How To Backup Photos Library On Mac To External Drive

How To Backup Photo Library On Mac To External Hard Drive
How To Backup Photos Library On Mac To External Drive Download
How To Backup Photos Library Mac To External Hard Drive

Open a new Finder window and click Pictures in the left sidebar. Click and drag the iPhoto Library file onto the external hard drive icon on your Desktop. Depending on how large your library is. Mar 03, 2019 Welcome to Robert Cimino Media, this is my first video and this video will be explaining and showing you how to move your Photos Library thats stored onto your Mac's HDD to an external HDD. To see the size of a specific file or folder, click it once and then press Command-I. To see storage information about your Mac, click the Apple menu in the top-left of your screen. Choose About This Mac and click the Storage tab. For Time Machine backups, it's good to use a drive that has at least twice the storage capacity of your Mac.

Can't help without the details

You need to find the EHD format - it must be Mac OS extended (Journaled) for the Photos library - you get that in the finder by selecting the EHD under devices and right clicking and getting info - the info window gives the format among other things

and if the WD is your TM backup volume then adding a copy of the Photos library is useless since you lose both when the WD drive fails - to be a separate backup it needs to be on a separate drive - you only state that you have one

You control what is shown in the finder preferences > sidebar window

and you do not get you Photos library under all my files - by default it is in your pictures folder under favorites

How To Backup Photos Library On Mac To External Drive

What exactly does this mean

Problem - when I drag the Photos Library to Remote Disk (EHD), it doesn't catch the Remote Disk.

Certainly having two backups of your photos is a good idea

Your Photos library holds all your photos, albums, slideshows, and print projects. If your library is large, and you want to free up storage space on your Mac, turn on iCloud Photo Library and use Optimize Mac Storage, or move your library to an external drive.

Before you start, be sure to back up your library.

Prepare your drive

You can store your library on an external storage device, such as a USB or Thunderbolt drive formatted as APFS or Mac OS Extended (Journaled).¹ Find out how to check the format of your external storage device.

To prevent data loss, Apple doesn't recommend storing photo libraries on external storage devices like SD cards and USB flash drives, or drives that are shared on a network.

Move your Photos library to an external storage device

Quit Photos.
In the Finder, go to the external drive where you want to store your library.
In another Finder window, find your library. The default location is Users > [username] > Pictures, and it's named Photos Library.
Drag your library to its new location on the external drive. If you see an error, select your external drive's icon in the Finder, then choose File > Get Info. If the information under Sharing & Permissions isn't visible, click , then make sure the 'Ignore ownership on this volume' checkbox is selected. If it's not selected, click to unlock it, enter an administrator name and password, then select the checkbox.²
After the move is finished, double-click Photos Library in its new location to open it.
If you use iCloud Photo Library, designate this library as the System Photo Library.

Delete original library to save space

After you open your library from its new location and make sure that it works as expected, you can delete the library from its original location.

In a Finder window, go back to your Pictures folder (or whichever folder you copied your library from) and move Photos Library to the trash. Then choose Finder > Empty Trash to delete the library and reclaim disk space.

Open another Photos library

If you have multiple libraries, here's how to open a different one:

Quit Photos.
Press and hold the Option key while you open Photos.
Select the library that you want to open, then click Choose Library.

Photos uses this library until you open a different one.

Learn more

How To Backup Photo Library On Mac To External Hard Drive

If you have a permissions issue with your library, you might be able to resolve the issue by using the Photos library repair tool.