Best Windows Software To Import Mac Photos Library

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.

This will open a Finder window with your current Mac Photos library highlighted.NOTE: Your Mac Photos library will almost certainly be called something else; we changed the name of the file for the purposes of this tutorial. Nowhere is the secret: to export your Mac Photos library to another location, all you have to do is copy that file. Jan 01, 2018 A bit of background - have a 2011 iMac and was experiencing extreme sluggishness when Photos open; e.g. Was taking 'hours' to download photos from iPhone to Mac. It was also failing to import a lot of photos, unless I batched the imports into smaller chunks - bottom line, it.

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.

Best Windows Software To Import Mac Photos Library Manager

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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Choose where you want to keep your photos and videos

First, decide where you want to keep your collection of photos and videos. You can make them available on all your devices with iCloud Photos. Or you can choose to store them locally only on your Mac or PC.

iCloud Photos

With iCloud Photos, you can access your photos and videos from your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Mac, Apple TV, on iCloud.com, and even your PC. Your latest shots are automatically added to iCloud Photos, and any organizational changes or edits you make are always kept up to date across all your devices.*

Before you begin:

Make sure that the software is up to date on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, your Mac, and your Apple TV.
Set up iCloud on all of your devices. If you have a PC, download iCloud for Windows. Make sure that you're signed in to iCloud with the same Apple ID on all of your devices.
Make sure that your device is connected to Wi-Fi.

Turn on iCloud Photos:

On your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, go to Settings > [your name] > iCloud > Photos, then turn on iCloud Photos.
On your Mac, go to System Preferences > iCloud. Click the Options button next to Photos, then select iCloud Photos.
On your Apple TV, go to Settings > Accounts > iCloud > iCloud Photos.
On your PC, follow the steps to set up iCloud Photos.

If you've already synced photos to your iOS device from iTunes, and then you turn on iCloud Photos on your iOS device, you'll see a message that says 'Photos and Videos Synced from iTunes will be Removed.' The photos and videos that you synced from your computer will stay on your computer, but they're removed from your iOS device.

You can get these photos and videos back onto your iOS device by turning on iCloud Photos on your Mac or PC. When you do that, the photos from your computer upload to iCloud so that you can access them on all of your devices. After you turn on iCloud Photos, all photos are in iCloud and accessible from the Photos app on your Mac or a folder on your PC.

You can get more help using iCloud Photos on your Mac or PC.

* The photos and videos that you keep in iCloud Photos use your iCloud storage. Before you turn on iCloud Photos, make sure that you have enough space in iCloud to store your entire collection. You can see how much space you need and then upgrade your storage plan if necessary.

Import to your Mac

You can use the Photos app to import photos from your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch to your Mac without using iCloud Photos. These steps also work for importing images from digital cameras and SD cards.

Make sure that you have the latest version of iTunes on your Mac. Importing photos to your Mac requires iTunes 12.5.1 or later.
Connect your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, or digital camera to your Mac with a USB cable. If you're using an SD card, insert it into the SD slot on your Mac, or connect it using a card reader.
You might need to unlock your iOS device using your passcode. You might also see a prompt on the iOS device asking you to Trust This Computer. Tap Trust to continue.
On your Mac, the Photos app automatically opens. If it doesn't, open the Photos app.
The Photos app shows an Import screen with all the photos and videos that are on your connected device. If the Import screen doesn't automatically appear, click the Import tab at the top of the Photos app, or click the device's name in the Photos sidebar.
To import a selection of photos, click the ones you want, then click Import Selected. To import all new photos, click Import All New Photos.
You can now disconnect your device from your Mac. If you imported photos from an SD card or other USB device, safely eject the device first.

In macOS High Sierra or later, imported photos appear in the Photos app's Import album. If you're using an earlier version of macOS, you'll find them in your Last Import album.

Photos and videos that you sync from your computer to your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch using iTunes can't be imported back to your computer.

Learn what to do if you can't import photos from your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch to your computer.

Import to your PC

You can import photos to your PC by connecting your device to your computer and using Windows Photos app:

Make sure that you have the latest version of iTunes on your PC. Importing photos to your PC requires iTunes 12.5.1 or later.
Connect your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch to your PC with a USB cable.
You might need to unlock your iOS device using your passcode.
You might also see a prompt on the iOS device asking you to Trust This Computer. Tap Trust or Allow to continue.

Then, follow the steps in these Microsoft knowledge base articles to learn how to import photos to Windows Photos app:

When you import videos from your iOS device to your PC, some might be rotated incorrectly in Windows Photos app. You can add these videos to iTunes to play them in the correct orientation.

If you have iCloud Photos turned on, you need to download the original, full resolution versions of your photos to your iPhone before you import to your PC. Find out how.

Photos and videos that you sync from your computer to your iOS device using iTunes can't be imported back to your computer.

Best Windows Software To Import Mac Photos Library

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