How to back up iCloud Photos Library on an external SSD when no device holds the entire library?

[GooseInTheCaboose]

I want to back up my iCloud photos library on 2 An external drive. But right now none of my devices have a big enough internal disc to store my entire library.

How would I back up the library onto an external drive? Is there a way I can do this so that I only need to plug in the external drive when I want to do back ups? (I dont want to have to plug in the drive EVErY time I need to access the library; is this possible?)

 

[mollyc]

i don’t use icloud but it would be helpful to know how big your library is.

 

[mackmgg]

I don't think there's a good way to do automated backups, but you can at least download the entire library from iCloud.com and save that to an external drive. If you do this on some regular schedule (like monthly), you can do it incrementally by just downloaded the most recent month. Unfortunately there's no button to "download all images since the last time I downloaded images" unless you keep track of that date yourself.

 

[aristobrat]

I haven't tried this in years, but it used to be possible to hold Option when opening Photos, create a new Photos library on an external drive, go into Photos preferences, temporarily make this new library your Systems Photo Library, set iCloud to Download Originals to this Mac, then let it create the backup.

When done, relaunch Photos, select your original Photo library, then make it the Systems Photo Library again.

Again, not 100% sure if that still works, but may help get you closer to a solution.

 

[cupcakes2000]

I haven't tried this in years, but it used to be possible to hold Option when opening Photos, create a new Photos library on an external drive, go into Photos preferences, temporarily make this new library your Systems Photo Library, set iCloud to Download Originals to this Mac, then let it create the backup.

When done, relaunch Photos, select your original Photo library, then make it the Systems Photo Library again.

Again, not 100% sure if that still works, but may help get you closer to a solution.

This still works and it’s how I do it.

 

[mlblacy]

I want to back up my iCloud photos library on 2 An external drive. But right now none of my devices have a big enough internal disc to store my entire library.

How would I back up the library onto an external drive? Is there a way I can do this so that I only need to plug in the external drive when I want to do back ups? (I dont want to have to plug in the drive EVErY time I need to access the library; is this possible?)

I use CarbonCopy Cloner. It performs flawlessly, and is amazingly quick. I have Aperture & Photos libraries that are several TB in size. I was using Vault and also a copy drag to a external Thunderbolt and also a USB2.0 drive. The libraries were so large that they backups could take as long as 8 days, and would often fail along the way due to the system choking. CCC takes a little while the first time (still way faster), but incremental backups take literally minutes and not days. Worth every penny!