Apple Photos

[martint235]

I’m not sure if this is even possible so I thought I’d ask here. I have Nikon D5600 and take 20 or 30 photos a day that are mostly rubbish. I import from the memory card into a folder in Photos called Staging, the idea being that I’d move photos out into properly named folders and regularly clear down staging. Naturally this never happens as I just post the good photos to Instagram and then forget.

So as I’ve recently bought a PS5 I now have a spare 2TB external drive available. What I’d like to do is host the staging folder on this drive and NOT have the photos visible to my iPhone and iPad until I move them to the main folders on the Mac. This will force me to be disciplined about how I keep photos.

I hope the above made sense and someone could tell me a. Is it possible? B. How to do it?

 

[robgendreau]

Are you using a managed or a referenced library in Photos? IOW, are you importing via the default, which moves the images into a package, a somewhat hidden folder? or do you NOT copy them in, but leave them in existing folders in the Finder, like one named "Staging"?

Are the "folders" real Finder folders, or just albums? pardon me if you do know the difference; it's just that sometimes people refer to them interchangeably.

If you use a referenced library, then yes, you could move folders to an external drive. But referenced libraries can't synch with other devices via iCloud.

 

[cthompson94]

If I understood correctly I think iCloud Drive will work even if you don't pay and just use the free measly 5gb since you would just need to store JPEGs and even 5gb will store quite a few of those. I mention this because you could then see your folder which you only put the completed 100% photos then just save those straight to the iPhone from that folder using the files app. I hope this helps or maybe a little more elaboration.

I read it as basically you want to separate what needs to be culled from what is completed and ready to go so storing all of the photos on the 2tb drive and only putting the keepers on the iCloud folder that you can access via all devices with iCloud integration

 

[martint235]

Are you using a managed or a referenced library in Photos? IOW, are you importing via the default, which moves the images into a package, a somewhat hidden folder? or do you NOT copy them in, but leave them in existing folders in the Finder, like one named "Staging"?

Are the "folders" real Finder folders, or just albums? pardon me if you do know the difference; it's just that sometimes people refer to them interchangeably.

If you use a referenced library, then yes, you could move folders to an external drive. But referenced libraries can't synch with other devices via iCloud.

To be honest I don’t know. I plug the SD card from the camera into a reader and a new screen pops up for importing photos. I set the Import To option to Staging and also select delete once imported. The folders are the usual ones in Photos listed under My Albums. Sorry. Used Windows for 30 years and a Mac/Apple for 5 without doing much with it