Icloud Photo Library On Mac From Iphone

Apple icloud photo library

Apple's iCloud Photo Library service works seamlessly to sync and back up your images and video across all of your Apple devices to iCloud — but if you're serious about keeping your irreplaceable photos and video safe, you'll want a redundant (second) backup. Because as they always say, you can never have too many backups! And it's better to be safe than sorry, honestly.

Backing up your photos can take the form of a local backup on your own drive or an external source, a secondary online backup, or both. Here's how to do it all.

Mar 03, 2019  Apple could allow users who want a single library to sign into a different iCloud Photo library than their main iCloud account. In my situation, I’d simply have my wife logged into my iCloud. Activate iCloud Photo Library on iPhone. The process of storing photos and videos in iCloud is automatic, since you will not have to do anything manually. However, you must have previously activated an option for it to take place. To do this you must go to Settings Photos and activate the option “Photos in iCloud”.

How to back up iCloud Photo Library to your Mac's hard drive

  1. Dec 09, 2017  Question: Q: How do I unpause an iCloud Photo Library upload on iPhone? (iOS 9) (iOS 9) I was uploading photos to my iCloud photo library, and then my.
  2. Dec 16, 2014  I've been using iCloud Photo Library since iOS 8.1 without too much problems (apart the fact that syncing between devices is very slow). For no apparent reason, on my iPhone 5 (iOS 8.1.2), icloud photo library is stuck at updating 22 pictures to the cloud.

The best way to back up the images and video in iCloud Photo Library is to make sure you're downloading all your content onto your Mac.

Note: If you plan to back up your entire digital library to your Mac's hard drive, you'll likely want to do it on a desktop Mac with a 1TB drive or higher. Otherwise, consider backing up to an external drive.

  1. Launch the Photos app on your Mac.

    Source: iMore

  2. Click Photos in the App menu in the upper left corner of your screen.

  3. Select Preferences from the drop-down menu.

    Source: iMore

  4. Click the iCloud tab.

  5. Click Download Originals to this Mac.

    Source: iMore

Your Mac will now download full-resolution copies of all your images to your Mac's hard drive, stored inside your Photos app library.

How to back up your iCloud Photo Library content to an external drive

There are two ways to back up your iCloud Photo Library to an external drive: by backing up your Photos library automatically, or manually. (You can also export sections of your library if you don't want to back up the whole thing.)

Back up your Photos library automatically

If you've turned on the Download Originals option for your Photos library, you can back up your Photos library as part of your regular backup routine. Whether you use Time Machine or clone your hard drive using SuperDuper! or Carbon Copy, your Photos library (and all images and video automatically downloaded from iCloud) will be backed up as well. (And if you don't currently use a backup service, well.. now's a good time to start!)

Back up your Photos library manually

If you've turned on the Download Originals option for your Photos library but don't want to back it up automatically, you can always copy your Photos library to an external drive at regular intervals.

  1. Connect an external drive to your Mac via USB, USB-C, or Thunderbolt.

  2. Open a new Finder window on your Mac.

    Source: iMore

  3. Click on Pictures in the sidebar.

    Source: iMore

  4. Drag your Photos Library to your external drive.

    Icould music library on mac. Source: iMore

  5. Wait for it to copy.

Create an external library for backing up iCloud Photo Library

I recommend setting a bi-weekly reminder for these steps, so you keep your Photos library regularly backed up.

How to back up portions of your iCloud Photo Library

Don't want to back up your entire library? You can export individual images and videos to your external drive.

  1. Connect an external drive to your Mac via USB, USB-C, or Thunderbolt.

  2. Open the Photos app.

    Source: iMore

  3. Select the photos and video you want to back up.
  4. Go to the File menu.

  5. Hover over the Export option.

    Source: iMore

  6. Select either Export # Photos or Video or Export Unmodified Original for # Photos or Videos.

    Source: iMore

  7. Select an option for File Name and Subfolder Format, and then input your text as desired.

    Source: iMore

  8. Press Export.

    Source: iMore

  9. Choose your external drive.
  10. Press Export Originals.

How to make an online backup of your iCloud Photo Library

Even though your entire iCloud Photo Library is (as the name implies) stored online in iCloud, it's worth considering a second online backup as one of your redundancies.

If you store your entire iCloud Photo Library on your Mac

Good news: If you already use a service to back up your hard drive and you've synced your full iCloud Photo Library to your Mac, it's easy to back it all up. (If not, consider it a good time to start!)

If you don't store your iCloud Photo Library on your Mac

If you don't store your iCloud images locally, this is a bit trickier: you can use the external drive method to export portions of your library to an external drive, then sync that drive to your preferred online backup service, but it's a bit more labor-intensive. In general, this is why I tend to recommend backing up your full library to your Mac or storing a library on an external drive.

Any iCloud Photo Library backup questions?

Have any questions about how to back up your iCloud Photo Library, or about backups or iCloud Photo Library in general? Drop them in the comments below!

March 2020: These are still the proper steps to back up your iCloud Photo Library

Serenity Caldwell contributed to an earlier version of this guide.

iCloud Photo Library: The Ultimate Guide

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Want to easily back up your iPhone's photos and video, sync them with your other devices, and share them with friends? Apple's iCloud Photo Library service lets you do all that while keeping your storage space free to take even more beautiful 4K video and HDR photographs.

When enabled, the service backs up every photo and video you've snapped or saved to iCloud (assuming you've paid for enough iCloud storage space). Also, it syncs those files across all other iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple TV, and Apple Watch devices you own and have logged in to that same iCloud account.

iCloud Photo Library will save photos, videos, GIFs, screenshots, and more — and even better, when you enable it, you can use Optimize Storage to send your files immediately to iCloud and keep them from cluttering up your iPhone's local storage space.

Here's how to set up iCloud Photo Library on your iPhone or iPad to back up your photos and video, optimize storage on your devices, and share images with your friends and family.

How to set up iCloud Photo Library on your iPhone or iPad

Note: To set up iCloud Photo Library, you must first have an iCloud account.

  1. Launch the Settings app on your iPhone or iPad.
  2. Tap the Apple ID banner at the top of the screen.

  3. Select the iCloud option.

    Source: iMore

  4. Tap Photos.

  5. Tap the iCloud Photo Library toggle at the top of the screen to turn the service on or off.

    Source: iMore

How to quickly sync images with your other devices

When you enable iCloud Photo Library, your photos and video will by default automatically upload to iCloud, and eventually sync with your other iOS devices and Macs. If you'd like to expedite this process, however, you can enable My Photo Stream: This will automatically sync any images you take to your other devices when you (and they) are connected to a Wi-Fi network.

It is worth noting that this only works with images: Apple doesn't currently support quick syncing with video files just yet.

Iphone

Tip: If you frequently swap between your iPhone and iPad and want to use screenshots or photos you've recently taken on either, this is worth enabling.

  1. Launch the Settings app on your iPhone or iPad.
  2. Tap the Apple ID banner at the top of the screen.

  3. Select the iCloud option.

    Source: iMore

  4. Tap Photos.

  5. Tap the Upload to My Photo Stream toggle to enable instant photo and video sync over Wi-Fi.

    Source: iMore

If you choose to enable quick sync between your devices in the form of My Photo Stream, you can additionally enable the Upload Burst Photos option to sync every image in a Burst collection; otherwise, iCloud will only sync the Favorite photo from a Burst collection to save space.

How to optimize your photo and video storage

If you routinely shoot lots of 4K video or high-quality images on your iPhone or iPad, you may run out of storage space on your device. (I have a 256GB iPhone, but almost a terabyte of 4K video stored in iCloud — it gets unwieldy, fast!)

Thankfully, Apple offers an Optimize Storage option, which lets you store full-resolution photos and videos of only your most recently shot and accessed imagery; all older photos and videos are available to download via iCloud and are stored as low-resolution previews on your iPhone to save space.

You can switch between optimizing your iPhone's storage or storing your full library locally: Here's how!

Note: If you plan on using Optimize Storage, we suggest having at least one device that stores your entire library locally (usually a Mac with a large local or external hard drive), so you have multiple backups of your photographs and video.

  1. Launch the Settings app on your iPhone or iPad.
  2. Tap the Apple ID banner at the top of the screen.

  3. Select the iCloud option.

    Source: iMore

  4. Tap Photos.

  5. Choose either the Optimize iPhone Storage option or the Download and Keep Originals option.

    Source: iMore

Icloud Photo Library On Mac From Iphone 6

How to share photos with iCloud Photo Library

Apple's photo service doesn't just provide online backups and sync for your images and video: The company also offers a free sharing service that allows you to send shared albums to friends and family (or create a publicly-shared website). Here's how to turn it on.

Icloud Photo Library On Mac From Iphone 7

Any other questions?

Have a question or comment about getting started with the iCloud Photo Library? Let us know in the comments.

Icloud Photo Library On Mac From Iphone X

Updated January 2020: Updated with more information about iCloud Photo Library, My Photo Stream, and optimizing your storage. Serenity Caldwell worked on a previous version of this post.

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