Thank you so very much. Your video has been a huge help to me 🙏.God bless you 🙏🎶😊. I just ended up freeing almost 300 GB of space on my laptop thanks to your very clear instructions. I have 2 questions : 1) The 'consolidate' option is clickable . Once I click it, it says 'No referenced files to consolidate. The selected items are already stored in the library' .... Is this how it's supposed to be or have I done something wrong ? 2) Do I just repeat this process every time I move new photos from my iPhone to the laptop and then to the same external hard disk as I just moved what I have so far to ?
I agree with your Backup philosophy. Backup, Backup, Backup! Stuff fails so one is not enough...you need a belt, suspenders, and Duct tape to keep your files from falling down! Thanks for all the info.
Hi thank you. I am trying to move photos from my iphone to an external drive but can't find a way to do it to move the whole folder like you did. i have 22k photos and 2k videos to move. Also, if you move the whole library like you did, what happens with new photos that you take, and lastly how about if you don't want to use icloud at all. My 200 g of icloud is full and i don't want to pay them for the rest of my life lol.. so i guess i want to turn off this sharing move the library and then have a maintenance procedure to update the storage once a month.. does that make sense? just trying to find an easy way to do this.. (not one photo at a time, not drag and drop.. i'd like a copy and paste.. done)
I can’t thank you enough! I just got a 5 TB “My Passport” the other day to finally have a backup for my Mac, which has been my backup for several years now. Along with backing up my Mac, I also got it to back up everything else (Dell laptop, modded 3DS, which I sadly already deleted most of my photos off of by accident, etc.), as my 3DS said the photos were “corrupted ”. Being clueless at that time, I deleted them. I lost about 6 years of photos and have learned how important it is to keep a backup. I had found my video album, but would have never found my photo library if it weren’t for this! Again, I thank you.
Great video! very well scripted, direct straight to the point full of information at just the right pace. This is exactly what I was looking for. You Rock!
I have some questions because I need to do this. 1.) Wouldn't you want to make sure the move was successful before deleting the original? Ideally there's a backup somewhere, but wouldn't that be a hassle to get back? I wouldn't know how to do that and would need a tutorial from you on that. 2.) You moved the library to the XTRM-Q drive, however, when you show how to get back in (which also took a few confusing turns for me regarding the different libraries, and "option" and comma...), you aren't accessing the XTRM-Q drive but one called Nymeria instead (at 6:03, 6:24, 6:30 and 6:37). Why is that? Did the move not work properly? I'd love to know because again, I need to do this but I'm afraid to lose all my stuff, especially now when I see the different drives/locations. 3.) I'm subscribed to you but can't find mac-dedicated playlists. I'd really like to know more about different libraries, how you choose, how you set the default, etc. Thank you.
Thanks, good video. This is way I did it for my 310GB of photos. Open photo app on your MAC, make sure you highlight Photos on the left menu, once you see all your pictures, click Command A to select all, now drag to a folder created on your external SSD, let it copy. The beauty of this is that by default apple stored pictures in HEIC format but when you drag them to external SSD Pics are copied in JPEG format. I like my pictures in JPEG or RAW format. Now go back to your Photo App-Preferences-iCloud-iCloud Photo-Optimize Mac Storage. Sweet. This way is easier to work with pictures anywhere any OS. Hope this method help some people.
Very Helpful. Now question, with this method. Since now were uploading photos to the photos library in the External Hard Drive, when doing backups - should we just drag and drop the new file to another hard drive or does this not save the new imported photos to the selected drive?
You have great content Doc, I came across your video by accident, I found you easy to listen to and instructions very clear - I wondered if you could do the same video for IPad users, I am struggling to transfer my iCloud photos to an external hard drive using my IPad Pro. Any help would be greatly appreciated
I Like this tip and followed your instructions. After I reboot some time after the reboot the Photos app redownloads the entire library and then puts it in the trash so my drive is still full until I empty the trash. The external drive library appears to be normal but I have the large Photos library file in the trash. I have the latest macOS Monterey 12.2.1. Any ideas?
This is a great video. Could you tell us if we can connect the external hard disk to a windows system and still be able to view the photos? Additionally can we still use the same photo library on the mac itself by deleting the photos on it now that we have copied the photos library onto an external hard disk? Because I do not have it connected all the time to my system.
This was super informative and helpful, thank you. Once you've moved your photos library from your Mac to an external SSD (Samsung T7), and if I want to select few photos from the photos library (Stored in the Samsung T7) and transfer it to my iPhone - how do I do that?
At 6:30 you are checking to see that library has been moved to your new drive, but you have the drive Nymeria selected. Wasn't that the original location of the photo library? Shouldn't have your new drive XTRM-Q selected instead to validate the photos library was moved there?
I’m a 3-2-1 Backup Guy so while doing this I decided to use Nymeria as this did not have to be on my Fastest Drive. I have both copies but one lives on the 5TB and one on my 20tb raid. Sorry for the confusion. The process is the same regardless though. Just be sure to set to “System Library” after in preference
@@DocRock So...if I copied the photo library over to the XTRM SSD, Trashed the Photo Library on the iMac/Mac drive, & then wanted to have the library to continue to be stored on the XTRM drive, I would set preference to it, correct? Also, after this is done (on my phone) would I want to keep "Automatic" Transfer to Mac or PC selected?
Great video! I noticed a bunch of my photos/videos are actually stored to iCloud so image capture didn't have all of them & I don't have them in Photos Library (didn't want to use up my MacBook space), in this scenario, how can I back those up without downloading to my Mac and then moving to external drive? So basically how can I backup to external drive but skip taking up space on my Mac to do that, if possible?
My dad’s MacBook Pro is running out of space and I found out Apple Photos is taking up 90% of the storage. I was so shocked!! I was trying to figure out how to move the Photos lib to an external and I found you. Excellent video. Mahalo.
Aloha Doc Rock, new to your channel, great tips my man. So i work for a certain fruit company doing tech support for this specific app, that being said, your instructions are spot on with moving the library. as a side note, if you do not have an external drive and go to photos > preferences > icloud tab > click on optimize mac storage. This will keep the full res images in your library in icloud and keep optimized versions on the internal mac HD, so in theory saving space on the internal drive. Keep up these awesome videos yo
Hi Doc this is great I managed to get nearly through it, but when I drag photo file to external drive it does not let me, is there a setting that won't allow the transfer of photos that I need to change. thanks in advance
The drive is probably formatted in a PC Format. You need to format the draft as Mac OS Journaled with Disc Utility. Of course anything on there will be deleted
Hey thanks for this saved so much space on my Mac. However whenever I try and eject the hard drive it says it is being used even though all programmes are close?
wow, all this went over my head, lol. I will have to keep watching this. I am no techi lol. Did I hear you correct? Did you say the external hard drive will fail after 3 years? so every 3 years I will need to move to again to another hard drive??? Thanks so much in advance.
This is so great, but.... can you suggest an option for not filling up iCloud because I have a great deal of video stored in Photos as well. My iCloud storage is full now. With 2T. This video is a great start, but I need a part two for iCloud help. Please and thank you.
This was very clear and helpful but the one last step I was so confused . Other library and you clicked the library you said where you put it but that was another hard drive not the one you backed it up from beginning
The steps work. I copied twice because I changed drivers to a faster drive. The key step to finish is in the pinned comments. No matter where you put it you need to make it the system library
Thanks for the video! When I try to open a video from my hard drive now it states "photos cannot play this video because the resource is unavailable." I wanted to make sure it was on the shared drive properly before deleting everything. Can you assist with why this is happening? Thank you so much!
Great vid - thanks. So I follow along, but I want to take photos with my iPhone and when I plug it into my iMac, I want the photos to import into my external HD where my Photos App is located already. I don't really care about storing them on iCloud, I just really want them on my phone and photos app (external HD) any help? TIA
After doing this should we create a new library? what happens next? All the new fotos we take will go to I-cloud but not on the Mac? Thanks and thanks for the video!
lots of good stuff I just subscribed I'm new to iPad I have all my art on an external drive but I want to move it into photos app on I pad, I happened to move them to the iPad but not into photos app where I wanted them perhaps some one can point me to a tutorial to either find my pictures on my iPad and move them from the file system into the photos app or to start all over and move them straight from my external hard drive, I have 512 storage on my iPad and about 250 gigs of art work, I want them on my iPad so I can show them to friends and family or potential clients thanks for listening ✌
If you have your photos library on an external hardrive, and you have icloud photos turn on, will it still upload new imported photos to icloud? Also, your saying one can have more than one library folder? Could I have one folder on my Mac and one folder on my external HD (say for photos over 5 yrs old)? Would both be accessible through the photo app on my Mac? Would both back up to icloud? Thanks.
What if you don’t have iCloud turned on, or at least photos for iCloud turned on? I was planning on getting a Mac this year. I already have an iPad, but I don’t use icloud. Would this happen if everything for iCloud is turned off?
Mahalo! Do you believe HDD externals need to be replaced as often as you recommend for SSD externals? I know the obvious answer is yea just do it anyways but I heard they(HDD) are much more stable. Really appreciate your work.
It's a trade off, borderline indestructabel and fast AF SSD vs fell off the table and toast or dead because of frozen mechanics HDD. Personally I chose SSd all day. I have about 20 SSDs and the only spinners are in the synology 48TB Raid. That is setup to lose two drives and still not lose data.
Hey Doc, great video (as always) , but having this error message when I try to enable icloud: "icloud photo library is not available if the system photo library is located on a network file server" Any idea how to make it work? I'm using my Synology NAS as my external drive.
Hey Doc Rock great video I'm a first time viewer and subscriber. I'm having a problem after transferring photos to the external hard drive it's notifying me that the photos address already exist but it's a different photos that I didn't transfer yet....
Hi Doc, Great presentation on a subject that a lot of peole will be apprehensive to tackle. Thank you very much. One question from me: Does this in any way affect the way in which iCloud works with Photos?
you are just great, you solved a big problem for me, I have same problem for creating backups to my IPAD as well, can we do same i always get like 12-15 GB of space on my 250 gb MAC Pro
Hi, nice solution for iMac users. I have similar problem on my mac book pro. Since it is a laptop I won't have my external hard drives connected to it all the time. So is the answer connect it when ever I want to see my photos? No problem, but does it automatically sync to my external hard drive whenever I connect it ? Also, how about storage on my iPhone? does it basically fill up my brand new iPhone with all of the iCloud photos and how to free space up on iPhone?
Hey Doc, what about updated photos? meaning after transferring to external harddisk on 1Jan- of course i'll be taking new photos after. will icloud auto sync to the photos library app in my external harddisk?
Funny you should ask as I just did that over the Christmas Holiday. So far flawless. I have a DB1821+ with 4 14tb Datacenter drives and a !)GBE network so mine is stupid fast but it should work nicely even at 1gb network speeds
@@DocRock Wow, sounds really good 👍🏻. Others really advise against using that setup, so hope to see some updates from you on this! 😊. I am just really fett up with my ext hdd hanging from my mbp! , so need to find a solution. I have been looking at the ds220j as I’m in no way a pro user, but merely need a simple way to do time machine and wireless location for the Photos library file.
Hi. Helpful Video. I'm trying to move 175GB photo Library from my 2016 Imac to an 1-TB WesternDigital HDD . It says 64 days (yes, Sixty Four Days! lol) to transfer via direct ethernet cable. Any advice on am i doing wrong?
Hi Doc Rock, you're a real rock. Now with no excuses I'll find the courage to get them back and move the photos, first from my phone back to the mac (where they had disappeared) then hopefully to my new SSD. In other words you've convinced me to try again. Thanks a lot. I will subscribe as you're so clear and to the point. Keep rocking 😊
What if I have optimized storage turned on because I don't have enough room on my Mac. I would like to copy my library in full reolution pictures to an external hard drive. I'm also worried about accessing these library folders years down the road...Would it better to copy pictures directly from my phone? I'm subscribing now:)
Once you move the library to the external drive and set the external drive as the default system library you can turn off optimize and it will bring down full resolution files but honestly that is not necessary. The safest place for the full resolution files is the cloud. And you can. I up to 6TB you get plenty of space. I currently have 4TB iCloud account and about 60k photos and 10k videos only a little over 2TB used for them
Im fairly new to a mac and external storage, how can we make sure that our photos are not being transferred to our external storage multiple times when we add new photos/storage to the external? Also how can organize our photos so that on the external they show up by year/month taken and not just randomly all over the place? Mine are hard to navigate and its hard to tell if they are all there because they are just everywhere
I swear I'm bnot trying to be cute... anywhere from one week to 10 years. I personally don't keep mine past 3 to 5 years. I swap them out when the warranty dies and most HD warranties are 3 years and 5 years. Yes it's "Expensive" but I'm memories are priceless. #Mahalo 🤙🏽
Doc I found this video last year when I first got my Mac way before I knew you were going to be part of my every day life. Way before I knew what e-camm was way before everything. So I guess it is destiny I found you. Thanks for all of your teachings.
Yes you can, but at this was a tutorial I have the files backed up elsewhere with Mylio Photos (docrock.live/mylio) and I have a 2TB iCloud ( actually now 4TB shottr.cc/s/1xHq/SCR-20240219-djap.png ) so I know I have the files safe. At over 100K photos and videos I am not gonna check to be sure all is there as I trust the process (ex apple employee) as I have done many times. Yeah so you probably should check if it scares you a bit. Mahalo for asking, it's a good question.
Thanks for the content so on my external hard drive I see the file but when I try the option and open other library and choose my external hard drive I don’t see it come up. So I’m stuck at this point 😢
@@DocRock thanks but I am a man. Not sure you thought I was a female because if my last name lol Could you then make a video of how to use Iphotos and it’s features for photos that are store in a shared driver please? Thanks Doc
Thanks for this! I'm new to the Apple ecosystem and have the M1 Mac Mini with 256GB storage, and didn't want to turn iCloud photos on until I figured out how to run it from my external drive. Concise and perfect tutorial!
Did it transfer all your photos and videos from iCloud to the USB drive? Mine isn't doing that. The USB drive now only contains what was already on the boot drive!
This was extremely helpful! One question...I have been working from photos on an external hard drive (Apple Airport), and I am finding it impossible to use MOTIF or other apps to create photo books for export. I keep running into an error with their software, in that they say their program is inoperable from an external drive. Have you seen this?
Hi! I am so new on using my macbook air, I am trying to follow your instructions but I can't find that "preference" you said upon opening the photos to show the whole folder in finder. Can you help me out?
Great video! Thanks! I’m new to Mac OS. Once I’m done, how do I prevent the system from downloading the photos again from iCloud? I like having them there and sync to my iPhone and iPad, but I don’t want them in my MBP.
Both my iPhone and iMac are sync to the iCloud, showing same amount of photos but iMac apparently downloaded significantly more data to he drive, I wonder why.
this sounds awesome. I have been needing info like this for years. I found you when I was needing to figure out how to transfer my photos into Lightroom (I have 30,000). I wasn't sure whether or not I was going to bother or just start start using an external hard drive for my Lightroom work. so that my Catalog would only be on the external and work directly from the external (having to make sure I have it with me at all times). instead of finding that video telling me how to transfer my photos to Lightroom, I found this video. I need this. 1. I don't understand how you can drag your photos library to the trash 2. what happens to the photos on the iPhone? won't the iPhone pictures which I guess are all in the cloud just repopulate the computer library? (I have iCloud storage of 1 T). 3. what did you mean at the end about using an external something to plug the external into to do the transfer? you bring up a device to use in addition to the external hard drive.
La Cie Rugged is 1050MBps, the San Disk Extreme Pro is 2000MBps, the La Cie Rugged Pro is same speed at the Sabrent but is $350 for 1TB vs for 2TB on the Sabrent
Hey i was just wondering what would happen if i tried to access the library from my iphone, and if it is not possible what would you suggest me to do to have an external storage that i can comfortably access from all my devices. Thanks
yes sorry i didn't mention i was hoping to do this by uploading the library on a portable SSD, and open it with various devices; possibly even from windows, but I'm afraid it won't work .do you happen to know something about this? i can't find any information online. Thanks for the answer@@DocRock
Hey Doc Rock, Doc Bob here. I happily found your site today and was glad to see that I did this task correctly a while back…whew! I have a big photo library and am kinda paranoid about losing stuff, so I wanted to ask your advice. My photos are stored on an external ssd, backed up to iCloud, and I also have hard copy backup (via Time Machine) of my ssd & computer HD on a slower, non-ssd drive. Does that seem adequate to you? Thanks for the great tip about changing out ssd drives every 3 years. Do you feel the same way about non-ssd drives? Thanks again for the great site and any advice. All the best to you, Bob
Hey Doc you do Rock. That was a great presentation. I’ve been in engineering hardware/software for over 40 years. I use a lot of different platforms. PC, Unix, Linux, Mac… I actually owned one of the original Macs back in the early 80s so I’ve been a long time user. Thanks for your video. Totally Awesome Dude!
I LOVE this guy! He's clear. And fun. Good on camera. Answers all the little "what ifs" before you even think of them.
Mahalo and #Aloha
Thank you so very much. Your video has been a huge help to me 🙏.God bless you 🙏🎶😊. I just ended up freeing almost 300 GB of space on my laptop thanks to your very clear instructions.
I have 2 questions :
1) The 'consolidate' option is clickable . Once I click it, it says 'No referenced files to consolidate. The selected items are already stored in the library' .... Is this how it's supposed to be or have I done something wrong ?
2) Do I just repeat this process every time I move new photos from my iPhone to the laptop and then to the same external hard disk as I just moved what I have so far to ?
I agree with your Backup philosophy. Backup, Backup, Backup! Stuff fails so one is not enough...you need a belt, suspenders, and Duct tape to keep your files from falling down! Thanks for all the info.
Well done! Don’t you also want to declare this new photos library the “system library” ?
Hi thank you. I am trying to move photos from my iphone to an external drive but can't find a way to do it to move the whole folder like you did. i have 22k photos and 2k videos to move. Also, if you move the whole library like you did, what happens with new photos that you take, and lastly how about if you don't want to use icloud at all. My 200 g of icloud is full and i don't want to pay them for the rest of my life lol.. so i guess i want to turn off this sharing move the library and then have a maintenance procedure to update the storage once a month.. does that make sense? just trying to find an easy way to do this.. (not one photo at a time, not drag and drop.. i'd like a copy and paste.. done)
Im 3 years late but I just wanted to say that your positivity and just overall energy is incredibly positive and uplifting.
Mahalo
I am working on preparing to launch a podcast. Your mic looks amazing. Do you have any recommendations?
I use a Shure SM7B one of the industry standards. They sound incredible. kit.co/DocRock/doc-s-ecamm-live-kit/shure-sm7b-vocal-dyn
I can’t thank you enough! I just got a 5 TB “My Passport” the other day to finally have a backup for my Mac, which has been my backup for several years now. Along with backing up my Mac, I also got it to back up everything else (Dell laptop, modded 3DS, which I sadly already deleted most of my photos off of by accident, etc.), as my 3DS said the photos were “corrupted ”. Being clueless at that time, I deleted them. I lost about 6 years of photos and have learned how important it is to keep a backup. I had found my video album, but would have never found my photo library if it weren’t for this! Again, I thank you.
Great video! very well scripted, direct straight to the point full of information at just the right pace. This is exactly what I was looking for. You Rock!
Thanks for watching.
I have some questions because I need to do this. 1.) Wouldn't you want to make sure the move was successful before deleting the original? Ideally there's a backup somewhere, but wouldn't that be a hassle to get back? I wouldn't know how to do that and would need a tutorial from you on that. 2.) You moved the library to the XTRM-Q drive, however, when you show how to get back in (which also took a few confusing turns for me regarding the different libraries, and "option" and comma...), you aren't accessing the XTRM-Q drive but one called Nymeria instead (at 6:03, 6:24, 6:30 and 6:37). Why is that? Did the move not work properly? I'd love to know because again, I need to do this but I'm afraid to lose all my stuff, especially now when I see the different drives/locations. 3.) I'm subscribed to you but can't find mac-dedicated playlists. I'd really like to know more about different libraries, how you choose, how you set the default, etc. Thank you.
yea the guy talks too faast
Awesome....very helpful! Where is the video link to move Apple Music Library to an External Harddrive?
Thanks, good video. This is way I did it for my 310GB of photos. Open photo app on your MAC, make sure you highlight Photos on the left menu, once you see all your pictures, click Command A to select all, now drag to a folder created on your external SSD, let it copy. The beauty of this is that by default apple stored pictures in HEIC format but when you drag them to external SSD Pics are copied in JPEG format. I like my pictures in JPEG or RAW format. Now go back to your Photo App-Preferences-iCloud-iCloud Photo-Optimize Mac Storage. Sweet. This way is easier to work with pictures anywhere any OS. Hope this method help some people.
Thanks for that
Very Helpful. Now question, with this method. Since now were uploading photos to the photos library in the External Hard Drive, when doing backups - should we just drag and drop the new file to another hard drive or does this not save the new imported photos to the selected drive?
Thank you! I got confused with the last step because you were not selecting the same external hard drive to link to photos.
You have great content Doc, I came across your video by accident, I found you easy to listen to and instructions very clear - I wondered if you could do the same video for IPad users, I am struggling to transfer my iCloud photos to an external hard drive using my IPad Pro. Any help would be greatly appreciated
THANK YOU!!! years of struggling with being stingy with downloads hahaha!!! With only 1gig left, you are a LIFESAVER!
I Like this tip and followed your instructions. After I reboot some time after the reboot the Photos app redownloads the entire library and then puts it in the trash so my drive is still full until I empty the trash. The external drive library appears to be normal but I have the large Photos library file in the trash. I have the latest macOS Monterey 12.2.1. Any ideas?
This is a great video. Could you tell us if we can connect the external hard disk to a windows system and still be able to view the photos? Additionally can we still use the same photo library on the mac itself by deleting the photos on it now that we have copied the photos library onto an external hard disk? Because I do not have it connected all the time to my system.
windows won't work without a MacOs reader program for windows and it will just not sync until plugged in
Doc Rock, you did a phenomenal job walking us through this process! I was able to free up some valuable gigs on my new Mac M1. Keep up the great work!
Nice video bro , greetings from Kuala Lumpur , Malaysia 💪🙏
This was super informative and helpful, thank you.
Once you've moved your photos library from your Mac to an external SSD (Samsung T7), and if I want to select few photos from the photos library (Stored in the Samsung T7) and transfer it to my iPhone - how do I do that?
Nice info. I dislike software that creates database files somewhere it chooses, before too long these files get huge.
At 6:30 you are checking to see that library has been moved to your new drive, but you have the drive Nymeria selected. Wasn't that the original location of the photo library? Shouldn't have your new drive XTRM-Q selected instead to validate the photos library was moved there?
I’m a 3-2-1 Backup Guy so while doing this I decided to use Nymeria as this did not have to be on my Fastest Drive. I have both copies but one lives on the 5TB and one on my 20tb raid. Sorry for the confusion. The process is the same regardless though. Just be sure to set to “System Library” after in preference
@@DocRock So...if I copied the photo library over to the XTRM SSD, Trashed the Photo Library on the iMac/Mac drive, & then wanted to have the library to continue to be stored on the XTRM drive, I would set preference to it, correct? Also, after this is done (on my phone) would I want to keep "Automatic" Transfer to Mac or PC selected?
Great video! I noticed a bunch of my photos/videos are actually stored to iCloud so image capture didn't have all of them & I don't have them in Photos Library (didn't want to use up my MacBook space), in this scenario, how can I back those up without downloading to my Mac and then moving to external drive? So basically how can I backup to external drive but skip taking up space on my Mac to do that, if possible?
I cannot thank you enough for this! I moved my file to an external drive and did not know to bring it back. Thanh you, thank you, thank you!
I realised this would happen before i did it. I need to move the content of my photos app to a drive not the app itself
Agreed ❤
Can you do a video on backing up appropriate files from your iPad to an external hard drive please
My dad’s MacBook Pro is running out of space and I found out Apple Photos is taking up 90% of the storage. I was so shocked!! I was trying to figure out how to move the Photos lib to an external and I found you. Excellent video. Mahalo.
Happy to help
Aloha Doc Rock, new to your channel, great tips my man. So i work for a certain fruit company doing tech support for this specific app, that being said, your instructions are spot on with moving the library. as a side note, if you do not have an external drive and go to photos > preferences > icloud tab > click on optimize mac storage. This will keep the full res images in your library in icloud and keep optimized versions on the internal mac HD, so in theory saving space on the internal drive. Keep up these awesome videos yo
Great tip. I really miss the Farm (I was a Geni). It was great but I missed content creation more 🤣
@@DocRock haha this creating content job is probably way more fun...gotta go and watch some dude on macbreak weekly now
I love your video. The only question I got is, how do you make sure that photos don’t come right back after you take them off of the cloud
This was excellent. So, if I were to take a step back, what's the best way to sync all your iPhone photos to the photo app on the mac?
Dude... Why is your intro so dope? This video was clear and straight to the point!
Hi Doc
this is great I managed to get nearly through it, but when I drag photo file to external drive it does not let me, is there a setting that won't allow the transfer of photos that I need to change. thanks in advance
The drive is probably formatted in a PC Format. You need to format the draft as Mac OS Journaled with Disc Utility. Of course anything on there will be deleted
Hey thanks for this saved so much space on my Mac. However whenever I try and eject the hard drive it says it is being used even though all programmes are close?
Thanks for a clear concise video. Extremely helpfull
OMG THANK YOU I needed to learn this lol. I literally just used up all my storage on my new MacBook Air.
Happy to help. Yes it happens.
wow, all this went over my head, lol. I will have to keep watching this. I am no techi lol. Did I hear you correct? Did you say the external hard drive will fail after 3 years? so every 3 years I will need to move to again to another hard drive??? Thanks so much in advance.
this is great thanks !! Can I plug my iPhone to mac and import the photos on the iPhone to the external SSD where my library is located ???
This is so great, but.... can you suggest an option for not filling up iCloud because I have a great deal of video stored in Photos as well. My iCloud storage is full now. With 2T. This video is a great start, but I need a part two for iCloud help. Please and thank you.
Yes move the videos to an external and trim or delete videos. This eat up the space.
Worked like a charm, thanks doc
You're welcome!
This was very clear and helpful but the one last step I was so confused . Other library and you clicked the library you said where you put it but that was another hard drive not the one you backed it up from beginning
The steps work. I copied twice because I changed drivers to a faster drive. The key step to finish is in the pinned comments. No matter where you put it you need to make it the system library
@@DocRock thx. I’m trying to delete photo library from trash and it says it can’t because it’s in use any suggestions
Thanks for the video! When I try to open a video from my hard drive now it states "photos cannot play this video because the resource is unavailable." I wanted to make sure it was on the shared drive properly before deleting everything. Can you assist with why this is happening? Thank you so much!
it may be still in iCloud and not fully downloaded to the disc yet. You can look at the video on your phone and airdrop it to yourself
Great vid - thanks. So I follow along, but I want to take photos with my iPhone and when I plug it into my iMac, I want the photos to import into my external HD where my Photos App is located already. I don't really care about storing them on iCloud, I just really want them on my phone and photos app (external HD) any help? TIA
Great video. I have an old MacBook Air laptop. I’m wondering if I could do this with its small drive? Not sure about the older operating system.
the drive size of the notebook doesn't matter because you are eventually storing everything on the external. How old is old os?
@@DocRock the MacBook Air is one of the first ones…. 2010. 13 year old laptop. It’s in a box, not charged. Old OS. Probably not compatible enough
Hey Doc Rock, What if you use a MacBook and it isnt always connected to you external SSD? Will it not back up tot he SSD until you connect again?
After doing this should we create a new library? what happens next? All the new fotos we take will go to I-cloud but not on the Mac? Thanks and thanks for the video!
well I just got it, it will be the new place to synchronise fotos...
Yes that way it frees up your internal drive. Be sure to follow the steps in the pinned comment
Will the photos you take on your phone continue to sync with iCloud and photos app on the computer now that you’ve done this?
lots of good stuff I just subscribed I'm new to iPad I have all my art on an external drive but I want to move it into photos app on I pad, I happened to move them to the iPad but not into photos app where I wanted them perhaps some one can point me to a tutorial to either find my pictures on my iPad and move them from the file system into the photos app or to start all over and move them straight from my external hard drive, I have 512 storage on my iPad and about 250 gigs of art work, I want them on my iPad so I can show them to friends and family or potential clients thanks for listening ✌
If you have your photos library on an external hardrive, and you have icloud photos turn on, will it still upload new imported photos to icloud?
Also, your saying one can have more than one library folder? Could I have one folder on my Mac and one folder on my external HD (say for photos over 5 yrs old)? Would both be accessible through the photo app on my Mac? Would both back up to icloud?
Thanks.
Yes totally. Make sure you see the pinned comment to reattach to iCloud Sync. I did it in the video but explained it horribly 😏
Just in case you don’t see it. support.apple.com/en-us/HT204414
What if you don’t have iCloud turned on, or at least photos for iCloud turned on? I was planning on getting a Mac this year. I already have an iPad, but I don’t use icloud. Would this happen if everything for iCloud is turned off?
Mahalo! Do you believe HDD externals need to be replaced as often as you recommend for SSD externals? I know the obvious answer is yea just do it anyways but I heard they(HDD) are much more stable. Really appreciate your work.
It's a trade off, borderline indestructabel and fast AF SSD vs fell off the table and toast or dead because of frozen mechanics HDD.
Personally I chose SSd all day. I have about 20 SSDs and the only spinners are in the synology 48TB Raid. That is setup to lose two drives and still not lose data.
@@DocRock Thanks for your advice! spinners are aka HDD drives? my wife is a spinner, I hope I don't have to trade her in😂
@@OCShandiggity hahahaha yes spinner as in mechanical spinning had platters
Hey Doc, great video (as always) , but having this error message when I try to enable icloud:
"icloud photo library is not available if the system photo library is located on a network file server"
Any idea how to make it work? I'm using my Synology NAS as my external drive.
Thank you i needed to clear up my storage on my phone.
What about text messages? Could i do the same for text?
Thank you for the clarity of your instructions!
Hey Doc Rock great video I'm a first time viewer and subscriber. I'm having a problem after transferring photos to the external hard drive it's notifying me that the photos address already exist but it's a different photos that I didn't transfer yet....
Your videos are amazing and super helpful. I do have a MacBook Pro, which external drive do you recommend I buy? Thank you so very much! :)
Hi Doc, Great presentation on a subject that a lot of peole will be apprehensive to tackle. Thank you very much.
One question from me: Does this in any way affect the way in which iCloud works with Photos?
you are just great, you solved a big problem for me, I have same problem for creating backups to my IPAD as well, can we do same i always get like 12-15 GB of space on my 250 gb MAC Pro
Dude, you are the man! I’ve been trying to figure this out forever… You explained it perfectly!!!!!
Love this guy. So helpful. I did do the bonehead thing and filled up my brand new MBP within a few days. This was perfect.
Appreciate you. Trust you are not alone. Thanks for watching.
Hi Doc, Could you do a lesson like this for iMovie videos too?
I will try. Not an iMovie user since the original version eons ago. hahahahaha
Hi, nice solution for iMac users. I have similar problem on my mac book pro. Since it is a laptop I won't have my external hard drives connected to it all the time. So is the answer connect it when ever I want to see my photos? No problem, but does it automatically sync to my external hard drive whenever I connect it ? Also, how about storage on my iPhone? does it basically fill up my brand new iPhone with all of the iCloud photos and how to free space up on iPhone?
It will sync when the drive is connected when you open photos. It won’t fill up your iPhone. It’s kinda intelligent
Hey Doc, what about updated photos? meaning after transferring to external harddisk on 1Jan- of course i'll be taking new photos after.
will icloud auto sync to the photos library app in my external harddisk?
Nice tutorial, thanks.. Any experience with using a disk station/NAS as location of MacOS Photos archives file?
Funny you should ask as I just did that over the Christmas Holiday. So far flawless.
I have a DB1821+ with 4 14tb Datacenter drives and a !)GBE network so mine is stupid fast but it should work nicely even at 1gb network speeds
@@DocRock Wow, sounds really good 👍🏻. Others really advise against using that setup, so hope to see some updates from you on this! 😊. I am just really fett up with my ext hdd hanging from my mbp! , so need to find a solution.
I have been looking at the ds220j as I’m in no way a pro user, but merely need a simple way to do time machine and wireless location for the Photos library file.
Hi. Helpful Video. I'm trying to move 175GB photo Library from my 2016 Imac to an 1-TB WesternDigital HDD . It says 64 days (yes, Sixty Four Days! lol) to transfer via direct ethernet cable. Any advice on am i doing wrong?
haard to say. If possible try a different cable
I’m having the same issue. Did you solve it?
Hi Doc Rock, you're a real rock. Now with no excuses I'll find the courage to get them back and move the photos, first from my phone back to the mac (where they had disappeared) then hopefully to my new SSD. In other words you've convinced me to try again. Thanks a lot. I will subscribe as you're so clear and to the point. Keep rocking 😊
What if I have optimized storage turned on because I don't have enough room on my Mac. I would like to copy my library in full reolution pictures to an external hard drive. I'm also worried about accessing these library folders years down the road...Would it better to copy pictures directly from my phone? I'm subscribing now:)
Once you move the library to the external drive and set the external drive as the default system library you can turn off optimize and it will bring down full resolution files but honestly that is not necessary. The safest place for the full resolution files is the cloud. And you can. I up to 6TB you get plenty of space. I currently have 4TB iCloud account and about 60k photos and 10k videos only a little over 2TB used for them
Im fairly new to a mac and external storage, how can we make sure that our photos are not being transferred to our external storage multiple times when we add new photos/storage to the external? Also how can organize our photos so that on the external they show up by year/month taken and not just randomly all over the place?
Mine are hard to navigate and its hard to tell if they are all there because they are just everywhere
External drives go bad??? How long does it take?
I swear I'm bnot trying to be cute... anywhere from one week to 10 years. I personally don't keep mine past 3 to 5 years. I swap them out when the warranty dies and most HD warranties are 3 years and 5 years. Yes it's "Expensive" but I'm memories are priceless. #Mahalo 🤙🏽
Is there away to merge two libraries into one?
Thanks! wish they gave more options for sync, kinda a scam to push up spending
You do rock, Doc! I've worried about this for years. No more.
Thank you so much! I had 1.2 terabytes of photos on my computer. Your video was awesome and very clear and precise. You really are "Doc Rock"!
Doc I found this video last year when I first got my Mac way before I knew you were going to be part of my every day life. Way before I knew what e-camm was way before everything. So I guess it is destiny I found you. Thanks for all of your teachings.
Do you need to format the external hard drive
not unless it is PC formatted
YOU ARE AMAAAAZING. THANK YOU!!! SUBSCRIBED
Great video my man! This was very easy to follow!
Just wondering
Shouldn’t you have double checked the downloaded file Before you threw the original in the garage?
Yes you can, but at this was a tutorial I have the files backed up elsewhere with Mylio Photos (docrock.live/mylio) and I have a 2TB iCloud ( actually now 4TB shottr.cc/s/1xHq/SCR-20240219-djap.png ) so I know I have the files safe. At over 100K photos and videos I am not gonna check to be sure all is there as I trust the process (ex apple employee) as I have done many times.
Yeah so you probably should check if it scares you a bit.
Mahalo for asking, it's a good question.
Finally ! Video answered all questions clearly ! Thanks so much
Great video! However, I opened it and realized that it isn’t updating with iCloud. Do you know how to fix this?
See the pined comment, make sure it is set as system library
Ok that really helped! Thanks!
Thanks for the content so on my external hard drive I see the file but when I try the option and open other library and choose my external hard drive I don’t see it come up. So I’m stuck at this point 😢
Loved this! Thanks so much!!!
Great Video!
does it mean you can still use Photos app features such as face recognition and location when photos are stored in an external drive?
Yes ma’am, there should be no functional difference. Thanks for watching
@@DocRock thanks but I am a man. Not sure you thought I was a female because if my last name lol
Could you then make a video of how to use Iphotos and it’s features for photos that are store in a shared driver please?
Thanks Doc
finallllly found a vidoe that helped. took me an hour of clicking through videos. saving the channel!
Thanks for this! I'm new to the Apple ecosystem and have the M1 Mac Mini with 256GB storage, and didn't want to turn iCloud photos on until I figured out how to run it from my external drive. Concise and perfect tutorial!
Did it transfer all your photos and videos from iCloud to the USB drive? Mine isn't doing that. The USB drive now only contains what was already on the boot drive!
THANK YOU FOR ALL THE INFO!!!! I'm paranoid about losing my photos. Doing God's work! thanks!
Thank you very much for the video. I have a question: how do you upload your photos to AWS Glacier? Is there any tool for that?
Did you make the iTunes/music video yet, the how to move to external drive?
No but I can. I have had that external for over ten years
This was extremely helpful! One question...I have been working from photos on an external hard drive (Apple Airport), and I am finding it impossible to use MOTIF or other apps to create photo books for export. I keep running into an error with their software, in that they say their program is inoperable from an external drive. Have you seen this?
Hi! I am so new on using my macbook air, I am trying to follow your instructions but I can't find that "preference" you said upon opening the photos to show the whole folder in finder. Can you help me out?
On the upper left hand of your mac next to your apple logo, click photos and your 2nd option should be preference!
Thanks for catching that #Aloha
Great video! Thanks! I’m new to Mac OS. Once I’m done, how do I prevent the system from downloading the photos again from iCloud? I like having them there and sync to my iPhone and iPad, but I don’t want them in my MBP.
Where did you go to get system preferences
Command + ,
great video!! kind of sort out change the iCould Drive location issue.
should i optimize the photos on my mac to be stored in icloud before moving the library to an external harddrive?
doesn't matter but i did
Both my iPhone and iMac are sync to the iCloud, showing same amount of photos but iMac apparently downloaded significantly more data to he drive, I wonder why.
It's a setting on Photos shottr.cc/s/1TeJ/SCR-20240308-b3x.png
this sounds awesome. I have been needing info like this for years. I found you when I was needing to figure out how to transfer my photos into Lightroom (I have 30,000). I wasn't sure whether or not I was going to bother or just start start using an external hard drive for my Lightroom work. so that my Catalog would only be on the external and work directly from the external (having to make sure I have it with me at all times). instead of finding that video telling me how to transfer my photos to Lightroom, I found this video. I need this. 1. I don't understand how you can drag your photos library to the trash 2. what happens to the photos on the iPhone? won't the iPhone pictures which I guess are all in the cloud just repopulate the computer library? (I have iCloud storage of 1 T). 3. what did you mean at the end about using an external something to plug the external into to do the transfer? you bring up a device to use in addition to the external hard drive.
Can you comment on why you went with the sabrent rocket vs La Cie Rugged or SanDisk Extreme Pro? Just interested in your opinion. Thanks
La Cie Rugged is 1050MBps, the San Disk Extreme Pro is 2000MBps, the La Cie Rugged Pro is same speed at the Sabrent but is $350 for 1TB vs for 2TB on the Sabrent
Thanks!
Hey i was just wondering what would happen if i tried to access the library from my iphone, and if it is not possible what would you suggest me to do to have an external storage that i can comfortably access from all my devices.
Thanks
It’s still synced to the cloud if you set the new library to the system library. See pinned comment. Works just like normal
yes sorry i didn't mention i was hoping to do this by uploading the library on a portable SSD, and open it with various devices; possibly even from windows, but I'm afraid it won't work .do you happen to know something about this? i can't find any information online. Thanks for the answer@@DocRock
@@antonioallevi7649 check out Mylio Photo for that. geni.us/mylio
Hey Doc Rock, Doc Bob here. I happily found your site today and was glad to see that I did this task correctly a while back…whew! I have a big photo library and am kinda paranoid about losing stuff, so I wanted to ask your advice. My photos are stored on an external ssd, backed up to iCloud, and I also have hard copy backup (via Time Machine) of my ssd & computer HD on a slower, non-ssd drive. Does that seem adequate to you? Thanks for the great tip about changing out ssd drives every 3 years. Do you feel the same way about non-ssd drives? Thanks again for the great site and any advice. All the best to you, Bob
Hey Doc you do Rock. That was a great presentation. I’ve been in engineering hardware/software for over 40 years. I use a lot of different platforms. PC, Unix, Linux, Mac… I actually owned one of the original Macs back in the early 80s so I’ve been a long time user. Thanks for your video. Totally Awesome Dude!
Once moved to my NAS do I have to select it as system library in Photos Settings?
Photos unfortunately cannot sync with a NAS. I found out the hard way. Kinda irritating 😠