Photo App and Finder

[CALLYUSA]

My Imac has probably never been setup right. I have 50G of pictures. If I use the Photos app, I can see 50G of photos on my hard drive, and in the Icloud.
If I use Finder, I only see 1G on drive and in Cloud. What am I doing wrong here. There has to be some really simple setting I am missing.

I want to backup my photos onto an external hard drive, but when I try that with Finder, it only sees 1G of pictures.

Thanks for any help..

 

[Cory Cooper]

Hello and welcome.

A few questions to help troubleshoot:
-Which model Mac?
-Which version of Mac OS X/macOS?
-How much free hard drive space is left?
-Where exactly do you see the 50 GB and 1 GB in Photos, Finder, and iCloud on the Mac?
-Are you paying for extra iCloud storage?
-If you login to iCloud, does it show the correct amount of photos?
-Is iCloud Photo Library/Photos enabled?

C

 

[CALLYUSA]

Cory,
Imac, Mac OS Catalina V10.15.1 , Hard drive = 512G, free at least 300.
In the Photos app, we see 50G of pictures on HD and ICloud. In Finder we only see 1G on the HD, and in the Cloud.
We have 50G Icloud of space, but it is full and we want to backup photos onto an external drive.
The Icloud has all of the pictures that are on the HD.

My wife uses the Photos app to manage all of her pictures. She never deletes any picture, so she has over 50G of pictures.
The external drive is formatted for Mac, but when we plug it in and use Finder to try to copy pictures, we only see 1G of pictures.

All of the pictures show up in the Photos App, but when we use Finder to copy to the EXT HD, we only see 1G of photos.
There must be some setting in Finder that is not right?
Thanks..

 

[CALLYUSA]

Anybody else have ideas ???

 

[Cory Cooper]

OK, thanks for the additional information.

It sounds like iCloud Photos may be enabled, which can store originals on iCloud, and only save smaller resolution copies on your Mac or iOS device. Normally, that only affects iOS devices, since Macs usually have plenty of storage space in comparison.

-I personally don't use iCloud Photos, so I cannot check it to make sure. If you click on iCloud in the sidebar of a Finder window, is there a Pictures folder? If so, does the size show as 50 GB?
-In the Photos app, do any of the photos/videos have a little cloud icon in one of the corners?

C

 

[Cory Cooper]

Also, read the sections Download your original photos and videos and Save space on your device in the Apple support article: Set up and use iCloud Photos.

See if that may be what is causing it.

C

 

[CALLYUSA]

Icloud photos is enabled, so everything is backed up, and there is a message that the 50G Icloud storage is full. The full resolution originals are stored on the Imac, that is enabled. In finder, If I click on Icloud, there is a pictures folder, but it only contains a few pictures and folders. If I open Photos app, there are 50 G of pictures, plenty of folders and albums, but they don't show up in Finder. There is no little cloud above any of the pictures in the Photos app. Finder is just not seeing any of the pictures in the Photos app. That's weird. I need to see all of the photos in Finder so I can download all the pictures to my external HD but they are just not there. I am not a Mac user, and my wife loves the Imac but is clueless as to how it works, so we are really in the dark here.

 

[CALLYUSA]

UPDATE, I think I found it. There is a Photos Icon in Finder, but it is only the link to the App. So dragging that to the External HD does nothing. The Photos folders don't show up in Finder because the Photos Icon is in the Desktop Folder. In Finder, I clicked on the Desktop, then dragged the Photos folder onto the external HD. It is copying 52G, in 33 minutes, that must be the real thing. Now it appears that everything is working like I would expect. Thanks for your input, it was the right stimulus to find the solution.

 

[Cory Cooper]

Hello,

Glad you found a solution, and thanks for posting it for the benefit of others.

Be well,

C