Move Photos Library To External Drive
To free up computer hard disk, we can consider to move Photos library to an external drive or other USB device, and load the whole Photos library from the external drive in Photos. This article will show the detail steps about how to move Photos library to an external drive and use it in Photos.app on macOS Mojave. Find out how to move your Photos library to another drive to save space on your Mac. 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 (Journalled). Keeping your original iTunes library around as a backup isn't a bad idea, but most people are motivated to move to an external drive for the sake of freeing up space on their computer. Connect your external drive to your computer. Create the destination folder on your external drive by either clicking the “+” to the right of the Folders heading in the Folders panel and choose Add Folder, or go to: Library New Folder. In the directory window that opens, navigate to the external drive location and create a new folder.
Free up your space by transferring your Photos library to another external hard drive. By freeing up space you will have valuable space for your work on your Mac. In addition to this, we will help you to back up your whole photo library to iCloud.
Why store photos on external drive
In today’s world, everyone loves to capture photos of every single moment and wants to save all those moments in his/her personal devices like Mac. But saving all your photos can fill-up your Mac storage quickly and you may face the shortage of space.
There are many options to store your photos data. One of them to store your photos on iCloud photo library but the drawback of saving your photos on iCloud is, if you delete the photo from your device it will be deleted from iCloud as well.
One question raised up here is that what we can do to store all our photos to some safe place if we are running out of space on Mac?
Fortunately, you have visited the right place to find the solution to your problem. There is a safer and easy way to transfer your entire photo library from your Mac to your external drive. The best of this trick is whenever you need to see your photos on your Mac you just need to open photo library app on your Mac it will automatically take you to your saved photos in external hard drive until unless it is plugged in.
Snapshot of the guide
There is a quick snapshot of the guide so you can understand quickly how to move the library to external drive.
- Prepare your external hard drive to move Photo Library. Make sure drive is formatted as MacOS Extended Journaled.
- Go to the location of the Photo library and move it to external drive.
- Set the external library as a System Photo Library (So whenever you open the Photos app it will open the photos library from the external hard drive.)
- After completing trasfer to drive, make sure this external drive is connected to your Mac whenever you want to access photos.
Our article will help you to move your photos from Mac to external hard drive. Continue reading the steps are about to start.
Do not worry if you have already stored your photos on iCloud photo library. Our article will help you to get back your already saved photos in iCloud photos library and will help you to move them to external hard drive. Here is how to do it.
System Photo Library vs Other Library
When you run Photos app on your Mac first time this will ask you to create a new or use an old library. That default Photo library became the system library automatically. Only System Photo Library are allowed to access iCloud services.
You can create multiple other libraries and work with photos only in one library at a time. To work in another library you have to switch the library. You can also change and set one of the other libraries as a System library.
How to transfer the Photos library to a hard drive
First, make it sure the hard drive you are going to use for Photos library is faster and have enough space. It will save your time and stored your memories quickly. A good hard drive always keeps your stuff secure and there are fewer chances of losing your data.
Before going step by step to move your photo library to external hard, first make it sure that your external hard drive is already formatted for Mac OS Extended (journaled). If it is not formatted for Mac first erase all the data from it and format and choose the option of Mac OS Extended (journaled). Use the Disk Utility on your Mac to erase any hard drive (When you erase any drive in mac everything will be deleted, so please save any important data ).
- Find the Photos Library on your Mac, it will be in your Pictures folder. Click the Go menu on the top and then select Home option from the menu.
- Open the Pictures folder and there you will find the Photos library.
TIP: In order to see how much storage your photos have taken, just Ctrl+Click on the photos library icon and click on Get Info. Now you can make sure that you have enough storage in your external hard drive. - It’s time to copy your Photos Library to your external hard drive using drag and drop trick. Now sit back and wait until copies over. The time of transferring photos depends on the size of your Photo Library.
- When transferred completed, press and hold the Option/Alt key from keyboard and click the Photos app icon from Dock to open it. Keep holding the keyboard key until you see a window otherwise this will open the Photos app.
- You will see a new window to choose the library. On that window hit the button Other library. Navigate to the new location on your external hard drive and choose the Photo Library.
- If there is a message that shows “there are some items that need to be downloaded from iCloud Photo library” then you need to click on delete incomplete items and download all those incomplete items.
Set a photo library as System Photo Library
We have already moved the library to an external drive now its time to set it as System Photo Library. Doing that will allow it to use iCloud service.
- Open the Photo Library from the external drive.
- Click Photos men and then select the Preferences option.
- On the next window click General and then click Use as System Photo Library button (this will help you to get it to work with iCloud Photo Library)
TIP: Remember this is the step you need to perform in future If you accidentally unlinked the external drive’s photo library from the Photos app. - Go to System Preferences then iCloud then Photos then Options, and choose iCloud Photo Library to turn that back on. See if you have stored all the photos here.
Note: you will need to plug in your external hard drive in order to see your photos).
Delete Photo Library from Mac
Once you have confirmed that all the photos in the library moved to the external drive. You can delete the Photo Library from your Mac computer. Go to the Pictures folder and delete it to free up space from your mac.
How to back up your iCloud Photo Library
If you want to move all your photos which you have already backed up to your iCloud photo library to a storage device connected to your Mac. Follow our step by step guide above, but you need to download all the images from iCloud first.
If you have already transferred your Photos library onto the external storage device, now you need to follow these steps.
- Open Photos on your Mac.
- Click Photos then click on Preferences.
- Click on the iCloud tab.
- Choose Download originals to this Mac.
Now all your iCloud photos will be saved on the storage device. (If you are running short of space you would probably not want to do that)
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Your device memory space is meant to get exhausted, which was why there is a capacity to indicate the total amount of information that can be stored. An iPhone memory space gets filled up when the information stored on it exceeds its internal memory. Vital information such as photos, videos, audios, and many others is stored on a device for future purposes.
This information can be stored externally on Google drive, iCloud, or hard drive. But in this article, I will be introducing you to how you can transfer just one of this information, your photos, from your iPhone to an external hard drive.
Part 1: Transfer Photos from iPhone to External Hard Drive on Mac
Take the following steps to transfer photos from your iPhone to an external hard drive on Mac;
Step 1: Connect your external hard drive to your Mac
Firstly, you need to connect the hard drive to your Mac and ensure it shows up in the finder’s sidebar.
To confirm that the hard drive is working, try to copy a file or anything from your Mac to it, and if does copies, then the hard drive is formatted to use with a Mac. If the hard drive doesn’t allow you to copy anything on it, you need to reformat it to FAT format.
Step 2: Connect your iOS Device to your Mac
Once your external storage is fit for the transfer, with the aid of a lightning cable, connect your iPhone to your Mac. Ensure this lightning cable is held firmly to both the Mac and iPhone, so there isn’t any error while transferring your photos.
Step 3: Launch Image Capture
When an iOS device is connected to a Mac, the image capture app launches itself automatically. However, if it doesn’t, you can do that manually by searching for it among the applications on your Mac using the Spotlight search (Cmd + Space shortcut) and launch.
After launching this application, you will find all the photos you shot on your iPhone right there. You can either select a few of the images you want to transfer or use the keyboard shortcut Cmd + A to select all the images.
Step 4: Choose a Destination and Import
Selecting the destination where you want to import your images is very important. By default, images are imported to the Picture folder, but you can change this by selecting ‘others’ clicking the drop-down button and then selecting a folder using the external hard drive as a source.
Once you’ve selected a folder on the external hard drive, click ‘Import’ and wait till the transfer is completed. While the completion time varies, it depends on the number of photos you are transferring.
Part 2: Transfer Photos to External Hard Drive on Windows
One unique thing about our device rich world is the compatibility of an iOS device with a non iOS gadget. For this reason, you can transfer your photos to an external hard drive on windows without stress. To ensure your windows is compatible with your iOS device, you need to download and install iTunes on your PC.
Take the following steps to accomplish this task;
- Launch the Microsoft Store from your device Start menu.
- Search for iTunes.
- Click on ‘Get iTunes’ to download.
- Once you’ve downloaded iTunes on your windows, launch it and accept iTunes License Software License Agreement.
Now that you’ve successfully installed the iTunes application on your PC, the transfer of photos to an external hard drive can be done without hindrance. Listed below are the steps required to successfully transfer photos on using Windows;
- Connect your iPhone to your PC with the aid of a lightning cable
- Launch the Photo app from your PC Start menu
- At the top right corner of your Windows page, you will find the ‘Import’ button. Click on it
- Select the photos you will like to import, and click ‘Continue’.
The transfer process will commence immediately. Wait for some minutes for the process to come to completion. It’s very important for you to note that unpluging your device will terminate the transfer. Hence, it’s important for you to ensure everything is well fixed before you start the transfer.
Part 3: How to Transfer Photos to External Hard Drive without a Computer
Transferring photos to an external hard drive without a computer’s aid can be accomplished by connecting your iPhone directly to a potable external hard drive like SanDisk. Though this process is compatible with devices with iOS 8 and later versions.
Take the following steps to connect your iPhone to a potable external hard drive;
Copy Apple Photos To External Drive
Step 1: With the aid of a lightning cable, connect your iPhone to an external hard drive. To confirm if your device is connected to the hard drive, click on ‘Files app’ button, then ‘Browse’.
Step 2: Locate and open the Photo app, then select the photos you want to transfer. Click the ‘Share’ button to transfer the photos to the Files app.
Step 3: On the Files app, choose the hard drive you want to save the iPhone photos
Conclusion
Now you know how to transfer your images from your iPhone to external hard drives with or without the aid of a PC/Mac. Apply the steps given to back up your images and free your device from hanging or booting slowly.
Apple Photos External Drive
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