Setting up iCloud Photos

In this video we’re going to look at iCloud Photos. This was formerly known as iCloud Photo Library. So you may hear me say iCloud Photo Library, but Apple has recently named it to iCloud Photos.

What is it? Well with iCloud Photos, what we’re able to do is store all of our photos and videos within the Photos app in the cloud. So then we’re able to access them from our Macs, our iPad’s, our iPhones, or even iCloud Drive. Let’s see how iCloud Photos works on the Mac. Let’s go to my Mac.

Now, as I mentioned in an earlier video, all of your photos and videos are stored in a library. I’m going to open up a new Finder window here. From here, we’re going to go to my Pictures folder. This is where your Photos Library is stored by default. I double click on it and we have my Photos Library. What we can do in addition to having this on our Mac is we can have this an iCloud as well. This is what iCloud Photos is. It basically stores our Photos Library here on both our Mac and in iCloud. So that way we can access it from all of our different devices.

So how do we set this up? Well, it’s pretty simple and we do have a couple of options with iCloud Photos. I’m going to close this. Now, what we’re going to do is open up my Photos app. We need to go to our Photos Preferences. So I go up to Photos in the menu bar, and then we go over to our Preferences. From here we have a new window that opens up and we have two different options here, General and iCloud. What we need to do is go to our iCloud tab here. This is where we have our settings for iCloud Photos, formerly known as iCloud Photo Library.

The first option here is to turn it on. Do we want to use iCloud Photos? When this is checked, what it’s going to do is store that Photos Library that I showed you earlier, it’s going to store that in iCloud as well. Then, what we’re able to do is access all of our photos and videos that are in the Photos app from our different devices. If you have another Mac, you’ll be able to access your photos from that other Mac, you have an iPad, an iPhone you’ll be able to access those photos, and from that iPad, from that iPhone. You take a photo on your iPhone, it’s going to show up on your Mac. So then you can edit it. You editi it on your Mac, the edited version is going to show up on your iPhone, on your iPad. This is how iCloud Photos works. All you have to do to use iCloud photos is basically just turn this on.

Now it may take a while for it to upload all of your photos and videos into iCloud. So you may not have access to all of your photos and videos immediately. If you have a lot of photos, it could take a little while, but eventually you’re going to have access to all of your photos and videos from all of your different devices as long as iCloud photos is turned on on all of those different devices.

Now we do have one option with iCloud Photos, and this can come in handy if you’re running low on space on your Mac. What you are able to do is set if you want to download the original photos and videos to your Mac, or what you can do is you can store them all in the cloud and optimize your Mac storage. So if you’re running low on space on your Mac, what you may want to do is use Optimize Mac Storage. What this is going to do is place the high res versions of your photos and videos in the cloud. It’s going to free up space on your Mac. You’ll still see a low res version and it looks pretty good, but it’s going to free up space on your Mac.

Now, what happens when you edit it? Well, when you double click on it, open it up and then you click on Edit in the Photos app, what it will do is it will download the original photo from the cloud. You make your changes to it, and then it uploads that edited version back into the cloud. And again, it frees up space. This is all done behind the scenes. So you really don’t have to worry about it. So if you’re running low on space, what you may want to use is Optimized Mac Storage. There’s only one catch to this though, you do need to be on the internet to download those original photos or the high res photos. So if you need to edit your photos and you’re not on the internet, optimizing the Mac storage is probably not good going to be a good solution.

What would be the solution? Download the originals to the Mac. When this is turned on, in addition to storing everything in the cloud, all of the high res versions in the cloud, it also stores them on your Mac. So then what you’re able to do is edit your photos. Even if you do not have an internet connection.

is also a good backup strategy. If you’re using Time Machine, Time Machine is backing up all of your items on your Mac, including your iCloud photos library, being that you are downloading the originals to the Mac. Those originals are also going to be backed up using Time Machine. So what I recommend doing is if you have the space use, Download Originals to this Mac. You’ll get the benefit of backing them up. And it does work a little bit quicker because it doesn’t have to download anything. But if you are running low on space, what you may want to use is Optimize Mac Storage. It works well. You can see I’m using it on my demo account here, it does work well. It just doesn’t create a backup of everything they are stored in the cloud, but it doesn’t create a backup on your Time Machine. And you do need to have an internet connection if you want to do any editing.

So that’s iCloud Photos. Basically with iCloud Photos, formerly known as iCloud Photo Library, what we’re able to do is store all of our photos and videos in the cloud. So then we can access them from all of our different devices. To turn on iCloud Photos, we just go up to our Preferences in the Photos app, select the iCloud tab, and then iCloud Photos. You have a couple of options. You can download the originals to the Mac, or what you can do is Optimize the Mac Storage, which will free up space.

So that’s how we use iCloud Photos with the Photos app on the Mac.