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Hls811

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Apr 19, 2004
832
55
New Jersey
I just ordered a new 16" MBP and I'm trying to sort out the best way to handle my Photos library. I have a 2TB iCloud plan and I currently have it saved to a 1TB external drive via the 'Download Originals to this Mac' selection in preferences - the full library is roughly 800GB. The new MBP has a 1TB drive, but I don't need to keep everything stored on there, I was thinking when I set up the new computer I'll use the "Optimize Mac Storage" option in Photos.

The external drive will essentially serve as a backup should I ever need to use it.. If I delete a picture from iCloud and don't realize it and 30 days later its gone, or something like that.

Here's my question - is there a way to sync that external drive with my live iCloud account periodically so that it has the latest and greatest. I'm thinking if i switch the "Download Originals/Optimize Mac" options its going to try and delete and re-download everything. I know I can use multiple libraries, but I can't think of a way to copy from one to the other since they won't be opened at the same time.
 
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