I am using iCloud to sync my photos across devices. On my MacBook, the Photos library is optimized otherwise it would not fit. If I now I will be offline, but I want access to full resolution images to edit, how can I do that for a number of albums without opening each single photo one at a time?
MacBook Air (2018 – 2020)
Cartoonguy wrote: … Ideally, I would just choose a library and select an option to download it. Easy. Except that option does not exist. Wondered if someone knows of a way to do that, or is it impossible? I'm new to iCloud and hoping that such an obvious and practical function is there, but I'm not seeing it.
I'm sorry if this wasn't clear:
If you are using Optimize Storage with iCloud Photos, then you are depending on iCloud Photos to hold on to most of your original pictures files so they don't have to reside on your Mac. You can't edit pictures if their originals are not local.
So, if you don't have room to hold the Library, then you can't edit the pictures without downloading the originals from iCloud over the internet. I did offer a way to edit specific pictures by importing them to a separate Library.
You may be able to force a download on a Mac by printing to a pdf file-- a download is required for that, but then you have added more files to storage. I've heard that running a slideshow will download originals, but I tried it on my phone, at that doesn't work, there.
You can leave suggestions for Apple here
If you want to keep a full sized library of your photos with you consider getting an external SSD like this one: 500GB, 1 TB or 2TB OWC Envoy Pro mini
It's a quality device. OWC is considered the premier hardware supplier for Macs by most of the experienced members here. You can use it to house your library or have other documents on it and house your library on your boot drive.
If you are using Optimize Storage with iCloud Photos, then you are depending on iCloud Photos to hold on to most of your original pictures files so they don't have to reside on your Mac. You can't edit pictures if their originals are not local.
If you want to be able to edit pictures away from the internet, then you need those original files to be local. If you don't have room for them on your Mac's internal drive, then you can use an external drive. For a MacAir, which people usually get for portability, an external hard drive dangling off the machine is pretty awkward. And plugging and unplugging the iCloud-connected Photos Library from the computer may cause problems.
Here's an idea: create a new empty Photos Library on your Mac, maybe on an external drive, and don't connect it to iCloud. Use File>Import to import the pictures you think you want to work on from your iCloud Library to this new one. When you import them, Photos will download the originals from iCloud for the new Library. Since you're just getting the few pictures you will want to edit, you should be able to fit those few on your drive-- if not, having an external Library will be for a limited purpose. After you edit them, you will need to delete the unedited ones from your iCloud Library so you won't have to deal with duplicates when you import the edited ones back.
Here's what I do: I keep all my pictures in an archive Library, not connected to iCloud, that can be on an external drive, and I edit my pictures there. Then, when I've decided which few are my favorites, I transfer them to a small Library on my internal drive that's connected to iCloud. Those are the ones I want to share, and the Library of Favorites is small enough to fit, and I don't have to Optimize, though I could optimize this Library if it were necessary.
Long ago, I decided to keep my iCloud-connected Library on my internal drive, and keep everything else that I could on an external drive.
In all of this, be very careful about your storage space on the MacAir. The free storage should not get below 10% of the total.
You should have your full Library, external or internal, available for backup. As long as your Photos Library is Optimized, you can't back it up. Very dangerous!
What do you think?
Thanks for the detailed reply, but that's not really what I want to do. Work arounds like that are cumbersome. I really just want to use iCloud to sync photos across devices, to optimize on devices other than my main desktop and to be able to work selectively on albums I choose while offline. That is, on the devices which only have the optimized library.
Ideally, I would just choose a library and select an option to download it. Easy. Except that option does not exist. Wondered if someone knows of a way to do that, or is it impossible? I'm new to iCloud and hoping that such an obvious and practical function is there, but I'm not seeing it.
So I guess the answer is that what I want to do, choose which part of my library is downloaded to a device for offline editing, cannot happen.
This is a head shaking oversight by Apple to not be able to do this simple function in order to edit offline. The other option you suggested, using an external drive with the full library, is what I had been doing, but I had hoped that using iCloud, paying for this service, would allow me to edit without dragging around an external drive, but no.
Surprised and disappointed that this basic and very useful function is not in Apple Photos. ☹️
Cartoonguy wrote: …Surprised and disappointed that this basic and very useful function is not in Apple Photos. ☹️
Here's the thing-- as long as you have less room than you need, then you're going to be spending lots of time trying to get around the limitations and complaining about it. This applies to computers, garages with too much junk, and schedules that are too full. And it's not the computer's fault; it's not the garage's fault; and it's not the schedule's fault.
Richard.Taylor wrote:
Cartoonguy wrote: …Surprised and disappointed that this basic and very useful function is not in Apple Photos. ☹️
Here's the thing-- as long as you have less room than you need, then you're going to be spending lots of time trying to get around the limitations and complaining about it. This applies to computers, garages with too much junk, and schedules that are too full. And it's not the computer's fault; it's not the garage's fault; and it's not the schedule's fault.
No, I don't agree. It's a surprising design flaw which Apple could easily address by simply allowing the user to choose what they want to be downloaded to the device for offline editing. This is how folders in iCloud work too. I can right click on a folder in my iCloud folder and I get the option to "keep downloaded". This is exactly what needs to be in Photos and clearly it's an easy fix if they already do that with Finder folders.
You can also do that on a one by one basis, but not as a group. The idea is there, but it's poorly executed by not allowing the user to do this in bulk like you can in the iCloud Finder folders. It's a design flaw impacting those of us who might be wanting to edit offline.
I was using an external drive before, but in that case, I would take the library from my main desktop Mac so all edits were to the original library and then I would put it back. I suppose I could do what you suggest so that the external full resolution copy would still be syncing with the original. It would mean I would not have to take the original library away, but at the same time, I was hoping it would just work by using optimization and allowing me to download full resolution as I need and without an external drive, so I'm very surprised this is not an option.
As noted above, you should let Apple know that this function would be useful to you, using their Feedback function.
How can I edit optimized photos offline?
