Move photos off MacBook Air

[Tim Walden]

Hi folks

First post so apologies if I should know this stuff!

I’ve had a MacBook Air for about 5 years. I am keen on photography and use a DSLR. To download photos from my camera, I just connect it via USB and the photos automatically appear in Photo (used to be iPhoto). I’m now keen to get into making videos, but I’ve filled my hard drive up.

Can anyone tell me how to take all my photo storage off my computer and use some online storage? Also, is there a way that when I download my photos in the future I can do them directly to online storage and not the Mac?

Hope that makes sense. Any help would be great.

Tim

 

[Cory Cooper]

Hello and welcome.

-Which version of OS X?
-Which version of Photos?
-How many photos are we talking about here?
-Do you have a Time Machine or other backup of your data?

Sounds like you need an external hard drive to store the Photos Library if you have that many. You can move the library to an external drive, but you would have to have it connected every time you launch Photos. You can use an online service like iCloud Photo Library to store the full resolution photos, and store lower resolution photos on your MBA, until you want the full original resolution copy.

There isn't a way to directly upload photos to iCloud from your DSLR, so you would have to play with the settings in Photos to get the syncing right. I am not very experienced with iCloud Photo Library, but here is some more information:

iCloud Photo Library

Hope that helps a little,

C

 

[Lufbrarunner]

I find the easiest way is to download my photo's to an external drive, I currently have 2 X 500gb drives storing my images. If I cover an event I will also burn those images onto a DVD as extra insurance.

 

[Tim Walden]

That definitely sounds the easiest for the future. Excuse my ignorance, but when you connect your camera to the computer how do you get them onto the external drive? Thanks. Tim

 

[Tim Walden]

In reply to the first question:

-Which version of OS X? I’ll have a check tonight
-Which version of Photos? As above!
-How many photos are we talking about here? Loads!
-Do you have a Time Machine or other backup of your data? I back up my data to an external drive at the moment

 

[Lufbrarunner]

That definitely sounds the easiest for the future. Excuse my ignorance, but when you connect your camera to the computer how do you get them onto the external drive? Thanks. Tim

Launchpad > Other > Image capture, Or Finder> Applications> Image capture and then choose the destination for your images from the Import to drop down menu.