Delete from Mac but not iCloud?

[donawalt]

I would like to get a fresh copy of all the photos in iCloud on my Mac. I have signed out of iCloud/Apple ID on my Mac. I could just let it sync by resigning into iCloud, but the sync has seemed unreliable.

Is it safe to then just delete all the photos/albums on my Mac, then sign in to iCloud again, and get a fresh copy sync'd from iCloud? Will my non-shared alums be preserved?

Thanks!

 

[joeblack007]

You can also log into https://privacy.apple.com/. Click ‘request a copy of your data’. Scroll down to photos and make your request. Apple will zip all your photos and let you know when they are ready for download. Then you can manage the photos any way you like.

 

[Mike Boreham]

I would like to get a fresh copy of all the photos in iCloud on my Mac. I have signed out of iCloud/Apple ID on my Mac. I could just let it sync by resigning into iCloud, but the sync has seemed unreliable.

Is it safe to then just delete all the photos/albums on my Mac, then sign in to iCloud again, and get a fresh copy sync'd from iCloud? Will my non-shared alums be preserved?

Thanks!

You can delete the entire Photos Library without signing out, then when you open Photos app it will prompt you to create a new library and download from iCloud to that. Yes all albums will be preserved.

If you delete photos/albums from your Photos Lib, but do not delete the Library, then when you sign in again it would delete them from iCloud.

Not sure what this achieves, maybe I am misunderstanding your goal. Did you mean you want to have a local copy of all your photos outside the iCloud Photos Library?

 

[donawalt]

Thanks - I wanted to just make sure there was nothing in the local Photos library that was not in iCloud. I have been having trouble getting the photos count to match across devices, phone and iPad have 6 more than Mac. I have done all the usual stuff to try and correct it...

 

[haralds]

If you want to be safe and simple:

• Copy the Photos Library to another folder/location. With APFS, if you use the same volume only the metadata is copied; it does not take much extra space. But the files will get new identifiers.
• Delete the original library.
• Launch Photos with the option key down and create a new library in the original location.
• Enable iCloud, if you turned it off, and in Photo Settings set the new library as the "System Photo Library" if not already set as such.
• Also, enable "Download Originals to Mac" under Photos Settings > iCloud .
• Let it sync.
• If the new library checks out, you can delete the old one. But wait until you are sure!

 

[flynz4]

If you want to be safe and simple:

• Copy the Photos Library to another folder/location. With APFS, if you use the same volume only the metadata is copied; it does not take much extra space. But the files will get new identifiers.
• Delete the original library.
• Launch Photos with the option key down and create a new library in the original location.
• Enable iCloud, if you turned it off, and in Photo Settings set the new library as the "System Photo Library" if not already set as such.
• Also, enable "Download Originals to Mac" under Photos Settings > iCloud .
• Let it sync.
• If the new library checks out, you can delete the old one. But wait until you are sure!

The bolded line above is key! I want my entire library of photos (>77K photos) downloaded and resident on my Mac. I bought a large enough SSD to make sure that everything I own would fit on the machine. I do the same thing for documents and everything else synced with iCloud or other syncing software.

My primary rationale is that by having everything (not just photos) sync to my Mac, I get real time local and cloud backups of all my data. I use Time Machine for local backup, and I use BackBlaze for 3rd party cloud backup. I also clone my SSD nightly using Carbon Copy Cloner... which is not really "backup", but is yet an extra copy of 100% of my data in case of a total machine failure.

/Jim

 

[donawalt]

Thank you @haralds and @flynz4, this is good advice!!!

 

[lindros2]

Just as an aside, iCloud Photos sync was super unreliable up until early 2022.
iPhone, iPad, Mac... I had a bunch of very slow sync (taking days) and library corruption in October 2021 while traveling. This manifested itself when I got a new phone/tablet and it had to sync a new device - didn't matter if I did iCloud or device-to-device transfer.

Apple has improved the infrastructure so backing up and/or deleting a library - then creating a new one and doing a full sync - is much, MUCH improved (something to do with the overall library index and thumbnail handling).

As noted above, requesting data - or download full library to Mac - is a good idea, but oftentimes impractical (unless your library is on an external SSD, which mine now is on a 2019-era Mac).

p.s. - now the native Mail client is crap, often corrupting my Gmail account and showing 2 unread emails when there are hundreds...

 

[donawalt]

From my work, I feel pretty confident the data in iCloud is correct. The problems with syncing and inconsistencies comes from software either getting the data (photo, mail, etc.) to the device, or software on the device itself - like an iOS/MacOS bug(s).

 

[flynz4]

I would like to get a fresh copy of all the photos in iCloud on my Mac. I have signed out of iCloud/Apple ID on my Mac. I could just let it sync by resigning into iCloud, but the sync has seemed unreliable.

Is it safe to then just delete all the photos/albums on my Mac, then sign in to iCloud again, and get a fresh copy sync'd from iCloud? Will my non-shared alums be preserved?

Thanks!

Be careful. When you delete a photo anywhere... it deletes the photo everywhere.

I would NOT delete all of your photos expecting to get a fresh sync from iCloud... you might end up deleting all of your photos.

I am not 100% what happens when you sign out of iCloud and then delete the photos. The photos *MIGHT* get deleted when you sign back in and your updated "empty" library syncs with iCloud.

/Jim