Transfer Photos From Mac To External Hard Drive

External hard drives are physical storage devices which can hold digital information in the form of files. Digital photograph files are often stored on external hard drives as a way to safeguard them against accidental deletion, and storing photographs on external hard drives can save memory space on the hard drive of a laptop or desktop.
Transfer the files from your Mac to an external drive. The process of transferring files from your Mac to an external drive is simple, but if you are not sure how to do it, then following these steps will get you through it. Connect your external drive to your Mac and wait for the icon of the plugged-in drive to appear.

Transfer Photos From Mac To External Hard Drive External
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Transfer Photos From Mac To External Hard Drive Software
Copy Photos To External Drive
Transfer Files External Hard Drive
Transfer Photos From Mac To External Hard Drive Hard Drive

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.

That said, our guide splits the external drive in half: One primary section capable of storing files larger than 4GB, and a secondary section capable of sharing files between MacOS and Windows 10. Formatting means the same as deleting or erasing! Also I am not responsible if anything goes wrong so do at your own risk! If you cannot transfer.

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

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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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It is quite likely that you store digital photos on your Mac computer. If you are like most users, your photo library is an ever-expanding entity as you regularly add new images and never get around to deleting any of the older ones. After a while, the storage demands of your library can start to add up and cause lack of space issues on your internal storage device.

Professional photographers and videographers are even more prone to running into a storage issue due to the size of their Photo libraries. We are making the assumption that you know how to move your photos from your iPhone to your Mac, and that your photo library is on your computer’s internal hard drive.

There is a simple solution that can be used whether you earn your living with your photos or just like to take a lot of pictures. What you need to do is to move photos from your Mac to an external hard drive.

We are going to show you how to do that, as well as point you toward a few externals storage devices that will work very well as repositories for your photo libraries. Near the end of the article, we will show you how to recover photos that may be accidentally deleted from your external hard drive.

Transfer Photos From Mac To External Hard Drive

How to Move Your Photos Library to an External Hard Drive

Let’s take a look at how to transfer photos from a Mac to an external hard drive. As with any major modification that you will be making to your computer or storage system, we recommend that you make sure that you have a good backup of your device before proceeding.

This adds a little time to the whole process, but in the event that something goes wrong during the data move, you will be glad that you have that backup. Just imagine all of your photos gone for good.

Steps to Move your Photos Library to an External Drive

Attach your external hard drive to your Mac.
If you have not yet done so, format the drive. We suggest using the same filesystem format that you are using on your internal hard drive.
Open a Finder window and verify that your new storage device is correctly attached. You should see it listed under Locations in the Finder Window.
From the left panel in the Finder window, select Pictures. If Pictures is not an option, go into Finder’sPreferences> Sidebar and check the box Pictures.
Right click on the Photos library icon and select Get Info. Verify that you have enough free space for the library on the external drive.
Drag and drop the Photos library icon onto the hard drive icon either in Finder or on your Desktop.
Wait for the copy to complete. The elapsed time will vary based on the size of your library.
When finished copying, hold down the option key ⌥ while launching the Photos app.
Click Other Library and navigate to the new location on the external device.
In the Photos app, click on Preferences> General and select ‘Use as System Photo Library’. This is mandatory if you use iCLoud with your Photo library.
Go to System Preferences> iCloud > Photos > Options. Select iCloud Photo Library to turn iCloud back on for your Photos.
Disconnect your external hard drive and verify that all of your photos are indeed in the Photo library on the device. Once you are certain that the process is completed, you can drag the Photo library on your Mac to the Trash.
If you want to immediately free up hard disk space, empty your Trash to permanently delete the photos.

At the end of this procedure, your external hard drive will contain all of the photos from your Photos library that were previously stored on your Mac. You have also freed up all of the space that they previously occupied. Nice work.

3 Best External Hard Drives for Storing Photos

There are many fine external storage devices from which to choose to hold your iPhoto libraries. Here are three of them.

Western Digital My Passport

Transfer Photos From Mac To External Hard Drive External

You can obtain this external drive in a variety of colors and sizes ranging from 1TB to 4TB. It is self-powered and features password protection and hardware encryption. WD My Passport is compatible with USB 3.0 and USB 2.0 interfaces. It includes WD backup software that can be set to automatically protect your data on a timed schedule. It comes formatted for Windows but can be formatted for use on a Mac.

Trouble Transferring Photos From Mac To External Hard Drive

G-Technology G-Drive Mobile SSD R-Series

This drive is available in sizes up to 2TB and since it is an SSD drive, provides enhanced durability over traditional hard drives. It features high-speed data transfer and is shock and vibration resistant. A good choice if you plan on using your drive in challenging environments.

Samsung T5 SSD

Here is another SSD drive that comes in sizes from 250GB up to 2TB. It features a distinctive aluminum casing and is extremely portable, weighing in at 51 grams. Fast transfer speeds are a hallmark of Samsung SSDs and this model is no exception.

Tips to Recover Deleted Photos from an External Hard Drive on Mac

Transfer Photos From Mac To External Hard Drive Software

So now that you have all of your valuable photos on your external hard drive, what are you going to do if you accidentally delete some of those special memories? You might just be doing some housekeeping on your storage device and inadvertently send some photos to the Trash, which you then delete. Maybe you even formatted the drive by mistake.

Copy Photos To External Drive

Don’t panic. Here is a great way to recover deleted photos from an external storage device that is attached to a Mac.

Transfer Files External Hard Drive

Download Disk Drill hard drive data recovery software for Mac. You can download it for free and use it to preview recoverable photos before spending a cent on the application.
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Install the program and supply it with your Administrator’s password.
Attach the removable storage device to your Mac.
Start Disk Drill and select the external hard drive from the list of discovered devices.
Click the “Recover” button and allow Disk Drill to scan your external drive for files that can be recovered. You will be presented with a list of the files that the tool can restore.
At this point, you can recover these files by purchasing a licensed version of Disk Drill.

We hope this article has been helpful in showing you how to move your iPhoto libraries to an external hard drive. If you save a lot of photos on your computer, there is a good chance you will eventually want to free up the space they occupy for other things. Now you know how to accomplish that task.