iCloud Photos is a great manner to have all your images and videos across all your iCloud - linked devices . Apple let you select an optimized option for storage , which assure the full - resolving of your media is uploaded to iCloud and hold there ( and approachable via icloud.com ) while each destruction item , like an iPhone or Mac , has just a set of vastly reduced thumbnail . When you desire to mold with or watch the full - sized photo or movie , double clicking or tapping retrieves it . you may have your bar ( carry on storage on devices ) and feed it too ( have a Brobdingnagian Photos library ) .
The fly ball in that ointment is that with optimise range storage set up on all your devices , you may not make a local backup of all your media , as Iexplain in a 2017 column . I offeredone full download strategy in 2018for a reader who want to move from iCloud Photos to another service . Neither of these help with ongoing backups .
Reader Todd wrote in late with a question and proposition that ’s brilliant . He ponder a root :
The next clip you need to back up your Photos library , you lumber back in to that second account with the drive seize , launch Photos , and it should update just as you expect .
This strategy checks all the boxful . It let you keep an optimized library on your Mac , bear sync via iCloud Photos , and make a full , local fill-in as an extra precaution against anything pass off to Apple ’s redundantly backed - up servers or your business relationship .
This Mac 911 article is in reply to a question state by Macworld lecturer Todd .
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