Apple Photos (with iCloud) + amateur photography + small SSD on the MacBook. How to make this work?

[Pupi]

Hi everyone.

Apologies if this has been asked over and over.

My MacBook Pro has a 256GB SSD. That's not too much, but of course, it could be worse. I have iCloud 2TB.

I never have too much local space available but I try to have at least enough for a photo import from a camera (64GB). However, after that, I'm at the mercy of the software to decide how much storage to release after uploading the original files to iCloud, and I'm not even certain I will have room again for another SD card dump. Since I can't control how much free storage I want Photos to aim to release. Isn't that so?

So is there a way I could make this work? Basically I guess I just want it to always delete local original files (unless favourited) after uploading them to iCloud, and only keep display versions on the Mac. Even if storage isn't that low, because I need quite a bit of space available if I want to import more photos.

It has crossed my mind to get a cheap used desktop Mac with large storage so that the MacBook never imports photos directly and only downloads them from iCloud...

Right now I'm just putting content from cameras on random folders on external hard drives and such, it's a mess and I can barely make good used of my photos and videos and I'm not utilizing iCloud to its full extent.

 

[MacNut]

Why not just buy an external drive with more space?

 

[Pupi]

Why not just buy an external drive with more space?

Because I don’t use the MacBook Pro as stationary so I can imagine there would be a lot of sync issues.

 

[smirking]

Because I don’t use the MacBook Pro as stationary so I can imagine there would be a lot of sync issues.

You could just carry the external drive with you. A USB 3.1 gen2 drive is pretty affordable and is so light and tiny that it's not hard to keep it with your MBP.

SanDisk 500GB Extreme Portable External SSD - Up to 550MB/s - USB-C, USB 3.1 - SDSSDE60-500G-G25

The ruggedized SanDisk Extreme Portable SSD delivers high-speed transfers with up to 550MB/s read speeds. This makes it perfect for saving and editing hi-res photos and videos. With an IP55 rating, it also stands up to rain, splashes, spills and dust.(1) | 1GB = 1,000,000,000 bytes; 1TB=1,000,000...

smile.amazon.com

If you have an older MBP, you don't even need a USB 3.1 gen2. A regular USB 3 SSD costs even less.

 

[MacNut]

Because I don’t use the MacBook Pro as stationary so I can imagine there would be a lot of sync issues.

You mount the drive when you want to use it. It will sync once you tell it too.

 

[Darmok N Jalad]

So long as you set up Photos and the Mac to let iCloud manage your photo library storage, you shouldn’t have to worry. Your Mac will still upload new files to iCloud, and it will still use your available HDD space until you need more of it. On your next import, of space is limited, your previous original import(s) will be reduced to “optimized” versions to make room for new originals. The system is designed to manage the storage for you, so no manual settings should be necessary.

 

[gwerhart0800]

So long as you set up Photos and the Mac to let iCloud manage your photo library storage, you shouldn’t have to worry.

I want to second this. I have been trying to find a suitable solution for managing my photos and providing access to all my devices (iMac, MBP, MBA, iPads, iPhones, etc.) I finally settled on using the Photos app and iCloud. Basically, when you import photos into the Photos app, they will be present on the importing device for a period of time. (Assuming that you turned on Optimize Storage option under the iCloud config for Photos.) If you have the optimize option turned on, then the photos are uploaded to iCloud and preview images are generated and downloaded to all the devices that are configured to connect to iCloud photos. On the importing device, once the photo files are no longer being changed, the edits are uploaded and the photo is replaced on the device with a lower resolution preview. If you want to edit the photo, the app will download the full res version and allow you to edit.

All changes made on any device that is connected and configured with the optimized storage will be updated with new preview image.

I tried to make the Adobe Creative Cloud work for me, but it wanted to download all full res photos to all connected devices. I could not figure out a way to make this work as the iCloud Photos interface works.

The downside to this is that edits from 3rd party applications have issues. Specifically, iCloud can only save the last 3rd party changes and it will negate changes made by previous 3rd party apps. In some cases, original raw images will be converted to TIFFs for editing in 3rd party apps and you may find that you photos have "forked" into alternate versions.

 

[Darmok N Jalad]

Yes, by far Apple’s solution is the easiest and smoothest that I have tried. You run into issues when you try to leave Apples ecosystem, but that is the cost of convenience and good vertical integration. There are other options out there, but they will create more work. If you want it to be simple, just use Photos and iCloud, and if space is an issue, use the Optimized storage setting.

 

[Spacetime Anomaly]

Technically, you could dump the photos into a folder, upload them via https://www.icloud.com/photos/ then delete them from your HD. After that, you can download only the photos you want to keep/edit on your HD.

It's far easier to let the Mac optimise for you, however.

 

[sjet3]

You could just carry the external drive with you. A USB 3.1 gen2 drive is pretty affordable and is so light and tiny that it's not hard to keep it with your MBP.

SanDisk 500GB Extreme Portable External SSD - Up to 550MB/s - USB-C, USB 3.1 - SDSSDE60-500G-G25

The ruggedized SanDisk Extreme Portable SSD delivers high-speed transfers with up to 550MB/s read speeds. This makes it perfect for saving and editing hi-res photos and videos. With an IP55 rating, it also stands up to rain, splashes, spills and dust.(1) | 1GB = 1,000,000,000 bytes; 1TB=1,000,000...

smile.amazon.com

If you have an older MBP, you don't even need a USB 3.1 gen2. A regular USB 3 SSD costs even less.

I don't know how much that SanDisk external is, but I just paid around US$64 for a Seagate 2TB external, 3.0 USB. Seagate is consistently ranked at or near the top of these types of devices.

 

[iDron]

I have a slightly different issue. I am fine with storing pictures on an external drive as I do not want to pay for the 1TB option of iCloud. But, I do not want tens of thousands of photos, often completely irrelevant on my iPhone due to storage space issues but also to make the iPhone library more navigable.

One thing I figured is, that you can import to your Photo library on the Mac while keeping the file out of the Photos library container. It's called "referenced" file. Basically the same as what happens in Lightroom, the file is viewable in the Finder and just gets managed by Lightroom. Photos imported in such a way do not upload to iCloud. If one wishes to have them in iCloud, individual pictures can be selected and "consolidated" into the library, thus they sync.

My workflow is now that everything from my iPhone gets imported automatically to the Photos app on Mac. I edit photos from my ILC and the phone on the Photos app on the Mac and add final versions of pictures that I actually want to access and show into an album. Then select all images, click File -> consolidate by which these images get copied into the Photos App container and then to iCloud and the phone.

This is the smoothest workflow I could come up with, maybe it helps some people here!

 

[kallisti]

Hi everyone.

Apologies if this has been asked over and over.

My MacBook Pro has a 256GB SSD. That's not too much, but of course, it could be worse. I have iCloud 2TB.

I never have too much local space available but I try to have at least enough for a photo import from a camera (64GB). However, after that, I'm at the mercy of the software to decide how much storage to release after uploading the original files to iCloud, and I'm not even certain I will have room again for another SD card dump. Since I can't control how much free storage I want Photos to aim to release. Isn't that so?

So is there a way I could make this work? Basically I guess I just want it to always delete local original files (unless favourited) after uploading them to iCloud, and only keep display versions on the Mac. Even if storage isn't that low, because I need quite a bit of space available if I want to import more photos.

It has crossed my mind to get a cheap used desktop Mac with large storage so that the MacBook never imports photos directly and only downloads them from iCloud...

Right now I'm just putting content from cameras on random folders on external hard drives and such, it's a mess and I can barely make good used of my photos and videos and I'm not utilizing iCloud to its full extent.

Something to consider would be to move your Photos library over to an external drive--like a small SSD drive that is very portable. You import your photos to the external drive and not your computer's hard drive. Thus available storage space on your computer's HD is no longer an issue. That's actually what I do for my photos (using Lightroom and not Photos, but it would work the same).

I don't have my original photos backed up to iCloud, but I keep my edited keepers on my local drive which are backed up to iCloud. My originals are stored on the external SSD (which is my Lightroom library), a backup SSD that I keep in my house, and a third backup SSD that I keep off-site at work. I regularly clone the backup drives using Carbon Copy Cloner to keep them all up-to-date.

Might or might not work for your needs, but this is another solution.

[Edit: Samsung makes a fast external SSD that is about the size of a credit card (https://www.amazon.com/SAMSUNG-Port...ds=Samsung+external+ssd&qid=1594941624&sr=8-3). Small enough that you can easily have it with you wherever you use your laptop. Since your Photos library would be on it, you wouldn’t have to worry about space on your HD. The backup drive(s) wouldn’t have to be SSD or even all that portable, the idea is to have at least one clone of your Photos library stored somewhere as a backup.]