If you notice that your photo library is beginning to have up too much room on your Mac's hard drive, it might be a good idea to start using iCloud to store them instead. This can help reduce the space those images occupy, while also ensuring that they are safely on Apple's servers if disaster befalls your Mac, and as well meaning you lot tin view all those images on all your Apple devices. Here'due south how to upload photos from Mac to iCloud.

How to store photos on iCloud Photograph Library

To store your Mac's photos in iCloud, it isn't a affair of copying them all and dragging them to a binder marked iCloud. Instead, there'south a much better way in the class of iCloud Photo Library. This will not only proceed your images on Apple'southward servers, just besides permit you to sync them with other Apple tree devices via iCloud.

Of course, you'll demand to have enough storage available in your iCloud account to be able to utilise the service. Apple tree gives you lot 5GB for free, just this won't be enough, so you'll want to explore some of the higher capacity tiers.

These cost as follows:

  • 5GB – Free
  • 50GB - £0.79/U.s.$0.99/CA$1.29/AU$one.49 a month
  • 200GB - £2.49/US$2.99/CA$3.99/AU$iv.49 a month
  • 2TB - £half-dozen.99/US$ix.99/CA$12.99/AU$14.99 a month

Y'all can read more about the benefits of each tier and how to upgrade in our how much does iCloud cost? guide. Each of these chunks of iCloud storage tin be shared with your family if y'all gear up Family Sharing.

To enable the iCloud Photograph Library feature, follow these steps:

  1. Open the Photos app on your Mac.
  2. In the top left corner, click Photos then select Preferences.
  3. Click the iCloud tab choice.
  4. Tick the iCloud Photos box.

How to move Mac photos to iCloud: Enabling iCloud Photo Library

Now, whatsoever images in the Photos app will be automatically synced up to the iCloud servers (providing you lot accept enough iCloud storage available).

Can I delete the photos on my Mac in one case they're in iCloud Photos?

Merely syncing your images with iCloud Photo Library won't free upward any space on your Mac, as information technology just backs them up to the cloud. So, y'all may ask yourself whether you can now delete them locally while having a version in iCloud? The respond is no. Definitely not.

iCloud isn't a truthful backup, simply more than a mode of syncing your library across devices. This ways that anything you delete on your Mac volition also be deleted in iCloud.

There is a built-in feature though that enables you to have the full-resolution versions stored safely in iCloud, while much smaller versions are kept locally. This won't change your images at all, and you can always download the full-resolution version at any time, making it a great way to save space on your Mac while also moving the bulk of the storage to iCloud. We'll explain how to employ this feature next.

How to reduce the infinite taken up by photos on your Mac

Once your photos are stored in iCloud you lot tin can cull the Optimise Mac Storage option to shop low-res images on your Mac. Hither'due south how:

  1. Follow the steps outlined above for enabling iCloud Photograph Library.
  2. One time in the iCloud tab, you'll notice there are two main options bachelor: Download Originals to this Mac and Optimise Mac Storage.

    How to move Mac photos to iCloud: Optimise storage

  3. Select the Optimise Mac Storage choice and the existing total-resolution images on your Mac will be replaced with the smaller alternatives.

This setting should result in a hefty reduction of the storage space your photos accept up on your Mac, but without losing any of your images or sacrificing their quality (at least of the originals).

It'southward worth emphasising once again that if yous were to delete whatever of these image stored in iCloud on any of your devices the original will be deleted in iCloud. And then don't!

How to support your Photos with software or external drives

While iCloud Photos is a great way to sync your images across devices and accept copies in the cloud, if you want to ensure that those precious moments stay safety and are backed up, then nosotros advise also using software to create dedicated backups of not only your photos, just too documents and other data.

Of grade, at that place's Apple's ain Time Machine, which is a solid choice, and you can employ iCloud to back upwards certain things on your Mac (simply not a Time Machine backup unfortunately), simply it's also worth exploring the wide range of tertiary-party solutions you'll detect in our guide to the best Mac backup software.

If yous're desperate to save space on your Mac, so you could move your photo library to an external drive. For our choice of the current storage offerings, meet our guides to the best external hard drives for Mac and best external SSDs for Mac.