iCloud Photos is magically seamless, but unfortunately, not free once you exceed 5 GB of storage. Here’s how to switch to the less costly Google Photos.

• How To Move Photos From Mac Library To Google Photos Online
• How To Move Photos From Mac Library To Google Photos Computer
• How To Move Photos From Mac Library To Google Photos Free
• How To Move Photos From Mac Library To Google Photos Download

How-to summary:

Apr 30, 2016  How to move Apple Photos Library into Dropbox or to an external hard drive. It's easy to move the library itself, but if you want to connect it to iCloud it is a little bit more finicky. How to Move Your Photo Library Between Apple Photos and Google Photos. If for whatever reason you can’t get your iCloud photos back to a Mac or iOS. Switching from Apple Photos to Google. Jan 06, 2017  Field Guide, a Gizmodo site, recently published a great post detailing how to easily migrate your photo library from Google Photos to Apple Photos for Mac, iPhone, and iPad. It might take some time and a lot of bandwidth, but doing so will allow you to take your entire photo library to your new device, keeping the easy access of your irreplaceable photos and memories. Apr 26, 2018  I'm being tasked with moving a huge library from the Mac version of Picasa into (Apple) PhotoS. Looking online it seems the regular import function in PhotoS will lose a lot of data. Is there a third party tool which will allow me to preserve the following? - Tags - Captions - Locations - Face.

An iPhoto Library were discontinued and removed from the Mac App Store. So, if you have photos and video in iPhoto Library, you can move them to Google Photos on Mac. You can also move iPhoto Library to Apple Photos app. If you are looking for a step by step process to move iPhoto Library to Google Photos on Mac, read on. Here are the steps to. Why you should use Google Photos over iCloud Photos: Sharing photos and movies It’s a common problem to want a set of media that you share with another person or your whole family, but iCloud.

Apple’s unofficial motto has changed from “It just works” to “Your iCloud Storage is Almost Full.”

I encountered this error message a couple of weeks ago while taking photos on my iPhone. Of course, this is good news for Apple, who would be more than happy for me to increase my monthly bill for more iCloud storage; but it’s bad news for me. Honestly, I wouldn’t mind giving Apple more cash if they had a more seamless web and Windows experience. Unfortunately, I find the entire Apple online ecosystem just way too clunky and confusing. So, as you may have gathered from this article’s title, it was time to find another solution!

Move Your iCloud Photo Library to Google Photos and Sync Local Copies Using OneDrive or Google Drive

The iPhone has revolutionized the way we snap photos, among other things. Unfortunately, when it comes to cloud storage, Apple has produced mediocre solutions from its early iTools to the disastrous me.com to the less than relevant iCloud. Still, monetizing services is crucial to Apple’s success, and they realize that. Hardware is becoming less and less a part of their future profit margins, while services are beginning to pick up the slack. In the interim, it’s hard for a consumer to invest so much on an expensive device like an iPhone or iPad with meager storage only to be told “If you need more space use iCloud; and if you run out of space on iCloud, buy more!”

Thankfully, the rest of the industry is offering alternatives that don’t require reaching for your pocketbook. Companies like Google, Microsoft, and Dropbox have been offering online storage services for years that are easy to use and surpass Apple’s offerings in many ways. Admittedly, Apple’s photo management is seamless, especially when you are using an Apple device. I will certainly miss it, but after spending so much on the hardware, I think Apple should have the basic decency to offer a bit more than the limited 5 GB users have been stuck with for so many years. It is especially worse if you own multiple Apple devices.

Migrating from one online storage service can be cumbersome and risky, though. Cumbersome, because you may have hundreds or thousands of photos and videos that all need to be moved. Risky, because you could miss some and lose them forever.

Aug 11, 2017  This triggers the automatic “Repair Library” feature of the Photos app. Click Repair on that prompt, and then enter your admin account user name and password to continue. After entering your account details, click Repair again. The Photos app will now attempt to repair your library. If it’s a permissions problem, Photos.app doesn’t like to ask for administrator privileges automatically, instead just saying that Photos attempted to repair the library but is unable to open it without actually trying to repair it. You can force Photos to try to repair the library by holding ⌥option and ⌘command whilst launching Photos. Photos.app will try to repair the library and it may ask you for administrator. Jul 26, 2018  Apparently Apple has seen this happen before, because the company has a hidden Photos library repair tool. Here’s how you can use it to fix issues with Photos, including a library refusing to.

Before you start the journey to migrate from iCloud Photos to Google Photos, you will need to prepare. Why choose Google Photos, though? Google offers a substantial amount of online space, 15 Gb in total, which is more than enough for my needs. If your storage needs go beyond 15 GB, you really should be looking into paying for additional online storage or you should create local offsite backups. For the average user who captures a fair amount of photos, but not enough to be described as a professional requiring large quantities of online storage, Google Photos should suffice.

Of course, there is the issue of privacy and the logistical hurdle of accessing your photos when they are stored on Google’s platform. Make no mistake about it, iCloud Photos and Google Photos are both traps; but in the case of Google Photos, it’s a free trap. That is, free in the sense that you don’t have to pay a monthly subscription. Nothing in life is truly free, and you better believe Google is in some way monetizing your photos through advertising. Either way, if you own an iPhone, you are going to end up between a rock and a hard place.

Install Google Photos App and Sync iOS Photos to Google Photos

The first step to beginning the migration is to download the free Google Photos app from the app store. Google Photos works on iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch running iOS 9 or later. Once you have that up and running, sign in with your Google account then wait while it configures and begins backing up all your photos and videos. The process can take some time depending on the number of photos you have on the device. I had around 4.7 GB of videos and photos, which took a couple of hours on a 3 MB wireless connection. Google recommends keeping the app open to speed up uploads.

Disable iCloud Photo Syncing

After moving all your photos and videos, browse through the photo library to make sure everything is uploaded. The next step is to quit syncing photos to iCloud Photos. The intention is to not end your use of iCloud altogether since the service might still be essential for other iOS services you want to use such as Notes syncing (unless you also want to move to Google Keep).

On your iPhone, launch Settings > iCloud > Photos and toggle off iCloud Photo Library and iCloud Photo Sharing and My Photo Stream.

Sync Local Copies on your PC or Mac using either Google Drive or Microsoft OneDrive

If you want to keep local copies on your PC or Mac, you can use Google Drive; if you are a OneDrive user, and you are already using that service to manage your iPhones camera roll, you can use the Google Photos desktop clients available for either Windows or macOS to download copies.

Because I want to have some control over Google Drive, I have decided not to get trapped by Google either; Instead, I chose to use OneDrive to manage my local backup copies on my Windows 10 PC. Whichever client you prefer, both should be sufficient for managing your local copies.

What to Do About Copies on iCloud Photos?

Now that you have your photos backed up to OneDrive or Google Drive, you can work on freeing up some of that free 5 GB of storage Apple offers for other services. But before you do, make extra sure that the photos you want to be backed up made it into your new system. If you don’t need the space immediately, it doesn’t hurt to use iCloud Photos as a temporary redundant backup copy

If you do want to stop using iCloud for backing up Photos, you can disable and delete all photos you have stored there.

On your iOS device, tap Settings > Storage > Manage Storage > iCloud Photo Library, then tap Disable and Delete to remove all photos and videos backed up to iCloud. Photos and videos will automatically be deleted after 30 days.

Deleting photos from your iCloud Photo Library can free up a significant amount of space. If you have videos backed up to iCloud, they tend to use the most space. You could consider storing those on OneDrive, Google Photos or locally. In my case, I deleted 16 videos I had backed up in my iCloud Photo Library. This significantly recovered some of the free iCloud space; one video consumed nearly a GB of space.

Another issue I discovered with iCloud is that the service is somewhat crippled when using non-Apple applications or web browsers. Using iCloud in Microsoft Edge is not the same as iCloud in Apple Safari on a Mac. Recently, Apple updated its iCloud Photos services to offer a similar experience to the desktop Photos app included with macOS. The service, while similar in behavior, lacks some of the old functionality, such as easy multi-selection of photos and the ability to download to a device of your choosing.

Even on the Mac, the service seems purposely designed to frustrate and lock users into the platform, eventually forcing you to give up and pay to stay. Since the introduction of Photos for macOS—which replaced the defunct iPhoto’s app—Apple’s vision is one app, regardless if its Photos on the iPhone, Mac or iCloud.com. When you capture a photo or import into the Photos app, it seamlessly syncs between all your Apple devices and iCloud Photos. I admit, it’s quite magical, but I just don’t think its worthy enough to maintain a paid subscription.

So, that’s a look at how to migrate from iCloud Photo Library to Google Photos while at the same time keeping local backup copies. Remember, before you start removing anything from your iCloud Photo Library, make sure you have safely backed up your photos and videos elsewhere.

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.

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.

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

How To Move Photos From Mac Library To Google Photos Online

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 ).

1. 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.
   
2. 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.
   
3. 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.
   
4. 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.
5. 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.
   
6. 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.

7. Open the Photo Library from the external drive.
8. Click Photos men and then select the Preferences option.
9. 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.
   
10. 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.
    

How To Move Photos From Mac Library To Google Photos Computer

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 Move Photos From Mac Library To Google Photos Free

How to back up your iCloud Photo Library

How To Move Photos From Mac Library To Google Photos Download

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.

1. Open Photos on your Mac.
2. Click Photos then click on Preferences.
3. Click on the iCloud tab.
4. 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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