook photos to external hard drive

Apple clearly recognizes the importance of backing up your photos, and that’s why your Mac comes with its own backup app Time Machine already installed.

The benefit of using Time Machine is that you can automate your backups, which could include apps, music, photos, emails, documents, and system files. To create backups with Time Machine, all you need is an external storage device.

To perform a photo backup using Time Machine:

1. Set up and connect your external hard drive

   Mar 18, 2020  Your Photos library holds all your photos, albums, slideshows, and print projects. If your library is large, and you want to free up storage space on your Mac, turn on iCloud Photo Library and use Optimize Mac Storage, or move your library to an external drive. Before you start, be sure to. Oct 28, 2019  I recommend starting with your biggest iPhoto library; it'll usually be on your desktop Mac. When you open Photos for the first time, your library should import automatically; if it prompts you to create a new library, your Photos library may be stored in another location on your Mac, and you may need to manually open it. Jan 12, 2020  OS X hides the Library folder, which is used often in Mac troubleshooting. Here's how to get it back. The user's Library has long been a go-to location for troubleshooting issues with individual applications or components shared by multiple applications. View Hidden Files and Folders on Your Mac With Terminal. View mac photos library from another user. Jul 12, 2017  Apple’s new Photos application was released as part of a recent system update. By default, Photos creates its library in your Pictures folder, but it can be easily moved or newly created. There are any number of reasons you might want to create a new Photos library or move it to another location. Apr 01, 2020  Designate a System Photo Library in Photos If you have multiple photo libraries on your Mac, you can choose one to be the System Photo Library. The System Photo Library is the only library that can be used with iCloud Photos, Shared Albums, and My Photo Stream.

2. Select Use As Backup Disk when prompted by the pop-up window

3. Time Machine will now begin a backup of your Mac

If you can’t see a pop-up window right away, then open Time Machine from System Preferences and click Select Backup Disk manually.

Depending on how many photos you have, the transfer process could take some time. So give yourself a pat on the back while you wait. Although, you should consider some potential hazards just before you tick this task off the to-do list.

Time Machine could sometimes be fairly superficial and you might encounter some issues if you ever need to recover and restore you Mac. For one, Time Machine requires an Apple specific HFS+ filesystem to store backups, so it won’t back up files that don’t conform to this format. Additionally, the backups Time Machine creates aren’t bootable, which means that you can’t actually restore your device to the exact state you had before.

How to transfer photos from Mac to external hard drive

If you decide not to use Time Machine, there’s a simple workaround for your iPhoto library. To move photos library to external hard drive, you just require a little drag-and-drop magic.

How to backup photos on Mac manually:

1. Plug in your external hard drive and follow the setup instructions if you have not done so already

2. Open a Finder window and select your external hard drive from the Locations in the sidebar

3. Launch the iPhoto app from the Dock and move it just so you can see both the Finder window and the app window

4. Press Command + A to highlight all photos

5. Drag and drop the highlighted photos onto the external hard drive window

For those who have more than one iPhoto library, it's important to create backups for all of them. As mentioned above, look in your Pictures folder, all drives, Desktop, and Downloads folder for any rogue images that you want to have backed up.

How to backup a Mac completely

Picture this predicament. You’ve put all of your eggs in one company’s basket, and they have a data breach. Now your files and folders are potentially compromised in the hands of someone else.

This is why you should consider using trustworthy options to store additional backups. A robust backup app like Get Backup Pro offers secure diversified storage. As well as backup, archive, disk cloning, and folder sync software for Mac, you can use Get Backup Pro to quickly create bootable backups so you can get back up in minutes.

The aptly named Get Backup Pro takes securing archives to the next level. Using encryption types AES-128, AES-256, Blowfish, or Triple DES, it gives you an option to protect all your backups with a password.

How to backup a Mac with encryption:

1. Open Get Backup Pro

2. Click the plus button to add a new backup project

3. Enter the project name, such as “Photos,” and hit OK

4. In Select A Destination, choose your external hard drive

5. Check the box next to Encryption and select one from the dropdown menu

   

Additional photo backup and recovery

To complement Get Backup Pro, Disk Drill is recovery software that lets you resurrect deleted or lost files and folders, yes, including your photo library.

Bring back whatever is lost

If you’ve accidentally deleted an important photo, make sure you have Disk Drill installed on Mac. This powerful app will revive anything.

As well as it being another place to store backups of your Mac, Disk Drill has a handy duplicate remover so that you aren't clogging up precious memory space in your drives. Before you get straight into a photo backup, make sure you allow Disk Drill to make changes to your drives in your Security & Privacy System Preferences.

Apple Photos Library External Drive

How to create recoverable backup files:

1. Open Disk Drill

2. Select Macintosh HD

3. Hit Recover

4. Hey presto! Disk Drill will start creating a bootable backup file right away.

Taking the extra time now to protect what’s important will save you from future heartbreak. What’s more is that the apps mentioned above, Disk Drill and Get Backup Pro, are all free to try on Setapp.

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Backup Mac Photos Library To External Hard Drive Mac

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