Photos libraries and icloud

An add-on to Richards explanation: iCloud Photos is all-or-nothing. All items in your iCloud Photos Library will be synced to iCloud and appear on all your device. And you can have only one iCloud Photos Library for each AppleID.

My solution for being able to have two different iCloud Photos Libraries - a smaller library for my iPhone and iPad with just my more important photos, and a large archive, is to use two Apple IDs and to family share them with myself.

• The AppleID I am using for my iCloud Photos on all devices is syncing a curated selection of my best photos to all devices.
• I have set up a second user account on my Mac where I am using my Media and Purchases AppleID also for iCloud Photos, and there I am having a huge Archive Photos Library that will sync to iCloud for the second AppleID, as a backup of all photos.

Additionally, I am exporting all original photos to folders on iCloud Drive, into folders named like the Moments (Capture date and Location). I am doing this to be able to access the originals without having to run Photos, so I can get to my photos, even if the Photos Library should be damaged beyond repair and Photos cannot open it.

If your old pictures are in a separate Photos Library, you can use the sidebar iCloud for a backup. You can copy your Photos Library there, and it will be backed up off site in the "cloud."

Richard, have you tried that?

A Photos Library must not be in a synced folder, neither in Dropbox, nor iCloud Drive, nor Google Drive. Remember the warning in Move your Photos library to save space on your Mac - Apple Support ?

When I tested to put a small test Photos Library on iCloud Drive, while using macSO 10.13, it has been torn to shreds within an hour. The current version, macOS 13 , is simply not uploading Photos Libraries from iCloud Drive, even if we move them there, which is much safer. I am seeing a crossed out cloud to the right of any Photos Library I am moving to iCloud Drive.

On Monterey I could at least copy a compressed version of a Photos Library to iCloud Drive, and the zipped file would upload. Now I have to compress the containing folder to get it to upload, so iCloud will not notice that the compressed item is containing a Photos Library.

Do you want to keep your older pictures in a separate Photos Library, or will you keep them in folders in Finder? Either is OK with iCloud.

iCloud can mean two different things. First, there is iCloud synchronization, which is what we talk about most often around here. That keeps the Photos library on different devices looking the same, and adding or deleting a picture from one device does the same on all of them.

Second, there is the iCloud Drive. You can set Finder>Settings to show this in your Finder sidebar:

Then iCloud shows up in your sidebar:

If your old pictures are in a separate Photos Library, you can use the sidebar iCloud for a backup. You can copy your Photos Library there, and it will be backed up off site in the "cloud."

iCloud Drive is a bit weird because, unlike an external drive, when you drag files to the iCloud drive, they disappear from your own hard drive. It's like one or the other. That's why I said copy the library-- use option-drag if you want the Library to continue to remain on the original drive as well as on iCloud.

You can't have the Photos app use the Library from iCloud like you can if it were on an external hard drive. If you want to open the iCloud backup in Photos, you have to first move it to a local Mac Formatted drive.

If your pictures are not in a Photos Library, and you don't want to use the Photos app, you can just drag the pictures' folders to iCloud Drive and they will exist there like on an external drive. Again, they will disappear from your own hard drive to save you space.

léonie wrote: If your old pictures are in a separate Photos Library, you can use the sidebar iCloud for a backup.

Richard, have you tried that?

When I tested to put a small test Photos Library on iCloud Drive, while using macSO 10.13, it has been torn to shreds within an hour. The current version, macOS 13 , is simply not uploading Photos Libraries from iCloud Drive, even if we move them there, which is much safer. I am seeing a crossed out cloud to the right of any Photos Library I am moving to iCloud Drive.

Well, I hadn't tried using the iCloud Drive for PhotosLibrary backup with Ventura (thinking there was no reason for it to change--duh.) I know, of course, that it is not supposed to run from iCloud.

I just copied a small library to iCloud Drive, and it seems to work. I hid the original (in case Photos was using that in order to fool me), and it loaded into Photos and worked, apparently, normally. It gave iCloud as the source:

even though the cloud has a strike through it in Finder. Pictures were full resolution. I've made another copy that I haven't loaded, and I'll see by tomorrow if it can be copied back.

[this was supposed to be the first paragraph in the previous post, with added line--oops]

Do you want to keep your older pictures in a separate Photos Library, or will you keep them in folders in Finder? Either is OK with iCloud. If your pictures are in Finder folders, and you want to view them in Photos, you can make a new Photos Library by closing Photos and then option clicking the Photos icon.

Are you seeing the the library with the strike through cloud on any other of your devices device on iCloud Drive, Richard? When I move a library to iCloud Drive on Ventura, it does not appear on iCloud Drive on my other Macs, or at www.icloud.com .

The Mac, where I moved the test library to iCloud Drive is showing it on iCloud Drive, and it is stored in the folder in my user library, where all my synced iCloud Drive documents are stored, but it is not uploaded to iCloud. It is just sitting in my user library instead of in Pictures.

The path to the local copies of my iCloud Drive documents and data is:

~/Library/Mobile Documents/com~apple~CloudDocs/Fotomediathek copy.photoslibrary

And when I delete the Photos Library again from iCloud Drive, I am not asked, if I am sure if I want to delete the files iCloud Drive - when synced documents are deleted, I am usually getting a warning.

Yes, that seems to be the same. They are not at iCloud.com nor on my iPad. It is tricking me. (However, I was asked if I really wanted to remove the file from iCloud.) I tried to fool it by changing the extension to .exe, and it seems to be uploading it. My files show up in Library/Mobile Documents, but when I click to open Moblie Documents, I get the same window that I get clicking iCloud Drive in the sidebar. I don't see "com~apple~CloudDocs/Fotomediathek" (or any English version.) The iCloud drive seems to be the only thing in Mobile Documents.

Ah-- the folder.exe (not package) in now visible on my iPad>iCloud. And at iCloud.com . I'll wait awhile before I copy it back and restore the extension.

I recovered the Library package (disguised by removing the ".photoslibrary" extension), restored the extension, and Photos loaded it normally. So we can use iCloud Drive as a backup for a Photos Library, as long as we remove, then replace, the extension.

And, again, it "moves" rather than "copies," so we need to move a duplicate copy of the library.

You're welcome 😊 Good Luck!