Considering iCloud Photos, but...

[Anders P. A.]

I have a 250GB Photos library. It doesn't fit on my Mac, so I keep it on an external drive at home. I'd really like to have access when I am elsewhere. The question...

1. Can I keep my library on the external drive, set as my system library – and then have another library on my Mac that shows just thumbnails and full res of cause if I choose to view a photo.

2. If I add photos to my local/synced library, I suppose it will be added to my system library next time I connect the external disc and open the "real" library, right?

3. But then, what happens to the large files I add through my local/synced library – can I delete them (or just the full res version) without also deleting the photo from iCloud and my real Library?

Just not really sure about how this all works!

Hope someone can help me out.

Thanks
Anders

 

[NazgulRR]

This won't work unfortunately. I wish it did - I was asking the same thing in a thread of mine for very much the same reason.

The only way to get this to work is if the two libraries - the iCloud optimised one and the iCloud full res one - are on two separate user accounts on the same Mac.

 

[manu chao]

This won't work unfortunately. I wish it did - I was asking the same thing in a thread of mine for very much the same reason.

The only way to get this to work is if the two libraries - the iCloud optimised one and the iCloud full res one - are on two separate user accounts on the same Mac.

Otherwise you could access the whole library on your Mac while without your external drive via the iCloud.com website.