Sorting Out Photos Library
 

At the moment, I have 100GB of photos in my Photos library on my iMac,
and 80GB on iCloud.

Things have stopped syncing between devices - when I take a new photo on
the phone, it's not appearing across devices (iPad, Mini, iMac). The
Settings/iCloud Photo Library is not checked - so this could be part of
the problem. When I tick the box, the dialogue tells me there's not
enough room on the iMac (about 80GB free) to store the photos, and
offers to offload the full res photos on the iMac to iCloud to save space.

Now, I don't want to do this - I want to keep originals on my own
storage (iMac or an external disk/backup). And I have enough trouble
trying to understand where the originals are as it is.

What's the best way forward?!

* Delete the iCloud backup and let it rebuild?
* I would consider offloading the RAW and other large files, and backing
them up elsewhere - but I can't see a way to filter by size.

(note - I've x-posted - not sure of the netiquette here, so please reply
with that in mind)

--
Cheers, Rob

Sorting Out Photos Library
 

On Fri, 5 Jan 2018 11:12:05 +0000, RJH wrote:

At the moment, I have 100GB of photos in my Photos library on my iMac,
and 80GB on iCloud.

Things have stopped syncing between devices - when I take a new photo on
the phone, it's not appearing across devices (iPad, Mini, iMac). The
Settings/iCloud Photo Library is not checked - so this could be part of
the problem.

Rather. Unticking that reduces you to manual copy from the phone, or the
awful "last 1000 pics or 30 days" My Photo Stream which is unreliable
and wasteful of storage and all around eeurgh. It was useful five years
ago, let's leave it at that.

Ticking the iCloud Photo Librarhy box on each device allows each to
upload all new pics to iCloud, and also to show thumbnails (and download
originals on demand) of the whole iCloud-hosted library.

For normal use, to gain "I've got all my pictures everywhere!" synching,
tick the box on all devices you want to see or take your photos on. For
me, that's all of them.

When I tick the box, the dialogue tells me there's not
enough room on the iMac (about 80GB free) to store the photos, and
offers to offload the full res photos on the iMac to iCloud to save space.

Now, I don't want to do this - I want to keep originals on my own
storage (iMac or an external disk/backup). And I have enough trouble
trying to understand where the originals are as it is.

If you enable iCloud Photo Library, all originals are uploaded to
iCloud. That is your source of truth, as it were.

Originals will also be left on or synched to any device which has the
"Download originals to this XXX" Photos preference set. Otherwise the
device will be "managed" which in practice means full-res on Macs unless
you're short of space, and thumbnails locally and
download-from-iCloud-on-demand on iThings.

Myself: I tick that "originals" box on my iMac, my old spare Mini, and
my old 128gig iPad3 - and I back the Macs up elsewhere and offsite. I
won't risk losing my pics in an iCloud sync meltdown!

I do not tick it on my phone or my iPad Air 2 use. Sometimes mildly
annoying waiting for a pic to download full-res on the phone, but I
can't fit my whole library on it so no choice.

What's the best way forward?!

Photos on your Mac is being pessimistic/safe/dumb/maybe even correct,
and assuming that all the iCloud pics are not dupes of anything on the
Mac, thus the complaint about space. There's no way for you to fix that,
so temporarily offload *other* data from the Mac to make enough space,
then enable iCloud Photo Library and tick "Download originals to this
Mac". This will eventually - several days probably - resolve dupes, push
your Mac pics up to iCloud, download other pics from iCloud to mac, and
give you a combined set of all your originals in both iCloud and on the
Mac.

* Delete the iCloud backup and let it rebuild?

iCloud Backups are not related to iCloud Photo Library. Devices with IPL
enabled do not backup their pics again, they re-sync from the IPL if you
do a backup/restore. Don't delete any backups.

* I would consider offloading the RAW and other large files, and backing
them up elsewhere - but I can't see a way to filter by size.

You could look into that after getting everything into IPL, which would
reduce the footprint. Or just leave them in there, no harm.

Cheers - Jaimie
--
I always wanted to be someone. I should have been more specific.
-- Lily Tomlin

Sorting Out Photos Library
 

On 2018-01-05 11:12:05 +0000, RJH said:

At the moment, I have 100GB of photos in my Photos library on my iMac,
and 80GB on iCloud.

Things have stopped syncing between devices - when I take a new photo
on the phone, it's not appearing across devices (iPad, Mini, iMac). The
Settings/iCloud Photo Library is not checked - so this could be part of
the problem. When I tick the box, the dialogue tells me there's not
enough room on the iMac (about 80GB free) to store the photos, and
offers to offload the full res photos on the iMac to iCloud to save
space.

Now, I don't want to do this - I want to keep originals on my own
storage (iMac or an external disk/backup). And I have enough trouble
trying to understand where the originals are as it is.

What's the best way forward?!

* Delete the iCloud backup and let it rebuild?
* I would consider offloading the RAW and other large files, and
backing them up elsewhere - but I can't see a way to filter by size.

(note - I've x-posted - not sure of the netiquette here, so please
reply with that in mind)

I think that most posters in the uk.* hierarchy want it to UK only and
posting here in an international forum kinda spoils that. There are
talk on photo relateted hardware over at rec.photo.digital and posting
x-posting with that group should not be inappropriate. HTH.
--
teleportation kills

Sorting Out Photos Library
 

On 05/01/2018 12:37, Jaimie Vandenbergh wrote:
On Fri, 5 Jan 2018 11:12:05 +0000, RJH wrote:

At the moment, I have 100GB of photos in my Photos library on my iMac,
and 80GB on iCloud.

Things have stopped syncing between devices - when I take a new photo on
the phone, it's not appearing across devices (iPad, Mini, iMac). The
Settings/iCloud Photo Library is not checked - so this could be part of
the problem.

Rather. Unticking that reduces you to manual copy from the phone, or the
awful "last 1000 pics or 30 days" My Photo Stream which is unreliable
and wasteful of storage and all around eeurgh. It was useful five years
ago, let's leave it at that.

Ticking the iCloud Photo Librarhy box on each device allows each to
upload all new pics to iCloud, and also to show thumbnails (and download
originals on demand) of the whole iCloud-hosted library.

For normal use, to gain "I've got all my pictures everywhere!" synching,
tick the box on all devices you want to see or take your photos on. For
me, that's all of them.

When I tick the box, the dialogue tells me there's not
enough room on the iMac (about 80GB free) to store the photos, and
offers to offload the full res photos on the iMac to iCloud to save space.

Now, I don't want to do this - I want to keep originals on my own
storage (iMac or an external disk/backup). And I have enough trouble
trying to understand where the originals are as it is.

If you enable iCloud Photo Library, all originals are uploaded to
iCloud. That is your source of truth, as it were.

Originals will also be left on or synched to any device which has the
"Download originals to this XXX" Photos preference set. Otherwise the
device will be "managed" which in practice means full-res on Macs unless
you're short of space, and thumbnails locally and
download-from-iCloud-on-demand on iThings.


Ah! That's a part I hadn't seen - more reassuring. Just tried it and it
now says I might run out of iCloud space. It shouldn't (unless it
duplicates photos), but that's far better than risking the iMac
originals (which are backed up elsewhere)

Myself: I tick that "originals" box on my iMac, my old spare Mini, and
my old 128gig iPad3 - and I back the Macs up elsewhere and offsite. I
won't risk losing my pics in an iCloud sync meltdown!

I do not tick it on my phone or my iPad Air 2 use. Sometimes mildly
annoying waiting for a pic to download full-res on the phone, but I
can't fit my whole library on it so no choice.

What's the best way forward?!

Photos on your Mac is being pessimistic/safe/dumb/maybe even correct,
and assuming that all the iCloud pics are not dupes of anything on the
Mac, thus the complaint about space. There's no way for you to fix that,
so temporarily offload *other* data from the Mac to make enough space,
then enable iCloud Photo Library and tick "Download originals to this
Mac". This will eventually - several days probably - resolve dupes, push
your Mac pics up to iCloud, download other pics from iCloud to mac, and
give you a combined set of all your originals in both iCloud and on the
Mac.


Fingers crossed!

* Delete the iCloud backup and let it rebuild?

iCloud Backups are not related to iCloud Photo Library. Devices with IPL
enabled do not backup their pics again, they re-sync from the IPL if you
do a backup/restore. Don't delete any backups.

* I would consider offloading the RAW and other large files, and backing
them up elsewhere - but I can't see a way to filter by size.

You could look into that after getting everything into IPL, which would
reduce the footprint. Or just leave them in there, no harm.


Good, thanks very much. Incidentally, I found that amongst the options
for smart folders is RAW (15GB here). But no 'of a certain size' option.


--
Cheers, Rob

Sorting Out Photos Library
 

On 05/01/2018 12:40, android wrote:
On 2018-01-05 11:12:05 +0000, RJH said:

At the moment, I have 100GB of photos in my Photos library on my iMac,
and 80GB on iCloud.

Things have stopped syncing between devices - when I take a new photo
on the phone, it's not appearing across devices (iPad, Mini, iMac).
The Settings/iCloud Photo Library is not checked - so this could be
part of the problem. When I tick the box, the dialogue tells me
there's not enough room on the iMac (about 80GB free) to store the
photos, and offers to offload the full res photos on the iMac to
iCloud to save space.

Now, I don't want to do this - I want to keep originals on my own
storage (iMac or an external disk/backup). And I have enough trouble
trying to understand where the originals are as it is.

What's the best way forward?!

* Delete the iCloud backup and let it rebuild?
* I would consider offloading the RAW and other large files, and
backing them up elsewhere - but I can't see a way to filter by size.

(note - I've x-posted - not sure of the netiquette here, so please
reply with that in mind)

I think that most posters in the uk.* hierarchy want it to UK only and
posting here in an international forum kinda spoils that. There are talk
on photo relateted hardware over at rec.photo.digital and posting
x-posting with that group should not be inappropriate. HTH.

Ah thanks - noted.

--
Cheers, Rob

Sorting Out Photos Library
 

On Sat, 6 Jan 2018 08:24:35 +0000, RJH wrote:

Good, thanks very much.

No worries. It's slightly nervous work, I know! I somehow managed to not
write "and take a backup first" but you knew that anyway, of course. TM
backups *do* backup Mac photos, whether they're in iCloud or not.

Incidentally, I found that amongst the options
for smart folders is RAW (15GB here). But no 'of a certain size' option.

Photo's smart folder filtering options are odd, aren't they. Hangover
from the iOS code where they still have lingering doubts about whether
to admit that pictures are files, I suppose.

Cheers - Jaimie
--
The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.
-- Dorothy Parker