Best Option Long Term Photo Storage

[timkins]

i have close to 13000 photos in albums on my Mac and they are backed up in the cloud. What is the best option for future storage. Should they be removed from my hard drive. I do have a time machine in my system. What prompts this question is I recently saw one of my albums without a snap shot and after further checking the album was empty. Luckily they were still on a thumb drive and I reloaded them BUT I am concerned about long term storage. Any suggestions?

 

[MacInWin]

There are other experts here that will chime in, I'm sure. However, one thought is to look at HOW you are importing your pictures to Photos, (assuming you are using Photos, you didn't say). On Photos/preferences, is the "Copy items to the Photos library" checked like this:



If it is NOT checked, then your files are NOT imported to Photos, it just tracks the folder location on the source from which they were imported. So, if you (or anybody else) makes any change to that location, the albums in Photos will be empty because the data was moved. If you DO copy the items into the Photos library, then they are actually stored in the Photos database and the originals can be moved to other locations and Photos won't care. What I have done is to copy my 12,000 images into Photos, moved the originals to a separate drive that has its own backup routines, then work with the images IN Photos and if I need the file, export it from Photos to a temporary location (usually the Desktop) to do whatever I wanted, then delete the exported file when I am done with it. The Photos database still has the file as it was imported, so I can safely delete the exported file once finished.

All of that is to ask, HOW are you importing your pictures to whatever you are using on whatever version of the macOS you are using? (It would help to know the app, macOS version, Mac model, etc.)

 

[timkins]

I am still a relatively new user to the MAC. My unit is a late 2015 IMAC with 3.1 GHZ Quad Core i5 with 8GGB DDR3 with Pro Graphics. I am currently using Monterey 12.1. I have been using the Image Capture located on the launchpad and when I checked the importing in Photos it was checked. I have a 64 GB thumb drive that I used previously to store all of the photos as a back up to the computer and the cloud. Is this still a viable solution? Thanks for responding.

 

[MacInWin]

Given that you are relatively new, that's great information. For future reference, about all we need are the model as given by clicking on the  in the upper left corner, then About This Mac. It will say something like Late-2015, which will give us all we need to know.

Back to your question. There is a setting in Image Capture that tells it where to put the images you are capturing. Once you connect the source of the images to Image capture, the bottom of the window shows an option for "Import To:" and a choice box. The choices include various folders and locations on the drive, along with one option (at least for me) for Photos. If you select one of the folders, the images will be captured into that folder as files, not into Photos. If you select Photos, they will be captured into the Photos database and not appear on the computer in any folder, just in the library for Photos.

You don't have to use Image Capture if where you want the image files is in Photos. You can open Photos, connect the source and import directly to Photos.

If you are using an iPhone to take the pictures, you can even use your AppleID account and iCloud to automatically sync pictures from the iPhone to the Mac version of Photos. The best person to tell you about that is Ian, and I'm sure he'll be along today to let you know the details of that process. I use that method myself. Image Capture is what I use only when I want to import something from some other source, like a scanner, or an SD card that was used in a separate camera.

On the use of the thumb drive, it will do, but be aware that thumb drives are notoriously unreliable long term storage devices. They are fine for short term, for example, moving files from one system to another, but I would not trust them for, say, a backup, or my important pictures. For those I would suggest either a rotating drive or an SSD. Both of those media have much better long term reliability.

But, the thumb drive is better than nothing. But do look at a better solution and make lots of backups.

 

[chscag]

I may be a bit old fashioned when it comes to storing photos. I do pretty much what Jake recommended above but in addition I copy my photos to DVD media. You can place quite a few photos on one 4GB DVD.

Some folks say that DVD media deteriorates over time but I have never found that to be true. I have DVD and CD media from more than 10 to 15 years ago which can still be read.

 

[timkins]

I usually add a new folder to the desktop with the parameters for time like JunJul2021. Then I use Image capture and download to my desktop and then drag and drop into the folder on the desktop. Most of the photos are from my wife's iphone. After that I make a new Album in my photos area and then go to my folder on the desktop and select all and drag and drop into the appropriate album. Seems like a lot more work than you are suggesting BUT it easier and safer for me. I am not sure what a "rotating drive or SSD" are but I am willing to look at other options. The description of my computer says;
imac (Retina 4K, 21.5-inch, Late 2015)

 

[MacInWin]

After that I make a new Album in my photos area and then go to my folder on the desktop and select all and drag and drop into the appropriate album

So, are you using the app Photos or not? From your description, all you are doing is saving the various image files on your desktop, then again somewhere there are other folders you are calling "albums." I don't see any action actually to import the images into the application Photos.

 

[timkins]

If that is an APP on my desktop designated PHOTOS than yes I am using the app. Again after I open the IMAGE Capture in the Launchpad and find the images on my wifes phone I select all and download them onto my desktop and close the Image Capture. I then right click somewhere on my desktop and New Folder appears and I designate it as the appropriate heading; such as JunJul2021. I then drag the photos one at a time from my desktop to this folder. I then open the PHOTOS app and make a new album designated as JunJul2021 at which point I have 2 windows open and then select all in the folder and then drag and drop into the album. Have I completely confused you yet. After 7 years there are still things and terminology on the imac that I do not really understand.

 

[MacInWin]

OK, that works, but you have a couple of steps you can avoid. First, you can import directly from her phone into Photos and skip the Image Capture/file/folder stuff altogether. Open Photos, click on File on the top bar, then Import. With her iPhone attached, you can then select in Photos what of her images you want to import. They end up in the Library from where you can create the date album and drag/drop the images to that album. Much easier set of steps.

Now, if you follow that process, you won't have the images AS FILES on your Mac. You've stepped over that process and put the images directly into Photos. If you want them as files on the Mac, you can select them in Photos, then File/Export and pick where you want them to be saved on the Mac, including to an external drive if you want to have a backup like that.

Hope that didn't confuse you too much, it's pretty straightforward.

 

[timkins]

I was more concerned I had completely confused you. Thanks for the replies and suggestions. Any suggestions for an external SSD. I did some research between our posts and it looks like this is the way for me to proceed.

 

[MacInWin]

A lot of folks have the Samsung T5, I think it is. But I'm not an expert on SSDs and their various reliabilities. Maybe somebody who is better informed than me can comment on that.

 

[IWT]

@timkins

I come late to this as I've been busy with other things. I apologise.

It now seems that with Jake's sound advice, you are probably all settled.

This may be repetition, but there's no harm in that:

**I am making an assumption here' which is that your wife's iPhone and your Mac share the same Apple ID. If so, consider this:

On your wife's iPhone; go into Settings > Photos.

Make sure these options are as below:

iCloud Photos - Off
My Photo Stream - On

On your Mac. Open the Photos app. Then go into Photos Preferences (2 ways to do this. Keyboard shortcut - Command plus comma. Or, Click on the Photos icon in the top menu bar and from the dropdown menu choose Preferences)

In Preferences > General: Check the box "Importing" - "Copy items to the Photos library" - I think you may have done this already. Check any other boxes according to taste or requirement.

In Preferences > iCloud: You can check "iCloud Photos" and "Download Originals to this Mac" IF YOU WANT TO. Read underneath each of those to see what they mean. Your choice. I personally save all my pictures & videos to iCloud as a backup.

**If your wife's iPhone and your Mac do NOT share the same Apple ID, then the settings on her iPhone don't really matter.

But if both DO share the same Apple ID, then pictures taken on her iPhone should now appear automatically in the Photos app on your Mac with the settings I've suggested. Videos do not appear automatically - they have to be imported via USB connection to your Mac.

Whether the pictures appear automatically or not (Apple ID etc), I would advise you to forget Image Capture and Import directly into the Photos app.

To do this: connect your wife's iPhone to your Mac by USB or whatever cable connection you currently use. Then open the Photos app. On the left Sidebar, you will see her iPhone and name - eg Jill's iPhone plus number (7, 8, X, 11, 12, 13 etc). Click on her iPhone.

Wait till all the pictures & videos appear on the screen on the right. Click on each item you want to Import, then Click on "Import Selected". ( or Import All, but that is unnecessary if the older pictures are downloaded already).

That's it. BUT, if you have folders of pictures and/or videos scattered around your Mac, these will not be backed up or find there way into Photos app. You will have to Import them manually.

Any questions - ask away.

Ian

 

[timkins]

I will need a day or two to read and reread the above info. Thank you for the advice and suggestions. I will let you know how I make out. Tim

 

[IWT]

Take your time, Tim. We're always here and always happy to answer questions etc.

Ian

 

[timkins]

I went out and purchased a SanDisk Extreme Portable External SSD with 1 TB of memory. I only want to use this for backup storage for my photos. In the past with a thumb drive I have selected the photos I wanted to print and dragged from my photos and dropped to the thumb drive. Is this how I should be doing it with the External SSD? I have already hooked the SSD up to my computer and installed the software for the MAC and then closed the SSD and unhooked from my computer.

 

[MacInWin]

I'm not sure what the "software" you installed was for, as all you needed to do was to attach the drive, format it for the Mac and copy/paste or drag/drop what you wanted onto it. No need for any software, other than the macOS itself.

 

[timkins]

When I initially plugged the SSD into my computer it came on and there were 2 options that said;
"Install SanDisk software for Mac.dmg"
"Install SanDisk software for windows.exe
I chose the one for the Mac and it loaded.
Hopefully I did the correct thing.

 

[chscag]

The SanDisk software for both Mac and Windows provides AES encryption for the drive. You should remove that software by formatting the SanDisk using Disk Utility.

As Jake stated above, there is no need for the SanDisk software unless you intend to store sensitive data on the drive.

Also, I advise you to read online reviews concerning the SanDisk Extreme Portable External SSDs.

 

[rbpeirce]

I keep my photos on their own HD which I backup to to separate RAID arrays. I'm probably wrong but I've never really trusted cloud storage.

There is the possibility that something might happen to an original that I am not aware of and it will get backed up in that condition. As far as I know this has never happened but as we all know whatever can go wrong will go wrong.

 

[timkins]

One last question on this subject. Why can't I just use the SSD the way it is without formatting it? I just tried it and pictures download to it and I can move them around without any apparent problems.