photos backup question not using icloud

If you Backup your iPhone to a computer, future backups update the previous backups. If the data (e.g., photos) have been deleted from the phone they won't be included in the future backups and will eventually no longer be on the computer. Note that this is only true for Backups using the method described in How to back up your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch with iTunes on your PC - Apple Support or How to back up your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch with your Mac - Apple Support

That is not true for photos that you transfer to the computer using the method described in my previous post:

Instead of backup, transfer (not using iCloud) the photos to the computer as described in Transfer photos and videos from your iPhone or iPad to your Mac or PC - Apple Support

re: I still don't understand how pics "will eventually be lost" without me actually deleting them on my laptop on purpose...how does that happen?

That statement was referring to an iPhone Backup to a computer. Those backups are not stored in your Photos Library. As described in Locate backups of your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch - Apple Support

they are

To find a list of your backups:

1. Click the magnifier  in the menu bar.
2. Type or copy and paste this: ~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup/
3. Select the Backup folder under Folders.

There are not an unlimited number of backups there. If you backup and then delete photos and then backup again, eventually the backup that had the photos will be deleted. If I remember correctly, there are only 2 old versions that are kept.

re: I'm still transferring (usually when I do a phone backup) my new iphone pics to my laptop but I don't want to transfer all of my phone pics to the laptop as a backup as I've deleted a lot of the pics on my phone.

Sorry, but I still don't understand what you mean by that. If you've deleted a lot of pics on your phone, you couldn't transfer them to the laptop even if you wanted to.

re: So, I duplicated my mac laptop photo library and renamed the duplicate file, so I have a second copy of all my pics on my laptop, just in the case when I backup my phone if anything goes amiss I will have a full backup of all my pics in a different file....

I also have a separate drive with a backup of my laptop.

Does is this a good way to preserve all my laptop pics?

Yes. One thing that it doesn't address is an offsite copy; i.e., in case of theft or fire destroying both the laptop and external drive.

Wrong.

If you delete a photo from an iPhone it will not be included in future backups to the computer and will eventually be lost.

Instead of backup, transfer (not using iCloud) the photos to the computer as described in Transfer photos and videos from your iPhone or iPad to your Mac or PC - Apple Support

Doing a backup of an iPhone has nothing to do with your Mac photos library.

Doing multiple backups of your phone will never delete (or add) anything to your Mac photos library.

iPhone backups do not affect your Mac photos library in any way.

Also see the following from Locate backups of your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch - Apple Support

So while you might be able to view or access a backup file's contents, the contents usually aren't stored in a format that you can read.

Importing photos from your phone using instructions in Transfer photos and videos from your iPhone or iPad to your Mac or PC - Apple Support does add photos to your Mac photos library but does not delete photos from your Mac photos library.

If you use iCloud Photos to automatically sync photos between your iPhone and your Mac, deleting photos on the phone would also delete them from the Mac photos library.

I hope the above clarifies the difference between 1) iPhone Backup, 2) Transferring (Importing) and 3) syncing.

I don't understand:

"I've deleted a lot of pics off my phone so I don't want to import from my phone to make a backup."

Photos that you've deleted from your phone are no longer on your phone so they won't be imported and they won't affect importing photos that are still on your phone.

JKmemphis81 Said:

"photos backup question not using icloud: First, I don't use icloud for my photos... I want to delete a lot of pics off my iphone but keep them all backed up on my laptop that has 1T space. Doing regular backups will save any new pics to my laptop, along with backup of all my older pics, right?"

-------

Compress these, then eMail them to Yourself:

How many photos so you have? If just a few, then eMail them to yourself from the iPhone. Open the eMail on your Mac. Proceed from there with the download

If that isn't clear (it's not easy to explain, at least for me), please feel free to ask more questions.