HOW TO CLEAR UP SPACE ON MAC PHOTOS DOWNLOAD
The next step, therefore, is to download all your photos directly from iCloud Photo Library on the web.īecause iCloud Photo Library will download each and every photo as a separate file, you will want to first disable Safari's "Open Safe Files" option. Sometimes your iOS devices may wind up with lower resolution versions of your photos and you want to make sure you keep the highest resolution version possible. It's possible this means you have everything, but that's not a guarantee because of the way iCloud Photo Library manages space on your iOS devices. You can leave everything else there, including My Photo Stream enabled if you like.Īt this point your Mac's Photos Library will have everything that was on each of your devices. This is done in Settings > iCloud > Photos and disable iCloud Photo Library. Once you've done this, go to each of your iOS devices and disable iCloud Photo Library.
Import All New Items from your iOS devices to be sure not to lose anything. Again, be sure to repeat this process with each of your iOS devices. This will ensure you have everything from all your devices on your Mac. To do this, connect your iOS device to your Mac via USB, go into Photos, select your device and click the "Import All New Items" button. On your Mac, import each of your iOS devices' photos into the Photos app. If you don't do this then you'll continually be uploading your photos to iCloud during the rest of this process, perpetuating the problem. Once you're using Photos, disable iCloud Photo Library on your Mac by going into Photos > Preferences > iCloud and uncheck iCloud Photo Library. iPhoto is great, but the future is Photos. That Mac, in the end, will wind up as the main repository for all of your photos:įirst things first, convert to Photos on your Mac. You will be using all of your iOS devices for this but only one of your Macs.
Here are the steps to disable iCloud Photo Library without losing any of your data. I like the syncing offered by PhotoStream, but I've found that's all I really need.ĭisabling iCloud Photo Library to reclaim my storage seemed like a simple task, but turns out disabling it without losing any of one's photos in the process is not so simple.
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I like it, in theory, but with other, free cloud photo storage solutions iCloud Photo Library just doesn't make sense for me to buy online storage. With 25GB of iCloud storage this has never before been an issue, at least not before I enabled iCloud Photo Library. Through my recent travels I've regularly been waking up to a fully-charged iPhone warning me it couldn't back up because I don't have enough free space with iCloud.